Tripp , for PPro

1) Reverse your field order of the clip on the timeline - R Click ,Field options -
reverse field dominance. The export or encode.

2) Study the following link for methods on downrezz -http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=70792&highlight=tmpgenc

Hope this helps.


Windy - Cape town.

Herman... thanks for the good info. I'll try reversing fields as a test although this could get a little spikey for my normal projects that are about 2hrs long.

I also reviewed the link. Someday I'll have to sit down and figure out this frame serving thing. It seems to solve a lot of problems.

I have recently edited and now want to author a DVD from my Kauai trip that I shot in 16:9. I am using Adobe Premiere and Adobe Encore. I have heard from many different sources that a 16:9 project can only contain 18 different links. Since I have a lot of footage I will be using a Dual Layered DVD (8.5GB) instead of that standard 4.7GB. I was just wondering if you could have more links with a dual layered DVD or can you sub link two menus, because I believe I am going to need more than 18 links or (buttons), because I also have pictures that are in the form of sideshows that I will be adding to the menu as well. I am just wondering if there is any way to get more than 18 links for 16:9 project in Adobe Encore. Let's say I have 2 links on the first menu, a video link, and a picture link, the video link goes to another menu with 6 links or so, and the picture link goes to a menu with around 15 links, this is possible correct, each new page is considered a new menu which can house 18 links correct? Or am I confused?

Never heard of an 18-link (or button) limitation, either 16:9 or 4:3. Are you sure you aren't referring to the number of levels you can have in your menus?

I know I've done 16:9 DVD's with much more than 18 total buttons in Encore CS3.

Martin

I think maybe it is 18 links per menu, or level? How many levels can you have I wonder?

Don't know the limits, but I'm sure it will be one less than what I need for some critical last-minute job :).

Eighteen buttons per menu screen would be pushing it. The most I ever had was eleven (I think), eight for chapter selections, two for previous/next, and one for Main Menu. The screen was pretty busy.

Martin

Yeah I thought it was 18 for the whole menu including the sublinked menus...But yeah It shouldn't be a problem..Thanks for the help

Encore is driving me buggy. I want to take a 16x9 SD video and create a standard DVD in letterbox format. I know that I could export from PP using AME but it seems to lose more quality that way.

If I take the video (740x480, 1.2PAR) and drop it into an Encore project, no combination of transcode settings will give me letterbox video. Everything comes out with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.2.

Any settings suggestions that would help me fix this?

There is no such thing in Encore. You either author a 4x3 or a 16x9 DVD - any decent DVD player will interpret the wide screen material as such and output with the bars.

It seems DVD players are smarter than I am. Since I have no 4:3 TVs here, I told two different DVD players that the TVs were and it worked fine.

I feel stunningly stupid.

I am trying to burn my first Blu-ray program on my new LG GGW-H20L burner and everytime i try to burn the program i get the "Blu-ray: fatal error, code 6, Note".

I encoded blu-ray from PPro CS3 and authored in Encore CS3.

I get the error when trying to burn to disc, image or folder. Any recommendations?

I haven't had this issue yet but Try some of these possible fixes:

Adobe Forums - Blu-ray Error: "fatal error", Code: "6", Note:" (http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c056ddd)

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c05ee1d

Blu-ray: fatal error, code 6, Note (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Blu-ray:+fatal+error,+code+6,+Note&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

let us know how it goes.

Josh, thanks for your quick reply.

I searched around and found something that worked.

When you recieve the following error when you try to burn a blu-ray disc with encore cs3.
"Fatal Error", Code: "6"

Download and install msxml 6.0

It should fix the error

Download details: Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=993c0bcf-3bcf-4009-be21-27e85e1857b1&displaylang=en)

I had this issue and the patch solved this!

Yeah they talk about the patch in the first link. Glad it worked for you :)

These are the things I am hoping to learn how to do, if possible.

1. Switchable subtitle tracks either by Menu Selection or DVD button push (or both)
ex. 1. No Subtitles 2. English 3. Chinese

2. Subtitles in the black bar under video rather than floating over the movie. They were shot with 1.33 PAR and will be finalized in 1.0 PAR to have the black bars top and bottom. I'd like to insert the subtitles in the bottom black bar.

3. How many levels of sub-menus can be made?

These are the things I am hoping to learn how to do, if possible.

1. Switchable subtitle tracks either by Menu Selection or DVD button push (or both)
ex. 1. No Subtitles 2. English 3. Chinese

2. Subtitles in the black bar under video rather than floating over the movie. They were shot with 1.33 PAR and will be finalized in 1.0 PAR to have the black bars top and bottom. I'd like to insert the subtitles in the bottom black bar.

3. How many levels of sub-menus can be made?

I need to check but from what I understand CS3 has a 1GB limit for menu material but I cannot find any talk of a specific number except for older versions.

On one note the adobe site talks about 32 subtitle streams so you are good there.
"Add up to 99 separate timelines, each with up to 99 chapter points, 8 audio streams, and 32 subtitle streams."

Also with subtitles I think it lets you type them in your self where you want possibly. Closed captioning I think is the one that is stuck in the bottom over a black bar.

"Powerful video subtitling
Type and format subtitles directly over video, or import and format a script containing multiple subtitles."

Sorry I could not give you exact answers but hopefully it helps.

Curious about one thing. Why are you converting the PAR to 1.0? If it's simply to accommodate 4:3 TVs, don't bother. DVD players will take that into account when the user initializes them.

If you down-rez to letterbox you're throwing away something like 15% of your vertical scan lines. Ya ain't got that many to start with. If you have other reasons for doing this, I'll shut up.

I'm making a 24p DVD in Encore, but I need to include about 4 minutes of 30p footage into one of the timelines. When I do this I get a horrible strobing effect on the 30p footage. Anyone know a work around on this? I've tried to make new timeline for the 30p segment and then linking it to the other footage via "end action", but that gives the same result.

Edit: Nevermind, the fault was in the coding of the m2v files in after effects :)

So what did you do to fix it?

If I could get some help from anyone here....
So here is the background where I am coming from...
I am doing some editing and DVD authoring as freelance for this wedding photo studio, and I ran into a conflict when I needed to make a menu for the DVD. I use Adobe CS3 (Encore) and they have been using Mac (DVD studio Pro) and they have this unique menu and transition that they use for their DVD. I went their studio to export the empty template of the menu and transition and failed... apparently no one there who is editor or video related...
I figured out the name of the temp. which are "rough rect halo larrge blue.pox" for the menu, and "blue master look.ntsc.v2.mov" for the transition. I could not locate those 2 files anywhere in their computer, unfortunately...
Menu is 30 sec loop and transition is 3 seconds. I tried to burn a DVD with no text but couldn't do it... I only had 2 hours to figure this thing out, but I had to leave before I could look into it any more. Their studio is like 1.5 hours away, I am not planning to make a trip down any soon. For PC guy, it was not that easy to figure out how to export a menu animation...
Could anybody export that to useable video file (i.e. mpg, m2v or any type that would look decent to normal TV)? They said the computer will be occupied for next week or so for their photo album use for wedding couples. I can't find anyone with DVD studio Pro near me, and I would greatly appreciate if anyone can help me with that!
Thank you so much , everyone.

regards,
JJ

JJ,

Unfortunately, it looks like all of DVDSP templates and transitions are formatted for DVDSP only. But here is an idea. Make a 10 second movie. Go into DVDSP and set your menu and transition. Make sure there are no text or buttons. (I think the problem you had before is that there was not a movie in track 1). You can now take this DVD and play into your camera or deck or use a program to strip the footage from the DVD. Good luck.

Jon Schwartz
CA Video Productions

ah~ that's pretty good idea... I will try to explain to the studio coordinator there (since I am not going there for a while) to do that.. hope she understands what I am trying to do...
Thank you for your help, Jon!

JJ

Hello all.
First time, trial and error user, who has just had a deadline announced and needs help!
Probably a real simple sollution, but as yet I'm stuck.

To simplify;
I have my feature's video clip (1.M2V)
I have my feature's seperate audio clip (1.WAV)
and I have my commentary audio clip. (2.WAV)

I have menu/button for 1.M2V & 1.WAV
I have menu/button for 2.WAV

So far I've imported assets; 1.M2V & 1.WAV and just dragged them to my 'Play Feature' button.
and I've imported and linked 1.M2V & 2.WAV via timeline to its menu button.
This process duplicates the 1.M2V file on disc, which is TOO LARGE.

How do I link both WAV files to the single 1.M2V file??
So simple I'm sure.. but I haven't stumbled my way there yet, and time is running out.

Thanks in advance,

Anthony

Create new timeline, put your video file on the video track, put both your audio files on audio track.

Thanks Bart for your suggestion.

I did try doing that before, so on my timeline I've got 'Video', and 'Audio 1' & 'Audio 2'.
Problem is I don't know how to tell Encore to link 'Video' and 'Audio 1' to one menu/button, and 'Video' & 'Audio 2' to the other menu/button. - without duplicating 'Video 1' on the DVD (which uses up all disc space)

Please help?

Many thanks.

Anthony


... OK I think I have it. Specify link for relevant button, select desired audio timeline option on audio drop down box. - Seems to have associated the files without carrying across a secondary video file. fingers crossed.. I'm getting thre..

Hi all, started my first proper menu and chaptered DVD in encore and running into a few issues:

The assets are imported fine, created main menu and chapter menu, inserted chapter points and linked chapter menu to chapter points on timeline.

When I preveiw the DVD it seems fine the problems arise when I try to set end actions.

I have a play all button but when I try to link to chapter 1 to 2 and 3 to 4 its not working properly,
I select 1 to go to 2 but when I select 2 to goto 3, 1 goes to 3 instead and so on

does each chapter have to be in it's own timeline? that's how it seems

thanks for your help

Russ

First, did you run a "check project"? If you did and it comes up clean I have two thoughts. First, and I think this most likely, your menu links are simply pointing to the wrong point in your project. The most common cause (at least for me) is that I've linked the menu to the wrong chapter mark. I have done this more than once. Encore lets you make the links several ways. I find using the pickwhips for anything but connecting menus complete rubbish. In the flowchart view, I'll right click on the menu item I want to link and select "Specify Link". From there you select the timeline you want and the appropriate chapter mark within it.

Secondly. Do you specify thumbnails for your chapter marks? If so, is it possible you dragged the thumbnail mark rather than the chapter mark? I've done that too.

Please remember that the first chapter mark is always set at the beginning of each timeline. If you don't link a menu item to the very introduction of your piece, your count might be off. In most projects I do, the only link to the first chapter mark is the "Play Movie" link on the main menu.

Hi Tripp,
cheers for your reply
I have checked the project and the only problems that appear are next and previous > link not set,

Ive now set them to link back to main menu

I'm burning the project now but I'm pretty sure the "play all" is only going to play my first chapter I cant see how it's going to play all my chapters in one go

fingers crossed, it's a bit confusing at first but your input helped

cheers Russ

Tripp, you da man!

seems to play through ok from play all, for some reason I thought I'd have to tell it what to do when it got to the end of first chapter,
your explanation made me view the process in a bit diffrently and all seemed to fall into place then,

thanks for your help

Russ

Glad I could help Russ. When I first started working with Encore I found it completely counter-intuitive since it didn't work like other Adobe products. I think the core of Encore is OEM'd from Sonic, or was at some point. So the ergonomics weren't home grown.

Half a year ago I was right where you are now... wanting to head to the pub for a pint of bitter... but I've done over 20 DVDs since then and it get's easier. I now actually look forward to that part of the workflow. Not only does it mean that I'm almost done, but I get to play with graphics, which is fun for me.

Hi, I just installed updates for cs3 and it fried my suite. When i try to export to Encore from premiere i get an error saying "Preset not found" / "error loading default preset" , and when i try to open Encore on its own i get a runtime error and it wont open at all. Anybody know what the problem could be or another way to burn my footage to DVD **(FREE)**?

Not sure I know what **(FREE)** means.

You might want to drill down into your hard drive to find out what's happening with your preset files. Check to see that the one you're using is where it should be. The path is something like Program Files/Adobe.../Encore (or Media Encoder). I don't know exactly since I'm not on a machine with CS3 installed. You should be able to find them pretty easily.

If your preset(s) went pear shaped, you can copy replacements in, if you have them backed up somewhere. I don't, but probably should.

If not, the best thing to do would be to uninstall/reinstall the product(s). I don't know if the presets belong to Premier, Encore or the Media Encoder. You could try them one at a time or maybe save some time and effort by doing them all in one whack.

Thank you SO much for taking the time to reply. I found the presets folder under C/program files/adobe/encore/presets then opened it and stared at it. lol No idea what it should or shouldnt look like.

I found the presets folder under C/program files/adobe/encore/presets then opened it and stared at it. lol No idea what it should or shouldnt look like.

Well... it should have presets in it. (grin) What you see on the disk should correspond to the transcode settings you get in the media encoder. It's a 1-to-1 relationship.

You probably should uninstall/reinstall the products. Yes, it will take some time, but I think it's the lowest stress path to recovery for you.

i've been a dvdsp user since version 1. but i just started trying to grasp encore for bluray purposes. its been somewhat of a headache.

for starters, should i be able to setup a project thats bluray, 720p and 29.97? or should it be set to 59.94? my video source is 720 30p.

next up on my annoyance list: the menu is 720x480 when i create it. i can't find anyway within encore to change it to 720p. so i open up the menu in photoshop and then change it there.

i've got my buttons created but i still get a bit of a haze outline during the activated state that shows the non activated state.

then when i preview it, it plays really crappy. i'm not sure if thats because i'm on a macbook pro 2.16.

i'm thinking i'm just going to burn a tester on a bd-re and see how it looks....

and pointers would be very helpful and greatly appreciated.

for starters, should i be able to setup a project thats bluray, 720p and 29.97? or should it be set to 59.94? my video source is 720 30p.
You should be able to do 30p or 30i. It's your preference.

next up on my annoyance list: the menu is 720x480 when i create it. i can't find anyway within encore to change it to 720p. so i open up the menu in photoshop and then change it there.
Do you have video in your menus? If not, your menu is a still image. I would think that by definition it's already progressive.

i've got my buttons created but i still get a bit of a haze outline during the activated state that shows the non activated state.

This you'll probably want to look at very closely in Photoshop. As you know, the activation is a layer in the image that gets turned on when it's, well, activated. Depending upon how you created the button, there might be something in other layers that contribute to that fuzzy bit showing up. It's odd and I've not had this happen. Does this happen in Encore, your computer, BD-player/TV set up or all three? I've found Encore pretty WYSIWYG when it comes to menus, but I have a lot more experience with SD than BD up to now. But this is changing quickly.

one thing i'm trying to get dialed is the exporting process. i don't want encore to have to encode any of my video(other than an after effects menu or something). so i'm trying to get my compressor setting adjusted properly to cut back on my authoring times. what i've somewhat gathered is if i'm doing 720p i can not author at 29.97, it needs to be either 23.98 or 59.95 for bluray. does this sound correct?

and re: to my menu, its not that its not progressive, its that its SD and not HD. i've since created a new menu in photoshop and made it HD in size, but not sure if this fixes my problem or not.

Hey guys just had a quick question. I've burned a few copies of this film project I've been working on. However when my main feature gets to the credits it will play the credits but midway through it will cut out and not finish the credits. Could this be because of the Duel Layer Break? How would I go about fixing this. I've tried taking out some video but that didn't seem to do to much. Any help / advice would be great. ASAP if possible, this thing needs to get done. Thanks guys...

Hello all,
i'm exporting m2v files from PPCS3 using procoder 3 exporter, when i add it to encore it takes a while to load the file.

any ideas? any way to make it faster?
any suggestion for another good and quick program to deliver DVD's to costumers?

Shalom, Asaf, please define "a while".

Also, what is the size/duration/bitrate of the files you are importing in Encore?

Thanks for the replay,

about 2-4 minutes, 90mins video , 6500 bitrate

any way to make it faster?
any suggestion for another good and quick program to deliver DVD's to costumers?

I don't think so and not really.

I have no idea what Encore is doing when it's importing video assets but compared to other tools I've used that's not too bad of a wait. Bringing DVD-legal video into Nero for authoring takes many times as long as Encore.

While Encore takes a while to learn and can be a little counter intuitive when compared to other Adobe apps, authoring in Encore can be done quite quickly. Years ago I used Nero for DVD authoring and found it slow and inflexible. I still use it occasionally and it hasn't changed much. I've never been able to create an efficient workflow for it. I've also used a Sony application that was so unmemorable that I've lost its name. That experience is several years old so things might have changed there.

I totally agree with Tripp, hard to imagine you can find a better DVD authoring app on the PC. Once you spend some time mastering it, there's nothing you can't do with it. And encoding with Procoder is the other half of the secret to making high quality discs. Did I mention Photoshop integration for personalized menus?

Of course, in the end it all comes down to personal preferences. For fast authoring I do it all straight out of Edius, but for complex navigation, multiple audio streams, subtitles - Encore is the king. Now playing in BlueRay too...

Hi - I'm sort of having trouble setting up my DVD layout so that the viewer can either 'play all or select different chapters without having 1 long MPEG2 of the entire programme plus seperate MPEG2 files for the chapters on the disk

Can I somehow use markers to allow the viewer to select portions of 1 master MPEG2 video?

Cheers

Pete

To add chapter points, choose the Timeline Menu/Add Chapter Point.

You can create a menu if you want, and link each chapter point to a button in the menu.

Hi - Yes I get that, but at the end of each chapter (If they wanted to just watch that chapter) I would want the playback to go back to the menu. If they watch that 'play all' option wouldn't it go back to the menu at the end of the first chapter?

Thanks for your help

Pete

I think I understand now what you are trying to do.

Click on a chapter, and in the properties pane, change the end action of the chapter to go back to the menu. See if that does it.

Check out the "override" option in the help menu for more control over that.

Cheers I'll try that shortly

Thanks for your help

Pete

Here is a short tutorial on how to setup a menu with both "Chapter" buttons and a "Play All" button in Adobe Encore:
Building a Play All Menu in Adobe Encore DVD : Adobe Encore DVD Tutorial (http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kurkoski_tim/play_all.php)

I'm trying to figure out how to improve my footage when exporting to DVD. Please let me know where I can improve on... looks good but when comparing to any DVD, i know it could be improved.

Thanks.

My work process is:
1) Import miniDV footage into computer using a small handycam video camera.
2) All editing done in Adobe Premiere CS4
3) Once complete, export to microsoft AVI (.avi) - 740x480 - 29.97 fps - 16:9 ratio
4) Import into Encore, and from there it transcodes and burns onto DVD automatically...

I know there should be a better way... anyone?
thanks.