Encore CS5 Menu Anomalies

[Daniel Ludwig]

hi charles,
there are different issues that you need to take care of:

1. menu-background

you need to know that adobe encore allways encode/transcode the menu-assets to MPEG2HD. it doesn´t matters if you are using a mov-file or a previous transcoded h264/m4v-file.

but if you have cascading transcodes, that will result in bad picture-quality.

so the best way to solve this problem is to use your quicktime-movie as backgroud-movie for your menu.

2. general menu-behave

as you are authoring a blu-ray disc the technical specifications are different what you might know from DVD.

there is a new way to create menus for BDs – so called muli-layer-menus.

meaning you´ll have different pages of menus within the so called IG-stream. IG stands for “interactive grafic”. the IG-stream could contain a lot pages that could have a lot buttons, too.

so you need to create a PSD-file containing these pages and the buttons, you don´t need to have a seperate “sub-menu” for chapters or setup, it all could be within your top-menu on different pages.

if you would like to get an example about how it could be, please have a look over here:

https://rivergatesoftware.com/tutorial-12tangos

there you can find some useful help and a tutorial how to work with IG-graphics within encore.

the tutorial is quite a bit different – the most interesting thing for you might be the PSD-file. you can see the order of the pages, buttons and layers.

if you have further more questions, please let us know.

cheers

danny

[Charles Fasano]

Thanks for your help Danny:
Allow me to show what I am trying to do. Below is the motion video for the main menu background created with the video editor:

Main Menu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8FVA_YaZLQ

As I stated in the original post, exactly as you see these videos, that is exactly how they are imported, with the text embedded on the video. I then added the buttons over the corresponding text.

How best should I go about doing this for a Blu-Ray disc?

Do I revise the video by removing the text, then have the text from a psd file layer fade in on top of the video and activate that layer at the loop point? Then assign the buttons at that time? Is this the workflow?
Also, how can I keep the video (without text) in 1080 so that it’s displayed as such in the menu?

What is your recommendation?

Thanks again for your help.

[Charles Fasano]

Aloha Danny:
I just noticed in the properties of the menus, they are set to 720×480. The project itself has been set as Blu-ray . Do I need to change the menu properties to 1920×1080. Is this possible and where can I do this?

[Daniel Ludwig]

hi again,
here is what you need to do:

1. you need to get rid of the text out of your background-video that should be your buttons.

2. start the video without the intro-part. it should start where the loop-point is.

you also need to have first frame of your video should be last frame of your video + 1 frame, so you´ll get a nice looping background-video. it would be good if you could create it a bit longer as well, so you will not get to the looping-point that fast.

your video should be 1920×1080 and you project-settings should be the same, of course.

3. you need to create your PSD-file for the menu that way:

as you could see, there is no background-layer within this PSD-file and you can see 4 buttons at the lower position and also in the layer-view.

the lowest (+) play is button no 1 of the main page, followed by the other 3.

then there are the other sub-pages of the menu which start with the (#1) for chapter page 1 and (#2) for chapter page 2, and also (#3) for setup.

you can see them all on top of the 4 main page buttons overlapping, but as long as they are not within the same (sub-)page, that doesn´t matter.

there are also a lot buttons within each of these (#1)-pages for chapter-selection and setup.

allways keep in mind: buttons are not allowed to overlap each other, as well as with DVD.

so you need to import your menu as PSD-file and then set the background-video to be the background-video for you menu. to do so you need to select your menu, go to properties, select the motion-tab and drag these @-symbol onto your background-video-file within your project-window. the video will be linked as backgroundvideo for your menu.

link all the buttons from your main page and your sub-pages, and it´ll should work.

if you have further questions, please let us know.

cheers

danny

[Daniel Ludwig]

yes, you need to set them 1920×1080.

please look at your project-transcoding-settings and/or your blu-ray-transcoding-settings within your project-window on the left hand side.

they should be 1920×1080.

cu

danny

[Charles Fasano]

Thanks again Danny.

I’ve done what you;ve said, in creating another video background without the text and imported it into the project. I then connected the wip in the motion menu of the main menu to set it as the background. Unfortunately, I still can’t seem to change the settings of the men u from 720×480 to 1920×1080. Even when I have the menu highlighted, the options to transcode, which I’ve verified as correct, are not available (grayed out).

How can I get the menu property to match the video background?

Please send me an email if you can. I might ask if I can pay you to complete this project for me.
charlie@fasanounderwater.com

Aloha

[Charles Fasano]

Aloha Danny:
So did everything you suggested. I created a 1920×1080 file in photoshop. Created the 3 buttons where I placed them into their corresponding groups, used (+) for group names and also used (=1) for the highlighted state. I then imported the .psd file as a menu into encore and it created a correctly sized menu.
I also removed the text from the videos in the video editor and made new .mov files which was imported into encore.
I made the correct connections (wips) under the “motion” tab in the menu to set the background video.
It all works great as expected. I’m wondering though, I don’t like how I have to have the buttons and video appear immediately as the disc is inserted. Is there a work around this? Just seems silly to me that with Blu-ray I’m limited in how the text has to appear right away. Can they at least “fade in” with the video.

Thanks again for your help.

Aloha
-Charlie-

[Daniel Ludwig]

hey again,
no – intro-transitions like you know from DVD can´t be done with blu-ray and especially with encore.

if you are working with a full-spec blu-ray authoring solution you could add in- and out-effects to your interactive graphic-stream, but you can´t do this with encore.

if you feel like having the time, you should look at DVD Logic EasyBDSuite.

it´s a full-spec-solution for a reasonable price at 700$.

https://www.dvd-logic.com/easybd/

but be awared: it´s windows-software.

you can also download a 21days full functional demo from the website.

cheers

danny

[Charles Fasano]

Thank you again for all your help. It looks like I’ll just have to live with the immediate appearance of the buttons with the non-fade in of the video. C’est la vie.

Something new just arose though.
Remember I have 2 menus, the main menu (1st play) and the chapter selection menu (linked from the main). In the preview, the main menu appears and p[lays just fine. But in the Chapter selection menu, only the text and music appears. The video doesn’t play. I’ve rendered the menu in preview and still no video. I’ checked all the connections and everything is linked fine. Its an identical menu to the main menu in that I literally copied the main menu but re-arranged all the links accordingly. Even in the build, the checker finds no problems, but after burning to disk or even an .iso, the video in the Chapters selection menu still doesn’t play. Am I overlooking anything?

Thanks again

-Charlie-

[Errol Lazare]

Hey Charlie,

I have also experienced the annoyance of a low quality menu playing in my HD blu-ray encore project. I found some what of a work around. It seems that every time I create a menu with encore it defaults to creating a 720×480 SD menu even in my blu-ray project and I have not found a way to change it. I am not sure why or how this happens but I did find a work around:

1. Create a blank photoshop file with the resolution of 1920×1080 and save it as a PSD
2. In Encore right click in the project gallery and select Import As > Menu > and select the menu you created in photoshop.
3. Now in Encore, click on the menu you created and in the motion tab of the properties window connect your video and audio pick whip to your video and audio assets.

Finally a Bluray menu in HD!
Hope that helps!

Cheers.

Errol X. Lazare
EXL Films
http://www.exlfilms.com