Encore+Mac (Leopard) +Blu Ray=Wrong

[Olof Ekbergh]

Back in 1998 I think it was.

I had a Museum as a client and we had a video the wanted to run in 30 seat theatre.

Back then Beta SP was about the only way to do it for component output. Pretty expensive and all the problems of tape transport etc.

DVD’s had just come out. It would have cost about $15,000.00 to have a DVD made back then. So I looked into buying an authoring setup.

First I bought a system for a Wintel machine. It meant using 4 different programs, kind of a nightmare, as I remember 2 of them were DOS. We also bought a $4,500.00 Pioneer DVD burner (I still use that for authoring DVD’s). DVD blanks back then cost $50.00 ea. I went through more than a dozen of them over 2 months trying to burn 1 20 minute DVD that was play once then stop, I had over 100 hrs of tech support and the company never could get it to work, they wanted to charge me . Eventually I got my money back from the company. This was quite a battle.

Well to make a long story short. I Bought the Sonic solutions hardware system for Mac, expensive! But the very first disc I burned was perfect, and the second third forth etc. were too.

I used that system, until a few years ago (I still have it in a box PCI cards and all) when DVDsp came out. And as much as I hate to say it the then $500.00 program was better than the $20,000.00 hardware system.

My point is, you bleed if you try to lead.

So far I have only made standard DVD-R’s, that play in Bluray set-tops, using Toast.

I will probably play some with Encore, but I will not tell clients I can make interactive Blurays other than extremely simple Toast versions. Luckily most of our DVD’s run in KIOSK’s simply looping.

I bet in a year or 2 we will have great BD solutions. I still also use HD-DVD in a few interactive KIOSK projects, they work just like standard DVD’s, made in DVDsp.

I do feel you pain. I still have the scars.

Olof Ekbergh

[Ben Holmes]

Dear Eric

Adobe’s slogan for Encore (which I see every time it reopens after a crash) is “come for the blu-ray, stay for the flash”. That may well be true if you have a PC, but it sure ain’t if you have a Mac.

I was asked by a client if I could produce a Blu-Ray as well as a DVD version of a very simple disk. Honestly, unless it was a single menu with a ‘play’ button, it’s hard to see how this one could have been simpler. I told him it was new to me, but I read a lot on Encore (mostly from Adobe) and I noted that the solution has been around for some time now. These are not ‘early days’ for Blu-Ray. I already produce a lot of DVDs, and was very comfortable with the interface in Encore.

Prior to starting work on this project, I spent two weeks learning the software and simulating disks. I was satisfied (since I am used to the simulator workflow on DVD-SP) that I could probably deliver. I continued to reassure my client, though warning him that it was still an unknown quantity to me.

After an initial build, and a successful DVD encode, several days ago, all was well. Then I moved to testing the Blu-Ray.

Hardly any element of it on playback was totally correct. The encoding (despite trying various settings) coped badly with the frame rates required (although I am happy to admit some of the mistakes were mine – ones I allowed extra time for anyway) so I have switched to Compressor. The buttons did not appear, and the routing was incorrect. All of this I have detailed above.

So I bought a product I had every reason to suspect would fit my needs, was not in it’s early days, that I had taken the time to learn and (I thought) test and it simply is faulty. And you’re wondering why I’m annoyed? If you bought Photoshop from Adobe, and all your exports were the wrong colour, what would you do?

And here’s the rub – I’m not the only one having this problem on a Mac – others have responded exactly the same.

There’s a limit to how careful I can expect to be with new software. I run a busy company, so I spent time on my holidays doing everything I could to ensure delivery. AND I bought software from the industry leader at a not inconsiderable price to make sure I gave myself the best chance of delivering. This is sofware marketed at small businesses like me – if I was a larger concern, I would have Scenerist or similar at far greater expense.

As far as law suits go, I said I would be seeking a full refund. If that’s not forthcoming, then yes I would consider being part of a class-action lawsuit, since there is NO advice on Adobe’s website not to purchase Encore if you have a Mac running Leopard, apart from a note from December last year promising an update in January. That’s not good enough.

If you can show me how my project is wrongly constructed such that it works on the simulator, works on the DVD encode and doesn’t work on the Blu-Ray then I would be delighted to hear from you. Otherwise, I’m not sure what your comment was in aid of.

Ben

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[Eric Pautsch]

The comment wasn’t in aid of anything other than for others thinking of using Encore to produce BD titles …sorry, hope I didn’t offend. 🙂

We are in the early days of BD production – especially for independent producers.

[Ben Holmes]

Eric

I’m sorry – it’s been a trying week – and in part you’re right, you should always nail down a workflow before you offer it to clients. In truth, MY client had already offered HIS client the Blu-Ray, so I made the best choices I could in order to satisfy the brief. Not ideal, but things rarely are, are they? I was clear with him that it could lead to problems, but he still wants a Blu-Ray, so I’d rather try to deliver than risk him going elsewhere.

In turn, I hope both my comments (and Walter’s, who has had a MUCH worse time of it than me – I’m only starting to feel the pain) will act as a caution to anyone in my situation considering Encore as an authoring solution on a new Mac – many of whom have probably grown tired of waiting for Apple to deliver.

Until someone from Adobe can refute the problems everyone is having, I would say to people to think again, or just get Toast for simple burns. It’s a shame – I think Encore is a solid product in other areas, and I would be happy to use it in the future if it was at an acceptable standard.

Ben

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[Ben Holmes]

By the way – here’s my two additional problems today: Encore deciding the 23.98p disk I painstakingly recreated yesterday was actually 29.97 in the project settings – and there’s no way to change it back. Fortunately this has only led to jerky menu motion, as I have imported 23.98p files from Compressor this time.

Second one: Encore has substituted a stereo 192kbps version of my 448kbps 5.1 surround mix from my project, and refuses to rebuid the disk with the surround one even though I have deleted it. I am now going to try a rebuild after deleting all the session renders in the project folder, as I suspect it’s just ‘hanging on’ to a previous version where I had the stereo audio on track 2 of the main edit.

Oh yeah – and most of the time Encore crashes when I open a project, unless I delete the project ‘pref2’ file in the project folder…. Oh – and Encore often decides my projects are DVD, not Blu-Ray in the preferences…

Ah well.

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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[Walter Biscardi]

[eric pautsch] “I’m just curious why you guys promised a BD title for a client without testing the tool first? And now you plan to bring up a lawsuit? 🙂 “

We’ve been “testing” the tool for 12 months. We’re able to deliver a BD title, just not with near the features that Adobe promises.

The reason I’m considering a class action lawsuit is to recoup the money we have lost trying to make our BluRay discs perform the simplest of functions. As Ben notes, Adobe’s little tag line is right in our face each time we launch and it doesn’t say “Come for the very limited, barely functioning BluRay” nor does any of Adobe’s materials mention the incredible limited functionality of BluRay on Encore.

Probably don’t have the time or the money to pursue the fight so we’re purchasing a PC this week and will transition over to DoStudio as they seem to actually know what they are doing when it comes to BluRay.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Walter Biscardi]

[Ben Holmes] “I’m sorry to bother again – let me know if you have time. I would rather be spending some time with my kids this weekend, but it’s not to be.
“

Ben, we have only produced 1080i/29.97 BluRays so I can’t help you with any 24p stuff right now. I can tell you that we never allow Encore to transcode or re-encode any of our material, we do all the MPEG-2 compression in Compressor.

Even if we want to do a regular DVD (which Encore is not doing well anymore either) we create two MPEG-2 files in Compressor. One for the regular DVD and one for the BluRay.

Sorry can’t help you any further with that.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Ben Holmes]

[walter biscardi] “Ben, we have only produced 1080i/29.97 BluRays so I can’t help you with any 24p stuff right now. I can tell you that we never allow Encore to transcode or re-encode any of our material, we do all the MPEG-2 compression in Compressor.

Even if we want to do a regular DVD (which Encore is not doing well anymore either) we create two MPEG-2 files in Compressor. One for the regular DVD and one for the BluRay.

Sorry can’t help you any further with that.
“

Walter – I should have realised that. I also should have had the sense to go the compressor route from the start. In truth, I held off because I thought Encore might do a better job of ensuring the footage was Blu-Ray legal, and the correct frame rate.

As a future note, allowing Encore to convert 24p footage for a 23.98p disk actually just meant the encodes had frames missing every now and again. I don’t know if that’s my fault, or a limitation in the software – I suspect it’s my fault. Encore just says it will accept 24p, 23.98 and 30 fps video – it wasn’t clear to me what it would do to it. When it converted 24p footage for the 29.97 disk I made in error, it was awful.

Compressor allowed me to set the frame controls as ’24p as 23.98p’ and produced nice results on the (soon to be final as soon as I find my surround sound) disk.

Let me say that picture quality-wise (omitting motion/frame rate issues) the Blu-Rays look superb. I think that’s what I find most depressing about this. I have a PS3 connected via an HDMI>DVI lead to my 24″ 1080p monitor, and the quality is amazing. If I play it back on a 1080i TV, the PS3 will convert it to 1080i60, the same as if you’d made a 23.98p DVD and played it back on a non-progressive scan DVD player. That’s why I asked the cameraman to shoot 24p, and I’m glad to say it worked. I’ll definitely be working with Blu-Ray again, some time…

Ben

Edit Out Ltd
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RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

[Walter Biscardi]

[Ben Holmes] ” I’ll definitely be working with Blu-Ray again, some time…
“

Just FYI Ben, I ordered a new HP Workstation today and will be downloading DoStudio as soon as it’s here. Coincidentally enough, one of the commercial BluRay replication houses we spoke to 6 months ago called here today to recommend DoStudio as a very low cost application for us to use. Apparently they’ve tested it on their end and DoStudio definitely works for BluRay spec commercial replicated discs.

Ok, enough about this here, I’ll post more on the blog as we get going.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
Read my Blog!

[Tyler Muehlen]

Very informative thread.

We don’t do blu rays where I work. But on a random day and for a trusted client and friend we decided to try out encore and our new bluray burner… lets just say we’ve encountered every problem in this thread.

Ultimately we abandoned the project and went back to tape out put. But it was hell. We are mainly an online / vfx house so authoring blurays and doing surround sound mixes is not our usual cup of tea.

Encore was hell.

Though I will give Final Cut Pro 7 props for its 1 click blu ray burn which actually was fairly painless… as long as you don’t want to customise a single thing and leave it as is.

I dragged the project home to my meager (at the moment) PC and checked out encore on the PC side and it seems to be a touch more stable than on the mac. I was at least able to get the blu-ray to play which was a big change from the endless errors on the mac.