Playlists

[Jon Geddes]

All of that is certainly possible in Encore with the exception of the random selection. You could of course create your own “random” selection of clips, but it wouldn’t truly be random, as it would play the chapters in the same order every time you pressed the random button. Of course, dvd players usually have the option to play chapters at random straight from the dvd remote, therefor you wouldn’t really need to integrate that into the menu.

To do what you want, you will need to create chapter playlists. This is not possible with old versions of Encore, so be sure to have a newer version. Once you setup your chapter playlist (from the project window, just create new chapter playlist), then you will link your menu buttons to the playlists instead of the timelines.

As for the “Next” or “Play Again” buttons, you could just create a menu for that, and set the end action of the chapter playlist to go to that menu.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Ana Innoranti]

Thanks a lot, Jon for your help!
I will now study how to do it.
Fatta

[Ana Innoranti]

Is it possible to have a playlist which says “play only chapters 4 to 7” (out of 10 chapters).

For example: Can I play chapters 4 to 7 and then stop after 7, then go back to the menu where all the possible combinations of chapters are and for example press “play chapters 2-5-8-1” (out of 10 chapters) and stop after chapter 1, go back to the menu where all the combinations are, etc?

[Jon Geddes]

Absolutely. Once you create a chapter playlist for the first time, you will see all the things you can do with it.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Ana Innoranti]

Jon,
This an example of I need to be done:

1) Presentation with Main Menu
2) Sub-menu: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 (There will be around 70 chapters)
3) If I open, for example chapter 1, I will have there around 7 other chapters (let´s call them sub-chapters)
4) If I open a sub-chapter I will have there several clips, some of them will be played alone as entire clips, and some of them will be played together, using the same clips but combined in ramdom ways.
Here´s the thing:

Some people say that I cannot do a playlist which says play chapters 1-6 (out of 10 chapters), because it’s not possible to tell the program to STOP playing after chapter 6.

I believe that it is possible but I will need your certification that what I´m saying is correct.
What do you think?
Thanks a lot.
FI

[Jon Geddes]

Let me see if I understand this correctly. You will have a submenu for each “Chapter” (which you have around 70 of). In order to make this less confusing, lets now refer to them as “Segments”. Each segment will then have several chapters of its own. Will you ever be needing to use a chapter playlist that pulls chapters from different segments? If not, it sounds like you should be creating a separate timeline for each segment, unless of course all the segments are suppose to run together without any pauses whatsoever.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Ana Innoranti]

Will you ever be needing to use a chapter playlist that pulls chapters from different segments?
YES

And the segments are not suppose to run together without any pauses whatsoever.

The user must be able to choose a segment and into that segment to choose a chapter and into that chapter choose from a list of clips that I had already decided to play together as a group or alone as single clips.
For example:
1) Clip 3
2) Clips 3-6-5
3) Clip 6
4) Clips 9-10-2-5
Etc
I will have a number of original videoclips and with that material I have to make all the connections to make it interactive for the user.
Can I do it that way, using the original material without having to make little editions?
Or maybe should I edit them on Premiere the way I want them, with the order I need?

And what about the problem that somebody told me that it won´t stop after chapter 5?

Thanks, Jon,
FI

[Jon Geddes]

With all the jumping around you are doing, it sounds like it would be more logical to have each clip as its own timeline. Then just create a regular playlist (not a chapter playlist) which will play the individual timelines as you desire. Unless you made a typo, you said that the clips will NOT be playing seamlessly all together. As in seamless, I mean in the middle of a scene, where you can’t have a brief half second pause.

I have not used chapter playlists in a while, so I don’t recall if Encore has that issue or not with the chapters continuing, but it sounds like something that could be remedied by having the last chapter of the chapter playlist be a chapter marker that is placed at the very end of the timeline.

By having each clip as its own timeline, you don’t have to worry about the clip continuing, since there wont be any chapters, just timelines.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Ana Innoranti]

GREAT, Jon, thanks a lot.
FI

[Ana Innoranti]

Jon,
Is there a limit for Timelines, Playlists and Chapters?
And how do you export a demo of what you are doing to someone that want to see what you have done so far?
Thanks
Fatta Innoranti