Why does Encore create (and play) two different menu streams?

[Marc Brown]

Just an update. I’ve just recently played my various builds on a software player. As a test, I temporarily removed the shorter menu stream. If Encore’s build played the main menu stream fully before switching to the shortened version, then the software player should have proceeded without error. But the software player definitely didn’t like having shortened menu stream gone: Once it got to the critical point where the buttons appear, it froze playback, as one would expect if it was attempting to switch to a new video.

So there you have it. There is no doubt that Encore is building the menu to switch to a new stream once the buttons appear.

Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of button creation? Keep in mind that I build my buttons from within Encore.

[Marc Brown]

I’ve recently made an interesting observation. It seems that Encore does its “rendering menu” process, what it is producing every time, regardless of the encode settings or the desires of the user, is an .M2V file. With no audio. Is it a safe guess that it is then using this mpeg2 file to create its menu streams?

In any event, I’m currently making a new build, this time using a “don’t transcode” menu asset. As I’m watching, the first stream it creates is 00000.m2ts, the full menu stream. Then it begins working on 00002.m2ts, the main video, apparently saving 00001.m2ts for the truncated menu. Anyway, it clearly did not prevent Encore from deciding it needs to make two menu streams.

I don’t know what to say. I’ll believe Encore can make a Blu-ray menu stream with buttons temporarily off when I see it with my own eyes.

[Larry Applegate]

Hi Marc,

What I’ve seen so far is that Encore uses MPEG-2 to create still menus.My client used MPEG-2 entirely for his first replication, because he was not sure that AVC would be compliant for replication, and there was plenty of room on a single layer BD for a full-length movie with extras using MPEG-2.

His full project, and also the cut-down one he made for my testing, plays the first menu with the intro all the way through, then links to the 2nd menu, which follows the first, and plays seamlessly.

If you want to send me a sample, here is my mailing address. (The US mail does not deliver to my house).

Larry Appelgate
PO Box 1038
Lotus CA 95651

[Marc Brown]

Shrug. I already gave mpeg2 a whirl, thinking perhaps Encore was doing the dual stream thing exclusively with AVC material. I used the .M2V that encore itself generated (for no apparent reason) during a previous build. It still re-rendered the menu, and it still developed two menu streams.

I like how it says the disc is going to be ~700MB and then the result is double that, thanks to this undocumented flaw.