[Charles Fasano]

*** FIXED ***

The problem laid in the .psd file I imported. It was imported as a menu so it took all the group layers, as its supposed to, and created multi layers in the menu, which became working buttons. The layer “background”, which in photoshop you turn off so as to have a transparent background in photoshop, is the opposite in Encore. So I had to turn the “background” layer on (select to show the eye symbol) in photoshop and reimport into Encore.

I guess the scripting works that as you indicate the video to be the “background”, then encore uses the “background” layer in photoshop. So it needs to be turned on.

Hope this helps.

-Charlie-

[Charles Fasano]

I have done this using the xml procedure and it worked just fine.

[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-

[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-

[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:
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?

[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]

Best to convert the .mov to .m2v with media manager, and import the .m2v (video) and .ac3 (audio) as an asset. Then in the menu properties under the “Motion” tab, connect the whips to your newly imported assets and it will become the background video for your menu. You can also just drag the assets onto your menu while holdong down a button, but it depends if you’re using mac or pc as to which button to hold.

Hope this helps.

[Charles Fasano]

Thanks again for the input gentleman.

I do have plans on buying the Thunderbolt RAID from LaCie when it’s released this summer. When that happens, then these current ones become archives stashed in the safe.

Since I won’t be switching this to RAID, is this the best configuration to have with this particular set of hardware?

Thanks again

-Charlie-
Fasano Underwater Productions
https://www.FasanoUnderwater.com

[Charles Fasano]

Thank you Mark for all your help.

I did exactly as described in copying the original capture files and importing them into Motion4 to do a test. On export though, I am having the same jittery problems. I believe its because Motion4 and FCP7 utilize the same smoothcam algorithm. I double checked this by also importing the clips from FCP7 directly to Motion and the smoothcam feature appeared in the Motion timeline. So this may be a problem thoughout the entire FC Suite3. Looks like I just need to get my hands on FCP6 and go from there.

Aloha