[Dave Evans]

Hi G-man

That seems to be exactly what was happening, I would normally create slideshows in Edius adding transitions etc there, with all images prepared in Photoshop CS & any obvious problems corrected before the images make it to the timeline, I guess I was hoping Encore would provide some time saving here (we still prepared the images as per normal practice).
I think we might wait before we upgrade as we use Pro-coder for our transcoding, it is a shame as the navigation features look very impressive.

Regards, Dave.

[Dave Evans]

Hi Jeff

Please accept my appologies for not getting back sooner but I have had little time to go back over the project as things have been hectic around here.

In answer to your questions, I must confess to simply treating this first look at Encore2 in the same way as I would have used Encore 1, I had 7 simple timelines, 3 video clips 4 slideshows, 1 simple static menu with 7 buttons 1 for each timeline with an end action set to return to a specific (the next logical button choice) menu button, with only the last button’s end action set to return to menu default.

This I thought was fairly simple & the navigation works from the burned disk up to the 3rd video clip which does not return to the correct first slideshow menu button but simply returns to itself as do all the slideshow buttons, I thought maybe some overide’s were some how set by mistake but it seems not.

The slideshows have approx 80 slides each with a simple dissolve between each slide, I wonder does Encore treat these slideshow timelines differently than conventional movie timelines with respect to navigation.

I have since tested the disc in another set top player along with 2 other computer based software players all have the same results.

Thanks also for the info on the additional benefits these would be very usefull on certain projects thats for sure.

I think the biggest worry for us though is the fact that Encore 2 does not play well with Pro Coder, as we use this App for all our transcoding, simply because the results are excellent especially with its 2 pass VBR for low bitrate large capacity projects.

Thanks again Jeff for all your help.

[Dave Evans]

Hi Jeff

It go’s back to the menu but to the wrong button highlight.
So button 1 & 2 work fine 3 ends up back at 3 instead of 4, 4 go’s back to 4, 5 to 5 to 5, 6 to 6 & 7 to 7.
Strange thing all work as expected in the preview with each going back to the next button in the sequence with 7 going back to 1.

Thanks again Dave.

[Dave Evans]

Thanks for the input Jeff & sorry for the delayed reply.

Ok all images were scaled in Photoshop CS2 prior to import into Encore 720 x 576 PAL DV pixel aspect 1,066 as per Photoshop CS2 preset, resolution 72dpi only dissolve transition was used.

With the end actions I wanted the action to jump back to the menu with the next appropriate button highlighted, in Encore’s preview this worked fine, but on the burned disk when tested in a stanalone set top player only some work correctly & not others.

Shimmering is not apparent on PC monitor but is very noticeable when played back from set top DVD player on an interlaced standard TV.

We would normally create slideshows in Edius & add transitions there but thought this would be a good test of how Encore 2 handles them, I think we might stay with V1.0 for the time being as at least we have had no playback problems with procoder files, can anyone here offer good reasons to upgrade to V2.0 that I am missing?

Thanks again Jeff, regards Dave.

[Dave Evans]

Thanks Jeff

1)Nothing else running though as I mentioned this is the trial version

2)Everything was checked manually, & preview worked as expected, just final disk output had incorect end actions.

3)No text in images so no problem with fonts. Images prepared in the same way as we have done for many projects, the shimmer/flicker is very bad throughout the transition & less apparent though still visible once the transition has completed, images were previewed from PShop export function to check for flicker from sharp edges & a small amout of blur applied when required prior to import into Encore.

So far we have not experienced any problems with Pro Coder but then we have only been using Encore 1.0 up untill the trial, do you know if this is a Encore problem or are there problems with recent versions of Pro Coder that you are aware of.

Thanks for the help, Dave.