[Dave Friend]

[Quentin] “but they fade in and out in their own semi-translucent background with styled border.”

Sounds like the subpicture effect option in Scenarist. AFAIK, there is no other DVD authoring application that has this feature.

[Quentin] “the DVD player I saw it on refused to let me change either during playback”
When the disk was authored the User Operations you tried to access had been turned off so you could not over-ride the intended effect. Encore allows you to allow/prohibit various User Ops.

[Quentin] “features black shadow outlines of the commentators”
Are they fluidly animated or pretty much static? If it is fluid then my guess is it was done in post and is displayed by using an alternate angle. If it is a static or jumpy animation then it might have been done with subpicture tracks. It could possibly be done with Encore by using image-based subtitles (see the User’s manual).

Hope this is interesting if not helpful.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Sean,

Like Joe said, you can safely ignore this message if the end action is set to stop. I’ve found that if you set the end action to anything else, check for errors and then set the end action back to stop the “error” is no longer reported.

Happy Holidays.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Try exporting at 720×480 which is the standard used for DVD mpeg2 files.
Hope this helps.
Dave

[Dave Friend]

Hi Larry,

There are several tools that will multiplex mpeg2 and audio files. You might find a freebie on the doom9.org site. I’ve had good results with retail version of TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress. It’s an pretty good encoder but also includes several utilities for multiplexing and demultiplexing. If you pop for this software consider getting the optional AC3 sound plug-in. Turns wav files into ac3 quick like a bunny.

What tools are you using that insist on re-encoding?

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Pete,

One of my favorite shots to use is where a foreground subject is being followed – either by pan or tracking – and stays mostly in the same place in the frame while the backgound is moving very quickly. It is even more interesting if the foreground subject varies speed and perhaps starts and stops moving. If the background varies with regard to details and contrast even better. Seeing how an encoder handles this kind of shot at a low (4Mb/s or less) bitrate can be very informative. Try it at both CBR and VBR – again with low bitrates.

Dark low contrast scenes present interesting challenges for encoders too. Long slow dissolves between shots with opposing movement are a good test.

Rain falling on a body of water (i.e. puddles in a street) where the camera pans/zooms can be very difficult for encoders – especially if light levels are low (i.e. rain on night time street).

Any video with lots of noise makes good test footage.

Have a good time.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[Mike Cohen] “is there anything that can let me use an external video monitor”

Mike,

Set PPro to output the desktop to the 1394 (firewire) interface. Use the DVCPro deck as your “digital to analog” converter and monitor the analog out of the deck. I’m not familiar with your deck and perhaps not all decks are able to EE monitor from the firewire input. Won’t cost you anything to try except the time.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

I think that the DVCPRO25, DVCam and DV all us the same video encoding algorithm. IOW, they are the same format. It’s the tape recording specs (speed, track pitch and others) that differ between these various flavors of DV tape.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[David Roth Weiss] “Is there something he and I are missing?”

Well…
1. I’m not entirely sure which Windows OS Bob is using. I think it is XP. But assuming is dangerous.
2. He asked how to do it with DVD Decrypter
3. On XP, drag to disc recording is usually slower than using a burner application.
4. I don’t know what other burner application (Toast on OSX = Roxio, Nero or multiple others on XP)Bob is using.
5. Burning a DVD titleset disc from an iso image is always faster (and sometimes more reliable) than burning from a folder set – particularly if you are making multiple copies.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

Any authoring application that allows you to set which “user operations” are allowed will make what you ask for possible.

[Jason Powell] “What authoring software allows this and what’s the procedure?”

The short answer is you turn off the allowed operations for the first play title.
Which application do you want to use?

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[Bob Cole] “…instead of saying, “Error in marspegian dilexoid sector 0x00009x00w00…”

Who’s going to clean up the Diet Coke I spit on my monitors when I read this?
LOL