Jeff Bellune
Forum Replies Created
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Basic or Transition are the choices for button properties, not menu properties. Since animated buttons are a menu-wide choice, the selection to animate buttons is on the menu properties sheet.
Remember to render your motion menu in order to see the buttons animate during preview.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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If you are testing this using Encore’s preview, then there’s no need to worry. Encore’s preview won’t respond properly to the Resume function.
Burn an RW disc as a test, and then try the Resume button on a hardware or software DVD player. Everything should work as you expect.
The playback engine for Encore was changed between Encore 1.5 and 2.0.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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I can think of a couple of possibilities.
1. The transcode presets may be different in 1.0 than they are in 2.0. I don’t have 1.0 installed anymore, so I can’t verify that. If your old project was set to transcode with a certain preset and Encore 2.0 can’t find that preset, then you could get this error message.
2. The pre-release version of Encore that you were using may have written the project file information incorrectly, resulting in Encore 2.0 not being able to read it correctly. It’s also possible that the way project files were written by the beta version was modified prior to release.
In either case, I think the smart thing for you to do is:
a) Uninstall version 1.0 completely, and
b) Start fresh with a new project in Encore 2.0.If you used Photoshop to create your menus and you saved those menus as photoshop .psd files, then you should be able to import them into Encore 2.0 and pick up right where you left off using version 1.0.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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If the version number that you posted in the Adobe forums is correct, then you are using a pre-release, pirated version of Encore.
If you continue to use a pre-release, or beta, version of the program, then you will continue to run into unexplainable, unfixable errors.
As was pointed out to you in the Adobe forums, your best bet is to purchase a legitimate copy of Encore.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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[Tim Bond] “If i have my main menu sitting there with music playing and click on a sub menu button the screen will gracefully fade to black / silence and then in again on the sub menu with my two second dip to black avi in the middle?”
The audio cannot be seamless between any two project elements in the DVD-Video specification. So there will always be an interruption, even when the motion menu loops.
Your “2-second dip to black avi” should contain at least one frame of the full menu (probably more), a dip-to-black, and a fade-up to at least one full frame of the next menu (probably more). The audio for the avi should be edited so as to minimize the shock to the audience when the button transition executes, and again when the next menu begins. You may have to experiment some to get a feel that you can be happy with. It won’t ever be perfect.
Watch some Hollywood DVDs and play close attention to how the audio and video behave when moving between menus. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events has a masterful menu that demonstrates just how good a DVD author can get at fooling the audience.
Some DVD authors maximize the impact of the audio shift on the audience by accentuating it with powerful video images to go along with the shocking change in audio. This is typically done for action/adventure movies.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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With Encore 2.0, you can use a button transition to do what you want. Create the dip/fade in your NLE and export it as a DV avi file. Import the dip/fade clip into Encore as an asset, then link the appropriate button transition to the asset.
The button transition will be much more seamless than a similarly constructed timeline, and you will not run into any issues if the length of the dip/fade is very short.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Hi Dave,
Are the targets of your button links separate timelines? Are they chapters in a single timeline? Are they Chapter Playlists from a single timeline? Do any of your chapters have end actions set? I’m trying to understand your navigation setup to help troubleshoot. Encore 2 has navigation abilities far beyond those of mortal Encore 1.x. 🙂
In general, Encore’s preview is just a simulation, and in some instances it will have problems that don’t appear on the burned disc. It is also reasonable to assume that it may work correctly, yet be hiding a problem. Please check the flowchart panel to see if any links are incorrect. The timeline icon and the partially transparent timeline alias icons will link to the menu alias icons. The partially transparent aliases for the trouble menus will have badges that indicate which button is “linked back to”. If a link anywhere is overridden, it should show up as a dashed line in the Flowchart panel. Did you use the Return to Last Menu command anywhere? Return to Last Menu links won’t show up in the Flowchart panel. Are some links set to Return to Last Menu and other links set to a specific button on a menu?
Do you have a software player or other brands of hardware players you can use to test the burned disc? I want to eliminate your player brand/blank media combo as a culprit.
You asked about compelling features in Encore 2:
1. When using the full Production Studio, Dynamic Link with After Effects is a killer feature for animated motion menus.
2. Chapter Playlists let you order the chapters of a timeline any way you want. You don’t need separate timelines.
3. Each chapter in a timeline can have its own end action. When combined with chapter playlists, you can execute complex navigation tasks (like for performance or educational DVDs) intuitively and without the use of overrides.4. The Flowchart panel gives a visual representation of your whole project. I consider it indispensable for checking links and navigation.
Other new features are:
Add XMP metadata to files, manage assets in Adobe Bridge, support for DTS audio files (no preview in Encore – audio is passed untouched to finished disc), support for Quicktime Reference movies, create custom menu templates, quick ways to align and distribute menu objects, multiple audio and video clips in a single timeline, support for dual-layer DVD+R discs, new tools for working in the Menu viewer, new interface for specifying transcode settings and more and better zoom options in the Monitor panel.
If you stick with 1.0, you are also missing out on the features of 1.5 – such as Custome Workspaces, Edit Original in Photoshop, Support for non-square pixels, Background Transcoding, Menu preview to an external monitor via firewire, Save a menu as an After Effects composition or or Photoshop file, Disable certain user operations for the disc, timelines and menus, Return to Last Menu and Resume navigation options, Standard Playlists (playlists of timelines), Improved Check Project utility and the ability to bypass warnings when building a DVD (like the “disc is not empty” warning). All of these features are also part of Encore 2.0.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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[Dave Evans] “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”
Thanks, Dave. I need a little more information, please. For the menus that don’t work correctly, what exactly happens? Does the end action miss the menu entirely and go somewhere else? Does it land on the menu but miss the correct button? Are there no button highlights at all upon returning to the menu? Does something else happen?
Even if you decide to stay with 1.0, investigating this issue may help others later.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Hi Dave,
1) I have only heard of this once before. The images used in the Encore project were very large – 4000 x 2000 pixels. Since Encore’s slideshow won’t zoom in much more than about 10% – 15% using the built-in effects, one doesn’t need images that large. If you are using large images, try reducing their resolution to something around 800×600 (720×480 plus about 15%). You can also use the Scale property for each slide to tell Encore how to present images that don’t fit the 720×480 frame exactly.
2) Can you describe exactly what you were trying to do (go back to menu from slideshow, link one timeline to another, etc.) and then describe exactly what happens on the burned disc (instead of going to the linked timeline, it went back to the main menu, etc.)? Were you testing in a hardware or software DVD player? What you are describing shouldn’t be possible.
3) I think I see the “shimmering” you are talking about. It only happens in the Slideshow viewer, and only when a pan or zoom is applied. It is more noticeable with hi-res images as noted above. I don’t see it in Encore’s preview or in WinDVD when playing back a DVD Folder built in Encore. I’m on the road and I don’t have a blank RW disc or a burner to test with. Do you see it on a finished DVD? Again, how are you displaying it – hardware or software DVD player? What type of TV?
I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with ProCoder. The issues seem to be limited to the interoperability between ProCoder and Encore. Also, any issues with ProCoder and Encore seem to be prevalent in version 2.0. Your own experience would confirm that notion. FWIW, Adobe blames Canopus. I suspect the reverse is also true.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Check to see that you didn’t set an override for the first video clip.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0