Jeff Bellune
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Here’s an old tutorial that I did for StudentFilmmaker magazine back in 2007:
1. Open the Menu Viewer with the proper menu displayed, or select the proper menu in the Project panel and choose Edit>Edit Menu in Photoshop from the Encore menu bar.
2. Photoshop opens, and loads the menu from Encore. NB that the name of the document in PS may not match the name of the menu in Encore’s Project panel. The displayed document name in PS reflects the internal name used by Encore to keep track of the project elements.
3. The guides that appear in the PS document represent the Title Safe and Action Safe areas.
The first way that we will modify the video thumbnail buttons is to feather the edges. Here’s how to do that in Photoshop:
1. Create a new Group. Name it with the proper button prefix: (+).
2. Create a new Layer in the Group. Name it with the proper video placeholder prefix: (%).
3. Use the shape tool set to “Shape Layers” (the first of the three icons) and draw a shape. This creates a shaped Vector Mask. We’ll use a rounded rectangle, but any shape will work.
4. Ctrl+Click the Vector Mask icon in the Layers palette to load the selection.
5. Right-click the selection with the Marquee tool and set the Feather to whatever you want. Try 7 or 8 pixels for this menu.
6. From the Layer menu, choose Layer Mask>Reveal Selection.
At this point, the menu and the Layers palette should look like this:
We don’t need the Vector Mask anymore; the Layer Mask is all that Encore needs.
1. Right-click the Vector Mask in the Layers palette and delete it. This leaves a feathered Layer Mask.
2. Save and close the document and return to Encore. The gray video placeholder button should be feathered very nicely. Notice how the Layers panel in Encore looks almost exactly like the Layers palette did in Photoshop.
Now we’ll add a gradient to the video placeholder to help it blend in to the background even more.
1. Select the menu in Encore and choose Edit Menu in Photoshop again.
2. Make sure the foreground color is black.
3. Select the Gradient tool.
4. Set the gradient in the gradient options bar to go from foreground to transparent.
5. Set the gradient type in the gradient options bar as desired. We’ll use a Reflected Gradient.
6. In the Layers palette, click on the Layer Mask icon to ensure that the gradient will be applied to the mask only.
7. Drag the gradient tool across the Layer Mask in the document window. The result should be a transparent gradient on the Layer Mask.
8. Save and close the menu in Photoshop and return to Encore.
Back in Encore, here’s how the video placeholder button should look:
Repeat the Edit in Photoshop operation for as many buttons as are required. Back in Encore, link the buttons to the appropriate timelines. Here’s what the final version of the Main Menu looks like:
Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Have you properly calibrated your HDTVs? Either via a calibration disc like the one from Spears and Munsil or by a certified ISF technician? Very rarely (like almost never) are consumer sets properly set up from the factory.
Since you have no control over how anyone who views your DVD has their TV set up, the best you can do when creating the content is what you did.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Set up a transcoding preset in Encore and make sure the Use Maximum Render Quality check box is checked. If you’re not using hardware MPE then expect the transcoding to take a long time.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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You’ll need to do this in Premiere Pro or another NLE.
Nest your 4:3 montage sequence/clip into an SD 16:9 sequence. Don’t scale to frame size. You’ll end up with black pillar boxing on the sides of the clip. When you export your sequence as 16:9, it will include the black bars. En will see the black areas as part of the 16:9 frame and not try to stretch the 4:3 video.
If you hate the black bars, then you can creatively fill those areas with other stuff. Check out sports and news channels for ideas.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Actually, in the Premiere Pro Export Settings dialog, you’re cropping the pixels off of the 1920×1080 source image, which has to be downscaled anyway. So the end result after cropping is just as high quality as it would have been before cropping.
Make sense?
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Read my response to you again, carefully. Then, if you get it working, read my post from Mar. 29, 2011 in this thread for background.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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You don’t need the “crappy workaround”. Just crop 12-14 pixels off the top and bottom in the Export Settings dialog and you’ll make the black bars go away. This results in a widescreen video that completely fills the frame.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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STOP is STOP. You can’t program a change to that function. What the audience sees and how the player behaves when they press STOP is entirely dependent on the DVD player itself.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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That’s not possible in DVD-Video. Not even Hollywood can do that.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
