[Jeff Bellune]

What are your export settings in AE? That is the likely culprit.

Are you using the Render Queue in AE? You should be.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

First, the technique you are trying to use is an advanced technique.

The simplest solution is to skip the transition and just link the first-play video to the static menu.

For a more advanced solution, here are some things to consider:

1. The PAR of the Photoshop document matches the PAR of the video.
2. One option is to eliminate the static menu background. Make the image of the static menu part of the video.
3. You turn the visibility of the layers in a button layer set on and off the same way you turn Photoshop layer visibility on and off – by clicking the eyeball icon in the Layers panel.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Not exactly. But you can simulate the transition by making a video clip that contains the first play video, the transition and the menu.

Use the new video clip as the motion background for the menu. Create highlight-only buttons by switching off the visibility of all the button layers on the existing menu.

Set the loop point for the menu to a time after the transition so that the button highlights won’t be visible or active until then.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

The deepest black in your waveform doesn’t go to 0 IRE. That leads me to believe you’ve added setup somewhere along the way. Don’t do that.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Yes, it’s possible in Encore. Just be aware that you are trying to use an advanced technique that requires both an in-depth knowledge of Encore and of the limitations of the DVD specification itself. That will be challenging indeed for someone new to Encore.

The illusion is created by putting the animation of the lamp that points to a particular button on the target menu, not on the original menu.

You must use Auto-activate. You must have different animations for each of the menus that are targets of the auto-activated button links.

And you must be aware that this illusion will be spoiled on a software DVD player, because a mouse-over will not trigger the auto-activate function.

Good luck,
-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Some questions:

1. What are your project settings in Pr?
2. What are your export settings in Pr?

(NB: for 1 and 2, please be as exact and complete as possible)

3. What are your Encore project settings?
4. What transcode settings are being used by Encore for your Pr clips?
5. Have you burned a DVD-RW or a BD-RE and tested how things look on a hardware player?

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Then the answer is that the TV (or TVs) need to be properly calibrated. TVs ship from the manufacturer too blue and too bright. The reason they do that is to attract attention in the bright showrooms of big electronics stores.

Fix your TV and you will fix your problem. Unfortunately, you have no control over how your audience will have their TVs set up.

Hollywood directors have had to deal with this forever. THX and ISF exist as a partial solution to this problem.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

[Christopher Schrader] “The most noticeable problem is that everything is way too bright. And it seems to be more than just the way brightness and contrast is set on a particular television bc it happened on all of them”

Is the computer monitor that you used for the comparison the same monitor that you used to edit the video and author the DVD, as well as view the finished disc? Is it properly calibrated?

[Christopher Schrader] “Am I transcoding this file twice? Once when I export the MPGEG from Premiere and again when Encore burns the DVD? I also thought Encore knew how to select the highest quality without running out of room on whichever DVD you were burning to but there always looks to be quite a bit of space left on the disc.”

Encore’s Automatic Transcoding only works on non-transcoded footage like .avi or .mov files. Once you transcode a DVD-legal MPEG file in Premiere, Encore leaves it alone and trusts your judgment on file size and bit rate. Better to export from Pr as an .avi file and let Encore handle the transcoding to MPEG2.

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Did you try to add copy protection or region coding to the disc? Neither of those will work with burned discs. They are only for mastering discs that will be replicated from a glass master.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Jeff Bellune]

Try building a disc image, then burning the image with ImgBurn. Play it on a hardware DVD player and then post back with the results.

I don’t trust VLC or Nero to play back the DVD or to burn the DVD properly.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0