Joe Bowden
Forum Replies Created
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If it’s a 4:3 menu, make it 720×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9 (there’s a preset for this in Photoshop beginning with Photoshop CS1).
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Save the file in Photoshop, then close it. Return to Encore and you will see the update.
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Sure, import your video as a timeline, and then burn to Blu-ray – there would be no menus, just a timeline that loads up and plays when the disc is inserted.
That’s the easiest way.
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Blu-ray supports all SD video content except 23.976 fps. Simply import the asset, put it into its own timeline and you should be all set.
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[Stephen Lubin] ” Is there any way to fix this problem? “
Highly doubtful. Encore 2.0 and 1.5 both came out several years before Vista. Someone may have a hack that works, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Better to either upgrade your version of Encore, or downgrade your operating system to WinXP – if you want to use Encore.
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Image files will yield the same result: it’s the fact that in DVD-Video, the subpicture layer is a 2 bit indexed color space. That means it’s incapable of anti-aliasing (as we know it), nor shadows, glows, etc.
You can make it a bit more pleasing by using strokes with lower opacity, but whatever you do it won’t look as smooth as computer text.
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A preface followed by overwhelmingly contradictory opinion and conclusion is simply a fig leaf – nothing more.
And yes, I think we must use different versions of Encore CS4. Somehow, my version works. That couldn’t be because I understand the application, could it?
And your last point is rather disingenuous. I said nothing about flying buttons into a motion menu – which is an illusion, by the way (the buttons are always present) – I disagreed with your assertion that Encore should be hiding text layers by default when you convert them to buttons.
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[Marc Brown] “With all due respect, I did preface by saying these were my experiences alone. “
Yes, you did preface it that way. And then in the remainder of your post made it quite clear editorially that you considered these Encore issues. And some are, and others may be. But many are not.
[Marc Brown] “For a specific example, load up a menu in Photoshop, make a few layers invisible, save it, and import that into Encore.”
I just tried it, and several different ways. But no crash for me. I’ve done this sort of things hundreds of times, and never had a problem. Am I unique?
[Marc Brown] “Simple. Encore’s own default color scheme for buttons has the non-highlighted opacity at 0%. This strongly implies that the developers of Encore knew that a user’s typical desire for buttons would be to have them invisible when they are not highlighted or activated. But this foresight is defeated if the very pixels utilized by the buttons are, by default, drawn over by text. “
You’re talking about the Normal state for buttons? The highlight layer is 0% by default in the Normal state, so you can see all the pixels…that’s the point. Invisible buttons when not selected might be one method of authoring a menu (it’s one that I would never use – how does the user know what to do if there’s not a clear indication of where the buttons are?), but it’s not the sole or even a common method. Check any Hollywood DVD for a clear indication of how to indicate button status. The conclusion you draw (“the developers of Encore knew that a user’s typical desire for buttons would be to have them invisible when they are not highlighted or activated”) from your expectation for this feature is deeply flawed.
[Marc Brown] “Point 8 can be tested. “Transcode now” an asset. “Save as” the project to a new name. Exit. Restart. Load newly-named project. Investigate transcode status of previously transcoded asset.”
I just tried that. It’s transcoded.
[Marc Brown] “None of the various selection tools were able to find the buttons, I assure you.”
I can assure you with complete confidence that you are mistaken. Buttons on menus do not get lost.
[Marc Brown] “If we want to carry it that far, then obviously the true solution would be for Encore to give the user control over what gets muxed / burned in what order.”
I agree with you here. This would be a good feature. But my first reply to this point was to demonstrate that you don’t have to restart your project to customize stream order. I disagree that following the Flowchart is the way to order streams, since navigation hierarchy does not necessarily produce the desired stream order. It would be better to allow users (those that care, that is) to easily set stream order at any time.
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Wow. There’s so much misinformation in that post, I feel I must specifically address some of the “observations”:
[Marc Brown] “2: Encore has difficulty importing menus saved from Photoshop, generally resulting in a crash, or, when import is successful, abnormalities tend to abound, such as buttons which are there but aren’t.
A: Avoid importing menus modified in external software.”Encore has no difficulty in importing menus from Photoshop, and never has. That’s Encore’s main strength – full support for Photoshop file structure for menu creation. I’ve made literally thousands of menus in Photoshop (no exaggeration), and have never had a problem with them in Encore. There is no DVD authoring tool that has better support for Photoshop than Encore – because there’s a Photoshop “engine” in Encore. Any crashing you saw in this error was likely a system problem of some kind, and not a common problem.
[Marc Brown] “4: Encore does not automatically turn off the text graphics layer upon conversion of text to button.
A: This must be done manually, once the Layers tab is located.”Why should Encore automatically turn off visibility when you convert a text layer to a button? I wouldn’t want that. Your use case is one of dozens, and it shouldn’t govern button creation behavior.
Your points 7, 8, 9, and 10 are all really the same thing – transcoding status. And I’ve never seen any of them.
[Marc Brown] “15: Encore seems to have difficulty accepting chapter points, even when the asset was transcoded by Encore with chapter points specified at the time. About half of the chapter points end up 15 frames too early. There also doesn’t seem to be any means within Encore of identifying whether a given frame in a “transcoded” or “don’t transcode” asset (say, for a chapter point) is an i-frame.
A: Too late and too tired to care anymore.”Wrong. As long as the asset is not MPEG-2 or H.264, you can set the chapter point anywhere and Encore will retain it as long as any previous and next chapter points are more than 1/2 second away. When Encore transcodes the file, the GOP will be created on the chapter point set.
If the asset is MPEG-2 or H.264, then the chapter has to be on a GOP. That could be up to 1/2 second away from where you set it, which is what you’re describing.
[Marc Brown] “16: Encore’s menu buttons frequently get lost; one is unable to click them for details.
A: Clicking the button routing ..button will bring them to the foreground, returning them to clickable status.”Wrong again. Buttons never “get lost”. There are two different selection tools: one selects only buttons, and the other selects all other layers. You obviously were using the wrong selection tool. Your “answer” happens to be one of Encore’s behaviors – it switches to the Button Select tool when you click the Button Routing button.
[Marc Brown] “17: Encore is very fond of undergoing a particular process called menu rendering. This process takes a long time, as it generates an MPEG2 version of one’s motion menu, regardless of one’s encode settings (AVC, for example). Encore unavoidably performs this process prior to any disc build. It is unknown whether this MPEG2 render is then utilized in some fashion in the disc build. “
Encore renders a motion menu only if there are visible layers and something changes in the menu (e.g., repositioned a layer, scaled, edited text, etc.). You obviously did one of these things to change the menu before building. All Encore motion menus are MPEG-2 – I think that’s in Encore’s documentation.
[Marc Brown] “18: Encore does not burn streams to disc in the order in which they appear in one’s flowchart. Instead, it burns in the order in which the timelines / menus were created.
A: Care must be taken when importing assets. (Example: One may have an intro, prior to their menu, but if this intro was imported or created last, it will be burned last.) Or else, if the position of data on a disc is important, one may need to completely restart their project.”Encore burns streams in the order in which timelines were created, with the exception of the Main Timeline disc property, which will always be the first stream written to the disc. There’s no need to restart your project if the streams aren’t in the order you want. Instead, duplicate the timelines in the order you want them, and then delete the old timelines. You will of course have to relink your buttons and perhaps other objects, but that’s a lot quicker than recreating your entire project.
There are certainly times when an author would like the stream order to match what’s in the Flowchart, but again, that’s not the only use case, and the Flowchart isn’t the ideal method for this anyway, since DVD navigation hierarchy is not timeline-only.
Now, I didn’t address all of your observations because I don’t have time to check all of them at this time. Some of the unaddressed may be valid, and if so, specific to Blu-ray authoring. All of the obervations (excepting Flowchart issue 11, which is easy enough to work around and certainly does keep one from using the Flowchart as a feature) do not occur in DVD authoring from Encore.
So in the end, if the goal was accuracy for future users, then it’s important that facts are presented – not newbie errors and misunderstandings that could have been avoided by reading the fine manual.
I hope this reply helps future users who stumble across your post.
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Add the files to the ROM content of the disc. You do this in the Build panel.