Larry Applegate
Forum Replies Created
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The Blu-ray Graphics and Menu layers are much more powerful than DVD, and are capable of frame-rate animations of fairly large graphics, though not not full screen. And with Java, you have even more power. But there are no inexpensive tools yet to tap these capabilities, and even with the high-end tools it is a tremendous amount of work.
Regards,
Larry Applegate
https://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com -
Joe, I have command debugging code called “Tracer” in DVDAfterEdit, and am creating similar code for Blu-ray in an unreleased BluStreak product. With these tools you can execute the abstraction commands one at a time and watch the general and system parameters change.
I have examined every command in my Encore test projects, there is no GPRM (register) for streams in either DVD or BD. Instead, it immediately executes a setStream command which sets a system register.
It happens to work in DVD if you are lucky, because DVD does not change the system registers when executing a track with only one audio or with no subtitles. This behavior may differ on different players. Unfortunately Blu-ray players always wipe out the system registers. For DVD, Encore uses only a total of 2 of the 16 registers. For Blu-ray, it uses seven of the 4096 registers.
Nothing significant has changed from CS3 to CS4, except a small number of navigation bugs were fixed.
Regards,
Larry Applegate
https://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com -
Hi Joe, I think Brecht explained it perfectly in the first post . The method he describes is used for many Hollywood releases, and does not work in Encore for Blu-ray output, and works for DVD only under your suggested restrictions. One problem is that as soon as you navigate to another menu, you lose the audio and subtitle settings, because the menus can have only one audio track and no subtitles.
The reason for the work-arounds you suggest is that Encore does not have the concept of storing the settings in a GPR, as is done in every professional and prosumer authoring application. Encore uses a very simple and limited “abstraction layer” to accomplish its navigation. What we do is modify that abstraction layer to store the stream selections, and apply them every time a timeline is played, comparing what is available in the timeline to the desired setting, and always making a legal selection.
In my test Encore project, Encore used a total of 7 GPR’s for Blu-ray and 2 for DVD. Blu-ray has 4,096 GPR’s and DVD has 16. Obviously there is room for much more capability in Encore.
In our DVDAfterEdit product we allow the user to do spec-authoring directly on the DVD navigation commands. This is actually not as difficult as it sounds, but has limited our audience to those authors willing to do a bit of “programming”.
In BluStreak, we do everything “behind the scenes”, asking the user only to designate which buttons are to be used and for which stream selection.
Regards,
Larry Applegate
https://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com -
Hi Brecht,
We have an upcoming solution for you, though it is not yet released. BluStreak Premaster, and its lite version BluStreak Burner, has a new function we are calling “Quickfix Encore Menus”. With it you open a window which displays all of your menus and buttons, and designate which menu and buttons are to choose each audio and subtitle stream. Then you output or a disc image or burn a disc and the commands are magically fixed for you. So far only for Blu-ray.
Since Encore is the only available Blu-ray authoring application on Macintosh (besides Toast), and it comes up short of being able to produce a professional-quality product, we are taking on the task of trying to fill this void.
Regards,
Larry Applegate
https://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com -
Hi Frank,
it’s odd that you can’t erase the disc and fix it with another of the utilities you mentioned. Have you tried to do that on a Mac with Toast?
We have a Mac burning program also, and would like to try one of your failed discs.
Regards,
Larry
https://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com/
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Hi David,
The Sony replication plants started with their own format, Sony CMF, but they now support the more widely used BDCMF, so that should not be a problem.
Regards,
Larry
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I have Final Cut Sudio 2.0 on the same machine as Adobe Production Bundle CS4. But in Premiere I still can’t find the right codec. How can I install it into Premiere?
Regards,
Larry