[Mike Smith]

If you have any kind of video / audio out to monitor on a TV screen / monitor while you’re editing, couldn’t you put a standalone DVD recorder in that path and just record your playback ..?

[Mike Smith]

Hi Dan

My understanding is that PAL is normally upper-field first except for DV material, which is lower-field first. Or perhaps that should read “normally lower-field first” – Matrox have a DV codec using upper-field first, and there may be others out there.

Hope this helps …

Mike

[Mike Smith]

Hi Alex

Thanks for the interesting info. DVDLab Pro looks worth exploring – I’m a little concerned though that the MediaChance website advises (I’m paraphrasing only slightly) not to use it for commercial discs … Do you have knowledge / experience of its use to author discs then widely distributed on either pressed discs or DVD-Rs (the situation I’m in for corporate material)?

It would be great to get as much “power” and configurability as possible – alongside discs that will play back on as wide a spectrum of players as possible. Scenarist is out of reach for me on budget I think, and to get DVDStudioPro would mean a new Mac as well – quite an investment. Currenly I have Encore, and have had some jobs done outside (quite an expense, which I’d like to save by keeping in-house.

I would like something better if I can afford it – the ability to write to / use variables should open up some possibilities – but the issue of discs not playing on client players will remain a big one. Is this primarily an authoring software issue, do you think, or is it more to do with the MPEG encoding …?

I’ve seen it suggested that REELDVD produces a Scenarist-style layout and very widely-playable discs … any thoughts?

Thanks / Mike

[Mike Smith]

Hi Yves

Yes, in PPro. I’ve tried capturing quicktime DV files, which works – but they don’t edit well in PPro. Apart from not playing out from the timeline in DV avi projects, there is also some sort of colour shift that occurs going in and out of dissolves or other effects.

What would be nice – a seamless workflow, capturing from Decklink or Firewire into a DV format – good enough for nearly all of the corporate work that I do – so that clips from either type of source can be edited and played back directly, without a render stage …

Of course if there’s a software editor that offers that today on Decklink (and not TOO costly) then that would be worth exploring. I’m not aware of anything that does that.

From here, it seems the neat solution would be for the decklink to offer capture into DV avi – using codecs already on the system or from whereever. If the system is fast enough to read the incoming Decklink files and compress them on the fly, then we’d be in business … or am I missing something?

Mike

[Mike Smith]

Hi Luke

A specific feature that would help me a lot would be the ability to capture in Decklink Extreme / Windows into a DV format – so that Betacam material (mostly archive now) can be easily incorporated into DVCAM projects. At present this involves a messy capture and recompress process, slowing editing no end – and many projects do involve sourcing from multiple formats, including firewire as well as Decklink formats.

An alternative would be the ability to mix DV and BM compressed material on the same timiline.

Paying extra for a third party DV codec if needed shouldn’t be a big issue, if the Microsoft DV codec can’t be used for some reason. I gather MainConcept’s codec is around $50 or so and is reported to produce good results.

Some kind of interface in the capture process allowing for selection of codecs existing / accessible on the capture machine would do the job. No need to worry about compatibility on transfer out: it would no doubt mostly go out as tape or Mpeg2 file, and anyway would be up to the user to ensure playback compatibility for her/his output ..

Thanks.

Mike

[Mike Smith]

Thanks. I don’t think there’s any way I can come up with of using rgb-separated layers in Encore, so I guess this line is dead for me for now ..sadly.

[Mike Smith]

It looks like menu response can be quite slick.

Another concern here thought is auto activation apparently not working in software DVD players (thread above) when selection is by mouse – as it quite often will be for people using a computer for DVD playback. I need to look into this more I think.

Plan C might involve a Photoshop action to separate a desired graphic layer into three layers – r, g, and b at a guess, using colour value and transparency to get a full colour image / the right result … naming the three layers with the (=1) (=2) (=3) convention … setting the colour set accordingly …. it might work. Anyone know if such an Action is out there, or is this a DIY experiment?

My recollection is that Minerva Impression allowed fast, slick use of alternate graphic images for highlighting, more in a web/rollover style … so it must be possible.

Any more ideas …?

[Mike Smith]

Thanks David.

Now I can get buttons to autoactivate, and see the results in the Encore preview – just so long as they are selected via the simulated remote, or via the arrow keys.

Selection of a button via the mouse does not result in the button then auto-activating …

Am I missing something obvious here, or is this “normal”. And if normal, how does that work out for people using software players to view a DVD disc on a computer – does auto-activation not work for them if they use the mouse to select / roll over buttons ..?

Thanks for all input.

Mike

[Mike Smith]

Well that seemed like an idea … so why can’t I get auto activate to work with buttons AT ALL just now … any thoughts? Anyone actually have auto activate working ok, and spotted some silly errors I might be making ..?

I guess I’ll repost this as a new topic – in case it’s missed down here.

[Mike Smith]

Hi Jeffrey

That’s how it reads in the manual, isn’t it. Strange, in that other authoring tools allow for what you want to do. Encore seems to have stuck very closely to the DVD Forum formats and definitions, and is using the very restricted possibilities of the subpicture layer to highlight …

I wonder whether an approach would be to set your button to auto-activate, and have it send you directly to a duplicate menu, but one that features your a copy of your button that uses the highlight layer as the graphic image …?

All best

Mike