[Paul Benson]

Hi John,
I had looked at some of your offerings earlier. They look great and I can tell a lot of time was put on them. I am really impressed with the seamless video transitions. I’m not asking for your trade secrets, but I am trying to figure out how that is done. Watching the promo reel, at 44 seconds it looks like you are able to go from the main page to the scene selections, with the main page video still running. Whenever I do a menuscreen change, even with transitions, I can’t keep the original video continuously running. I may just have to buy one of your packages to see how that is done.
Also, I think I remember the promos used to have actual video content instead of the ‘gray input area’.
Finally, what software is needed to fully take advantage of your packages? It looks like AE and Encore. I have the full suite, so it is not an issue for me, but what if someone just had Encore, what could they do?

Thanks,
Paul

[Paul Benson]

I’m thinking you are running into anti-aliasing issues. The jaggies are being caused by your magic wand cutting off hard instead of feathering in the shades of gray.

If John’s response meets your needs then ignore the rest of this.

Ideally, I think you would want to copy your gray scale image and paste it into a layer mask. Unfortunately, I could not figure out a way to do that directly (which is interesting), so try this:

– Go to your Channels tab.
– Ctrl-click on any of the layers so that a new selection is made.
– Go back to your Layers tab.
– Create a new layer (this should be 100% transparent)
– Click on the add layer mask button (this should use your selection to create a layer mask).
– Use the paint bucket to fill your new layer with black (there should be no active selection at this time, so the entire layer will be black, but the mask will show your original shape).
– This is inverted, which is what it seemed like you wanted. If you need to, then click on the mask and invert the mask by hitting Ctrl-I.

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

Thanks Jim, but that is grayed out, too. Based upon your email I tried again and even applied a trace to the picture. Since it was ‘Live’ I thought I may be able to then access the options panel. No luck, still grayed out. The only options in that drop list are ‘Release’, ‘Expand’, ‘Expand as Viewed’, and ‘Convert to Live Paint’.

<15 minutes have passed since I wrote the above>

I did get it to eventually activate. When I Place a graphic in the document, then I get the Tracing Options to appear. When I Paste a graphic into the document, then it is grayed out.

Not sure why it treats those differently. Thanks again for your response.

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

Just some other possibilities…
– Are you viewing at 100% scale? Sometimes zooms other than 100% show banding that is not really there.
– Are you using a ‘cheap’ flatscreen monitor? Trying a different display (especially CRT) may show the gradient differently.
– Since you saw improvement by changing the bit depth, this one may not be relevant, but make sure your video card settings are set to max bit depth.

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

Thanks Allen,
it makes sense, but then I have been working with it for some time. I was just curious how to convert it in the event there was an elegant solution to keep in the back of my head for future use. Your answer was perfect.

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

I’m curious. How did you change the pixel aspect size? Did you have to convert it or was it a simple data override?

Thanks,
Pauley

[Paul Benson]

What you are experiencing is certainly strange. The fact that your menu shows up implies there is a player, but it should not be launching a separate WMP.

When the menu is showing, open up your Task Manager and look in the Applications tab. Let us know what app it says is displaying the menu screen.

What does this disk do in a normal DVD player?

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

If it is the exact same spot in each frame, then I think you can create an action. Did you try? Use the select tool and then delete the selection. I tried something like this once while playing around and achieved something like this. Not sure how ‘tricky’ you can get (like using the same path as a selection, or something like that).

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

It is also called H.264. But you don’t have to worry about it. It is all configured for you when you choose the YouTube preset. I am away from my system for the holidays, so I can’t remember the specifics. When you get to the Export Settings Dialog Box choose the format you want (I can’t remember exactly. Could be HDV, or MP4, or H.264). Anyway, then the options in the preset list will change and one of them is definitely YouTube (along with Yahoo and others). Just keep trying the different formats until YouTube shows up in the preset list.

Pauley

[Paul Benson]

Each core is a separate CPU. Realize, however, that very few programs are written to truly take advantage of multiple CPUs. You can also click on the Performance tab in the Task Manager. In the CPU usage history, you will see a separate window for each CPU.

Pauley