[Tim Kurkoski]

The bitrate you choose will depend on how long your video is. Use a bitrate table or bitrate calculator to figure out what bitrate to use. Here are a few links:

https://www.video2stream.com/using_the_adobe_mpeg_encoder.htm
https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm
https://dvd-hq.info/Calculator.html

[Tim Kurkoski]

Did you create an alpha channel in the Targa files? Try using the Interpret Footage dialog in Premiere Pro to ignore the alpha channel.

[Tim Kurkoski]

What happens if you set one of your other videos to first play. Just as a test.

If that fails, too, I’d suspect something wrong with the project. Try starting a new one and rebuilding and see if that helps.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Can’t say that I’ve seen the problem you’re having, but I’ll try to help anyway…

Yes, it could be your video card, though I doubt it. Are you keeping your drivers up to date?

The problem is more likely with the 10-bit BlackMagic codec. Encore wasn’t especially designed to handle anything over an 8-bit MPEG or AVI file. What’s happening is that when Encore tries to update the monitor window with the subtitle overlaying on top of the video, something in calculating the 10-bit data is failing.

My recommendation would be for you to transcode your video to MPEG-2 before you import it into Encore. That should bypass the problem entirely, and also get the transcoding step done and out of the way.

[Tim Kurkoski]

I did a test with a stand alone Burner and:
The bad clip plays fine on a DVD I burned to a stand alone DVD burner.

Can you clarify what this means? Did you burn a video DVD or did you just burn the QT file to a data DVD-ROM?

In any case, a likely cause of your problem is the bitrate you’re transcoding the file at. One of the side effects of MPEG encoding is that motion will get stuttery if the bitrate falls too low. Try using a higher bitrate and see if that helps.

[Tim Kurkoski]

You can’t do web-style rollovers like you’re describing on a DVD. When you roll over a button, the highlights are limited to three colors. Each color is defined by the content of the =1, =2, and =3 layers of the button in Encore.

In your case, the outline you’re seeing is probably happening because Encore needs to determine what parts of your color image are bright enough to be shown.

Much of this is explained in Dan Brown’s video on highlight colors:
https://www.adobeevangelists.com/encore/index.html

There is a way to work around this limitation, though it’s a little messy. Search this forum for “rollover” and you should find the old posts describing it.

[Tim Kurkoski]

What type of video file are you using? If you’re using an AVI rendered out of Premiere with the “Optimize Stills” option on, that could be the cause.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Two questions:

1. Are you choosing “Edit in Photoshop” when the Menu Editor window is active, or are you selecting a file in the Project window?

2. Are you closing the menu after you save it in Photoshop?

[Tim Kurkoski]

Since we’re all volunteers here, Josh, if we don’t know the answer or even have any clue as to what to tell you, we’re not likely to respond.

Have you posted your problem on the forums at Adobe’s web site? I don’t know what the community is like on the Encore forum specifically, but for their other products the community is often quite helpful. Also, have you checked Adobe’s knowledgebase?

All that being said… when you say “plenty of memory”, how much is plenty? Always be specific when talking about your hardware. One man’s “plenty” often ends up being another man’s “What, are you crazy? I wouldn’t lie to my mother for that much!”

Have you shut down all (all) unnecessary tasks? Anti-virus, system utilities, chat programs, network connection, scanners, etc. There’s a general troubleshooting document about this sort of thing on Adobe’s web site, that should be a good starting place for you.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Encore shouldn’t be spending much time encoding as long as you haven’t set it to re-encode the MPEG file (which is possible, check the transcode settings column in the Project window). But if you’re using motion menus, or are doing anything else significant, there will be some rendering involved. Wether or not it should take 3 hours I can’t tell without a better description of the whole project and your computer specs.