[Tim Kurkoski]

Encore can re-transcode anything you need it to. Just right-click on the file in the Project window, choose Transcode Settings, and pick a preset. If you want to make your own preset, choose File > Transcode > Edit Transcode Presets.

You can’t change the bitrate on a DV camera, it’s locked. Even if you could, it wouldn’t matter, because the bitrate only becomes important when the video is transcoded to MPEG-2.

The best way to change the bitrate would be to go back to your source video files or editing application (depending on when and how you transcoded to MPEG-2) and re-transcode using a new setting. As for the files from your friend with the Mac, in the best possible scenario you could ask him to re-transcode his files, but if that’s not possible then Encore can do it for you. Going from 8Mb to 7Mb shouldn’t cause much quality loss.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Thanks for the clarification, Bill. One question that still needs answering- what type of file did you create from Audition?

More info on master tracks: Each sequence in Premiere Pro can have only one master track, and you can’t change how many channels the track has after it’s created. By default, you probably started your project with a stereo master track.

So what you need to do is create a new sequence. File > New > Sequence. It will give you some settings options, including what kind of master track to use.

Now drop your 5.1 track into the sequence. If you still don’t hear it playing back as expected, you may need to set up the audio channels in Premiere’s preferences. Edit > Preferences > Audio Hardware. If your sound card is listed under the Input/Output Device menu, choose it. If not, leave it on “Adobe Default Windows Sound”. Then play with the icons in the 5.1 column to assign them to the correct channels on your audio card. Depending on the card, this may or may not be the most obvious thing, but keep playing with it and you should be able to figure it out.

[Tim Kurkoski]

It sounds like you may have reversed where to apply the end actions and overrides.

The normal end actions of the timelines should be to each other. End Action of Timeline 1 = Timeline 2, End Action of Timeline 2 = Timeline 3. This sets up the “play all” behavior.

The overrides are applied to the buttons to play the individual sgements. Button for timeline 1 override = menu, button for timeline 2 = menu, etc.

If you already have it set up correctly, it may be time to break the project down a bit. Turn off all overrides. Verify that clicking the Play All button will play all. Then verify that clicking each individual timeline plays that timeline, then commits the end action you’ve assigned to that timeline (which, as per above, should be that it continues to play the other timelines). Once you’ve verified that the project functions as it should without overrides applied, then add them.

One final thought- are you using Encore 1.0 or 1.5? 1.5 has the Playlist function, which rendered my tutorial obsolete (it was written for Encore 1.0). You can use that instead to quickly set up a “play all” list.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Hmmm… okay, Bill, I just re-read your original post. Are you saying that when you drop the clip into the timeline, it goes into a stereo track and not a 5.1 track? How did you encode the audio out of Audition?

[Tim Kurkoski]

Your sequence needs to have a 5.1 master audio track. You can create a new sequence if necessary and nest your current sequence inside of that. Or simply copy and paste your clips into the new sequence.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Afraid not. Easiest way is to go back to your editing application and export individual segments from there.

[Tim Kurkoski]

That’s exactly what you need to do- each chapter must become it’s own timeline. There’s no way for Encore to tell the DVD to “stop playing at the end of this chapter”.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Jeff-

The first way you did it was the right way. However, what you need to do is turn off the visibility of any non-highlight layers.

All that a button requires is one or more highlight layers- the layers with (=1), etc. in the name. You don’t have to have anything that shows up normally; for all intents and purposes your buttons can be invisible (this is how “easter egg” buttons are created!).

The problem you had the first time is that you had some text that was visible in the buttons, and that’s going to show up before the loop point as well as after.

Here’s a real simple test to demonstrate what I’m talking about:
1. Create a new menu in Photoshop.
2. On this menu, add two lines of text. “Button 1” and “Button 2”, or whatever.
3. Put each button into it’s own layer set, and name the layer sets as Encore buttons: (+)Button1, (+)Button2.
4. Rename the text layers so that they are highlight layers instead. (=1)Button 1, (=1)Button 2.
5. Save the PSD file, then import it into Encore as a menu.

Preview the menu, and notice how while the buttons are there, they don’t show up until they are highlighted (or until you press the “show subpicture highlights” button at the bottom of the menu editor window). If you want, add a motion background to this menu, and see how it works then.

All this comes from using buttons that only have highlight layers in them, and no layers otherwise that are visible. It sounds like you’ve already got some PSD files going for your menu, all you should need to do for that is turn off the visibility of any non-highlight layers.

If this still isn’t clear, it might help if you watched the video “Highlight Colors: The Low-Down on Subpictures” at the Adobe Evangelists site:
https://www.adobeevangelists.com/encore/index.html

[Tim Kurkoski]

There’s no way to change this, Duane. Encore numbers your timelines in the order you create them. (Since Encore has no explicit setting for this, it is a logical way to do it.)

BTW, not all DVD players will skip to the previous timeline when you press the “previous chapter” button on your remote. Timelines (aka video streams, or video objects in true DVD parlance) are entirely different beings than chapters, and using the next/prev chapter buttons to go between them is not something defined by the DVD specificiation. Some DVD players will allow you to use the buttons to jump between timelines but not all do, so when you distribute your DVDs I wouldn’t count on it working on everybody’s machine.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Remember that the background video doesn’t contain any buttons, so you have to design the actual button functionality somewhere. You can do it in Photoshop or in Encore. (The usual workflow is to start in Photoshop, design all your buttons and the background they’ll sit over, then take the whole thing into After Effects where you animate the background. In Encore, you combine the buttons in the original PSD with the motion background.)

Your buttons don’t need to have any visible content, you can create buttons that contain only highlight layers- the ones with the (=1), (=2), and (=3) prefixes. These layers only show up when the user selects a button, so all you need to do is match their shapes to the areas in your motion menu you want to highlight. Or not even that (nobody said your buttons have to highlight something on screen); you could just create new shapes that only appear when the button is selected. It’s up to you.

Regarding your second question, the only way to do it is to create two menus- one with the intro and one that starts from your current loop point. Linking to a motion menu will always start it at the beginning, not at the loop point.