[Tim Kurkoski]

You can import EDL files in Premiere Pro 1.5, but not with 1.0.

[Tim Kurkoski]

So if I have a play list the user can skip to the next chapter and that would be the next timeline?

It depends on the DVD player that is being used. What a play list does is connect multiple timelines. When using the “next chapter” button on the remote, some DVD players will skip to the end of the video stream (timeline). Other DVD players do nothing. This behavior isn’t defined by the DVD spec, so different manufacturers implement it differently.

A common workaround for this is to put a chapter marker at the end of each timeline (within the last second or so), so that if the user does make a chapter jump, it’s only a short delay before the next timeline begins.

Note that in any case, the “previous chapter” button will NOT return them to the previous segment.

[Tim Kurkoski]

I was able to duplicate the behavior, and did some experimentation to find the answer. This has to do with how Premiere Pro’s rendering order works. This is from the help file (under “Adjusting Opacity”):

Rendering order affects how opacity interacts with visual effects. The Video Effects list is rendered first, then geometric effects such as Motion are rendered, and then alpha channel adjustments are applied. Within each effects group, effects are rendered from the top down in the list. Because Opacity is in the Fixed Effects list, it renders after the Video Effects list. If you want opacity to render earlier or later than certain effects, or if you want to control additional opacity options, apply the Alpha Adjust video effect (see Applying and controlling Standard effects).

In effect, what this means is that the Screen key effect is processed before the opacity keyframes are. The end result is that the frames for the top clip (the one with Screen applied) are processed before the lower clips are processed, so the full strength opacity of the lower clips are used in the Screen key calculations.

I tried using the Alpha Adjust effect as suggested, but it didn’t help. That’s because the opacity adjusted clips are lower in the timeline, the Screen effect is still calculated first.

There are a couple of workarounds I found, though:
* Pre-render your opacity adjusted clips out to an AVI file, then replace the original clips with the AVI.
OR
* Place a black video matte below the opacity adjusted clips. You may need to add a video track and push everything else up a track.

I’m not quite sure why the second one works, as that goes against the logic of what the help file says. My only conclusion is possibly that when the Screen effect is being calculated, it looks at the accumulated opacity of the rest of the sequence, but doesn’t take the default “black background” into effect. Adding the black matte forces the effect to calculate the opacity of other clips on top of it. Just a guess.

(To answer some folks’ question: Yes, I tried nesting the opacity adjusted effects in a second sequence, but that doens’t help. Premiere Pro’s rendering order behaves like AE when the “collapse transformations” switch is turned on for a nested comp; it doesn’t render one sequence before the other.)

[Tim Kurkoski]

If it’s going to work at all, the codec needs to be installed so Windows can recognize it. Putting the codec files into the Premiere folder won’t do anything for you.

What problems are you encountering specifically? Premiere Pro operates quite differently from the previous versions, and it’s possible that this codec may no longer be compatible. But there may still be a solution. Please provide more detail on what is happening. The exact steps you are taking and any error messages that occur will be helpful.

[Tim Kurkoski]

Assets must be DVD-ready when you import them into Encore (save for whether or not they’re MPEG-2, which Encore can transcode to). That means they must be the correct dimensions and frame rate, etc. I’m not familiar with Cinemacraft, but I fully expect that they have preset options for encoding to standard NTSC (720×480, 29.97) and PAL (720×576, 25) dimensions and frame rates. This shouldn’t be a problem coming from Avid.

Out of curiosity, what dimensions and frame rate are you using now?

[Tim Kurkoski]

Encore doesn’t support any web links, much less e-mail address links.

You can use Sonic eDVD to add links to your DVD. A less expensive workaround is to include an HTML on the DVD, and either hope that the user finds it, or put a message with it’s location into one of your menus.

[Tim Kurkoski]

You really need the full version of Photoshop. Photoshop Elements doesn’t allow you to open layer sets, which is how Encore organizes menu elements like buttons. Elements does show the contents of a layer set, and you can edit them to a limited degree, but you can’t use the Layers palette to dissect the contents of the layer set.

If you’re content editing your buttons in Encore, then you may be able to get away with using Elements for other work, like editing the backgrounds. If you’re serious about editing your menus, though, get Photoshop CS (or CS2, when it comes out).

[Tim Kurkoski]

All you need to do to include data files in your Encore project is go to the Disc tab in your Project window, then in the DVD-ROM Content box, click the Browse button. Choose the folder and you’re done. It doesn’t even have to be named Jacket_P (that’s only necessary if you want to include the jacket data for enabled DVD players/software).