Encore CS4 Bluray authoring
 

Is anyone using it?

How do the subtitles and pop up menus work for Bluray?

Can you now do high definition slideshows?

I am curious if there is a significant improvement from Encore CS3

It seems like not very many are using Encore for Bluray.

I am, but in CS3. I don't expect there are many with CS4 yet.

Tutorials for Encore (including pop-up menu) and many other CS4 products here:

http://tv.adobe.com/?trackingid=EEMVW#ch+How%20To

Hi David, I just started using Encore CS4 for Mac. Have only authored some test burns on BD-RE with great success, but haven't authored any with menus yet. I never had Encore CS3 for the Mac. Last version I've used was CS2 on the PC.

I've been using CS4 since December 2008 with the specific purpose of Authoring Blu-ray discs from my Sony EX3 footage. Completed two HD 1080/60i projects, one 20 minutes in length (25GB) and the second three hours plus slideshows (50GB). I created custom motion menus and buttons for both projects--a bit of a learning curve but very good results.

CS4 bring "dynamic linking" which a real time saver for building menus and debugging them. It works with Photoshop and After Effects. This feature alone is worth CS4 ticket. I came from CS3 and had limited success with Encore CS3 HD projects.

I managed the Encore learning curve with Lynda.com's "Encore CS4 Essential Training". I could not have built custom menus and motion menus without this training. The HD Slideshows were very easy to generate. At the end of the day, the customer was blown away with quality of the Sony EX3 and the four copies of 50GB Blu-ray discs for his project. To my eye Encore CS4 is transparent to the EX3 footage. I used 35Mb/s, 1080/60i encoding.

I'm working on a MacPro with Leopard and have a Sony BWU-200S 4x burner. So far I stayed with Panasonic Blu-ray 4x media. I had limited success burning 50GB discs and it seems to me that Sony 2nd generation laser may be short on power. Sony has since come out with the BWU-300S. However based on reviews and user experience, I am more inclined to move to the Pioneer BDR-203BK.

Cheers!

I am using in now as well. Seems to work pretty well for the most part. I am having some problems with subtitles. They show up on first play, but once the movie has been fast forwarded they no longer show up. I have had that problem with multiple different projects.

Motion menus and Pop up menus are working.

Hi David

So are most of your projects Blu-ray or SD?

I am using Encore CS4 to author DVD and BD output. From my experience, CS3 does not support Subtitle track as well as Popup menu. CS4 fixes them. CS3 also creates a lot more junk cached files than in CS4.

This is my work flow.

- Use procoder to convert the same video to mpeg2 for DVD and mpeg-2 for Bluray (Encore is really flaky when working on H.264 files).
- Start Encore to create a BD project. Do everything except the BluRay popup menu. Then quit encore
- Copy the entire Encore project folder to a new one for DVD authoring
- Open the new project and use the Replace Asset command to replace all mpeg files to the DVD version. Then export the DVD
- Test the DVD to see if there's anything to change. Then open back the first Encore project to finish the Popup menu and export Bluray.
- use ImgBurn to burn the DVD/BLuRay

I have the Bluray popup menu you can download from my blog L.A. Color Shop Blog | BluRay Popup Menu

Taky,

Thanks for sharing your workflow.

It looks like you found a way to keep the chapter points for both Blu-ray & DVD.

I will try this as it saves a lot of time.

Will it work if I start with a DVD project and go in reverse to replace assets with Blu-ray assets?

I use Edius and Imgburn as well.

Tim,

The reason I go from BluRay to DVD is this. Although Adobe said the Encore project can be set to BluRay or DVD anytime in the FIle, Project Settins menu, I sometime can only change the DVD project to BluRay but keeping the 720x480 aspect ratio. The option is grey out and can't be changed.

But I can always change from Bluray project to DVD project. That's why I do it this way.

Another trick is, Adobe AME can export chapter points from Premiere Timeline. So I can set all the chapter point in Premiere. Then export a very low resolution MPEG-2 DVD files. When Import to Encore, all the chapter marks will be in place. THen I use the replace asset command to replace the HQ mpeg files I created using Procoder

Can you see the HD files in HD on the timeline in the monitor?

I am having trouble seeing the HD when i click the timeline in the monitor

I've been using Encore CS4 and now CS5 for well over a year running on a BOXX Tech 4850 PC, i7 overclocked at 4G, NVidia Quadro CX, etc. first on Vista Ultimate and now WIN7 Ultimate, with output first directly from the SxS cards on a Sony EX1, and now from nanoFlash, 100 Mbps, Long GOP, and successfully
burning ONLY BD-R (Verbatim, of course), all, well, almost all 1080x1920 30p, except for menus (PopDrops - boy are they easy!) in 720x480.

Had impossibility ingesting MPEG2 already preencoded with AME into Encore CS4, so brought avi wrapped into CS4 and then encoded with AME successfully. Everything then successful.

After switching to nanoFlash (what awesome 4:2:2, artifacts reduced to almost invisibility, etc!!!!), had horrific
issues attempting to edit in both Premiere CS4 and CS5 (CS5 audio isn't ready for nano files yet, and that may
not be all!), and without going into gory details (boring and dull!), finding it impossible to edit audio from nanoFlash, bit the bullet, and am now editing with no issues (except being a complete beginner in it) am now editing nanoFlash 100 Mbps, Long GOP with Vegas Pro 8, exporting wrapped avi (good grief, overnight!), encoding in MPEG2 in AME, and setting up with Encore CS5 - beautiful BDs. As Bugs Bunny used to say,
"That's All Folks!".

I put together a sample CS4 BluRay Popup menu template you can download. I have been using them in production
BluRay Popup Menu | L.A. Color Blog

also the Bluray insert template
BluRay Case Insert Template for Download | L.A. Color Blog