Hi,

I have some footage which I edited on Premier Pro CS3 and output to DVD using Encore CS3. The captured footage has its own audio and there's a music track. I'll be adding another audio track which will contain a voice-over.

What I'd like to do, is create the DVD so that the person watching it can chose to watch the footage either *with* the voice-over, or *without* the voice over, but I have no idea how to go about achieving this.

On professional movie DVDs, you generally go to a setup menu and select the "commentary" track and turn it on. That's pretty much what I'm after.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Julian

Hey Julian:

Just saw your post. What you want to accomplish is very doable in Encore. You will have to mix the commentary track with your regular track to create the audio 2 track in Encore prior to authoring the DVD. Dropping the main track by about 15db prior to adding the commentary is a good start. Be sure and watch for clipping, obviously, once the two are mixed together. If you have the time, you can play with levels between "commenting" and not, as that's the "Hollywood DVD way"... but you could also keep the main mix down the whole time, too. Audition is a good tool for this chore, but PPro or Soundbooth can handle it, as well.

Depending upon how fancy you want to get with the menus, you can make a separate menu for the commentary track OR just make a menu button for the track.

Here's a bit of info from Adobe on audio tracks: Adobe Encore CS4 * Audio clips (http://help.adobe.com/en_US/EncoreDVD/4.0/WSbaf9cd7d26a2eabfe807401038582db29-7eb4a.html)

And then how to set the buttons:
Adobe Encore CS4 * Navigation for audio and subtitle tracks (http://help.adobe.com/en_US/EncoreDVD/4.0/WSbaf9cd7d26a2eabfe807401038582db29-7e8ca.html#WSbaf9cd7d26a2eabfe807401038582db29-7e88a)

The differences between Encore CS3 and CS4 are minimal in this regard, so the CS4 help above should work with CS3.

HTH,
Brian

Brian,

As always, that was exactly what I needed! While the instructions do differ a bit from CS4 down to CS3, I was able to follow the general gist and it works like a charm. I have a PPro VST plugin for audio ducking, so when the voice over track is complete (the Fostex FR2 LE is on its way!), I should have no problem creating the commentary track for the video.

Thanks again,

Julian