Yes, that would be annoying.

I just did a search on this topic, and found an explanation on Adobe's user forum FAQ pages. Do a google search for the following phrase:

"Spanning Audio across multiple menus and timelines"

(including the double quotes) and you will be led to the following description:
"Audio is always tied to either a timeline or a menu. Switching menus will always switch the audio as each timeline or menu has it's own Audio stream multiplexed into it."

Again, this seems to be a limitation of the DVD specification, and has nothing to do with specific authoring software products.

Other places discuss possible workarounds, but they all seem to revolve around timing the video and music to make the transition more seemless in some cases.

If you find a workable solution for the chapter submenu pages, by all means please share it with us!

- Martin

Yes Martin I think you're right. Sometimes memory is an inacurate thing.

I just checked a bunch of commercial DVDs of mine and they all stop the music for the chapter selection. Guess it is indeed a limitation of the DVD specs.

bummer.

Encore 2.0 vs. PPRO 2.0 vs. Sorenson 4.5 for DVD Encoding
 

I have Encore 2.0, PPRO 2.0, and Sorenson 4.5... Which is the best to use for encoding DVDs?

Avoid Ppro's Mpeg encoding like the plague. Yuck yuck yuck. I think a lot of people will steer you away from Encore's encoding as well. I use TMPGEnc and love it; I get that crisp picture with zero artifacting that I'm always looking for.

Thanks Ben. I checked out the website and they have numerous products listed. Have you used TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress or do you use a different version?

Yes, TMPGEnc XPress is what I use. Costs like $30 or something.

What's my alternative to Encore 2?
 

Encore 2 keeps crashing during the build phase and frankly I'm tired of rebuilding my DVDs because Adobe won't provide patches to commonly known problems!

I'm producing a DVD that needs to go out to replication on Monday so and I'm looking for another DVD authoring program to get the job done. My project will go on a Dual Layered DVD with motion menus (preferably with seamless transitions.)

I've come across DVD-lab Pro 2.2 and DVDit® 6 Pro. Any thoughts on these? or are there better choices out there? If it's under $500 then I'll consider it.

Thanks in advance!

Personally I would troubleshoot my computer rather than go out and buy another software, then spend the time learning how to use it. As many, if not all digital media related programs, Adobe software is often the victim of conflicts generated by incompatible codecs and/or other programs that configure codecs their own way.

Just my opinion... I also had most of the problems I am reading about on this forum. So I erased my hard drive clean, reinstalled only XP and the drivers and voila, all my problems are gone! No crashes, no slow-downs, the Adobe Suite 1.5 runs like a charm.

Excessive Motion blur in Adobe Encore
 

I just finished a film that I shot at 24p with the XL2. I edited and rendered it as a 24p video file and then I go to make a DVD in encore 2.0 with it and after I import the file, it says that I have to re-transcode it. It gives me 5 or so options for different VBR settings. I have tried the progressive scan 7mb high VBR one and when the disc finishes and I watch it on my TV, there is much more motion blur than there was before. I have burned files at 24p to DVD and never been prompted to re-transcode in the past and they all looked on the TV the way they looked on the computer, which is what I'm going for. Can anyone give me anymore info on this. I need some help because the final version of it is needed in about 24 hours. Thanks.

Mitch

What editing program are you using? What file format are you rendering out from it? What specific settings are you using for that format?

If you want to let Encore DVD handle the encoding and retain the highest quality, make sure to render to an AVI. If you are rendering to MPEG-2 from your NLE, make sure it conforms to the MPEG-2 DVD specs (the Encore DVD help file/manual lists the MPEG-2 specs that the program can import without having to re-encode the file).

So if I output to avi, encore will take care of all additional encoding? I had been outputting to a 24p video file and it came up to re-encode.

Yes, that is correct.

Hello. I recently joined this forum and only just read this thread.

I've been a user of DVDLab since its pre-Pro version days and it is a fantastic piece of software which is stable, intuitive and feature packed. I've had three computers, all with different specs, in the years I've been using DVDLab and am yet to experience a compiling error.

Unlike Encore DVD, support for DVDLab Pro is superb. Bugs will always be the bane of software but in the case of DVDLab, bugfixes appear quickly - even for bugs that might only manifest themselves on a Tuesday in June of a leap year and only then if the planets are in alignment.

DVDLab Pro can author DVD's from the most basic of disc's to disc's which feature complex navigation and branching features seen on so-called Hollywood DVD's.

Encore, like the majority of DVD authoring packages, has always paled in comparison to DVDLab Pro. The feature set is rich and flexible and you can't beat the price (the cost might be cheap but the quality of the software isn't).

I've heard good things about Sony's Vegas DVD that comes with Sony's NLE Vegas Video + DVD but haven't studied up on it; you might like to consider that as it has built-in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding (whereas DVDLab Pro doesn't have native DD support - but will happily accept AC3 tracks created via third-party programmes).

cheers.

Encore DVD Questions
 

Hi

Can anyone help with the following?

1) I have a project, which is set across several motion menus ( 15 chapters wont fit on 1 screen ). I want the background audio track to play continually across them all, without restarting each time I change a menu. Is there a way to do this? All I have at present is the facility for a separate audio track per menu, hence changing menu, in effect restarts the audio track.......

2) I want a carousel effect for the chapters. ie all the chapters appear on the 1 screen, and the user navigates left/right and the relevant chapter comes to the foreground, with the other chapters like in a 3D circle. Any ideas?

Many thanks

Steve

I wanted to do that but found it really can't be done. Each menu has its own "timeline", which means it can't span to another menu. I tried to make a video clip that jogs the menus across the screen but the problem is that you can't:
1: tell when the user will want to jog to the next menu
2: hide or unhide menu links at any given point in time (menu A has to hide its links and show menu B, etc.)

If anyone else out there found a way, please explain every detail of how you did it because I days trying to do this.

-Michael

EDIT: I should point out the this post applies to one continuous menu with a song that won't restart each time you navigate. It IS possible to make menus "move" from one to the next. You have to make transition clips. Email me for more details.