CS3 Encore / Premiere problems
 

Hi, I just installed updates for cs3 and it fried my suite. When i try to export to Encore from premiere i get an error saying "Preset not found" / "error loading default preset" , and when i try to open Encore on its own i get a runtime error and it wont open at all. Anybody know what the problem could be or another way to burn my footage to DVD **(FREE)**?

Not sure I know what **(FREE)** means.

You might want to drill down into your hard drive to find out what's happening with your preset files. Check to see that the one you're using is where it should be. The path is something like Program Files/Adobe.../Encore (or Media Encoder). I don't know exactly since I'm not on a machine with CS3 installed. You should be able to find them pretty easily.

If your preset(s) went pear shaped, you can copy replacements in, if you have them backed up somewhere. I don't, but probably should.

If not, the best thing to do would be to uninstall/reinstall the product(s). I don't know if the presets belong to Premier, Encore or the Media Encoder. You could try them one at a time or maybe save some time and effort by doing them all in one whack.

Thank you SO much for taking the time to reply. I found the presets folder under C/program files/adobe/encore/presets then opened it and stared at it. lol No idea what it should or shouldnt look like.

Well... it should have presets in it. (grin) What you see on the disk should correspond to the transcode settings you get in the media encoder. It's a 1-to-1 relationship.

You probably should uninstall/reinstall the products. Yes, it will take some time, but I think it's the lowest stress path to recovery for you.

trying to learn encore?
 

i've been a dvdsp user since version 1. but i just started trying to grasp encore for bluray purposes. its been somewhat of a headache.

for starters, should i be able to setup a project thats bluray, 720p and 29.97? or should it be set to 59.94? my video source is 720 30p.

next up on my annoyance list: the menu is 720x480 when i create it. i can't find anyway within encore to change it to 720p. so i open up the menu in photoshop and then change it there.

i've got my buttons created but i still get a bit of a haze outline during the activated state that shows the non activated state.

then when i preview it, it plays really crappy. i'm not sure if thats because i'm on a macbook pro 2.16.

i'm thinking i'm just going to burn a tester on a bd-re and see how it looks....

and pointers would be very helpful and greatly appreciated.

You should be able to do 30p or 30i. It's your preference.

Do you have video in your menus? If not, your menu is a still image. I would think that by definition it's already progressive.

This you'll probably want to look at very closely in Photoshop. As you know, the activation is a layer in the image that gets turned on when it's, well, activated. Depending upon how you created the button, there might be something in other layers that contribute to that fuzzy bit showing up. It's odd and I've not had this happen. Does this happen in Encore, your computer, BD-player/TV set up or all three? I've found Encore pretty WYSIWYG when it comes to menus, but I have a lot more experience with SD than BD up to now. But this is changing quickly.

one thing i'm trying to get dialed is the exporting process. i don't want encore to have to encode any of my video(other than an after effects menu or something). so i'm trying to get my compressor setting adjusted properly to cut back on my authoring times. what i've somewhat gathered is if i'm doing 720p i can not author at 29.97, it needs to be either 23.98 or 59.95 for bluray. does this sound correct?

and re: to my menu, its not that its not progressive, its that its SD and not HD. i've since created a new menu in photoshop and made it HD in size, but not sure if this fixes my problem or not.

DVD DL in Adobe Encore
 

Hey guys just had a quick question. I've burned a few copies of this film project I've been working on. However when my main feature gets to the credits it will play the credits but midway through it will cut out and not finish the credits. Could this be because of the Duel Layer Break? How would I go about fixing this. I've tried taking out some video but that didn't seem to do to much. Any help / advice would be great. ASAP if possible, this thing needs to get done. Thanks guys...

Adobe Encore - slow import video files
 

Hello all,
i'm exporting m2v files from PPCS3 using procoder 3 exporter, when i add it to encore it takes a while to load the file.

any ideas? any way to make it faster?
any suggestion for another good and quick program to deliver DVD's to costumers?

Shalom, Asaf, please define "a while".

Also, what is the size/duration/bitrate of the files you are importing in Encore?

Thanks for the replay,

about 2-4 minutes, 90mins video , 6500 bitrate

I don't think so and not really.

I have no idea what Encore is doing when it's importing video assets but compared to other tools I've used that's not too bad of a wait. Bringing DVD-legal video into Nero for authoring takes many times as long as Encore.

While Encore takes a while to learn and can be a little counter intuitive when compared to other Adobe apps, authoring in Encore can be done quite quickly. Years ago I used Nero for DVD authoring and found it slow and inflexible. I still use it occasionally and it hasn't changed much. I've never been able to create an efficient workflow for it. I've also used a Sony application that was so unmemorable that I've lost its name. That experience is several years old so things might have changed there.

I totally agree with Tripp, hard to imagine you can find a better DVD authoring app on the PC. Once you spend some time mastering it, there's nothing you can't do with it. And encoding with Procoder is the other half of the secret to making high quality discs. Did I mention Photoshop integration for personalized menus?

Of course, in the end it all comes down to personal preferences. For fast authoring I do it all straight out of Edius, but for complex navigation, multiple audio streams, subtitles - Encore is the king. Now playing in BlueRay too...

Adobe Encore beginners question
 

Hi - I'm sort of having trouble setting up my DVD layout so that the viewer can either 'play all or select different chapters without having 1 long MPEG2 of the entire programme plus seperate MPEG2 files for the chapters on the disk

Can I somehow use markers to allow the viewer to select portions of 1 master MPEG2 video?

Cheers

Pete

To add chapter points, choose the Timeline Menu/Add Chapter Point.

You can create a menu if you want, and link each chapter point to a button in the menu.

Hi - Yes I get that, but at the end of each chapter (If they wanted to just watch that chapter) I would want the playback to go back to the menu. If they watch that 'play all' option wouldn't it go back to the menu at the end of the first chapter?

Thanks for your help

Pete

I think I understand now what you are trying to do.

Click on a chapter, and in the properties pane, change the end action of the chapter to go back to the menu. See if that does it.

Check out the "override" option in the help menu for more control over that.

Cheers I'll try that shortly

Thanks for your help

Pete

Here is a short tutorial on how to setup a menu with both "Chapter" buttons and a "Play All" button in Adobe Encore:
Building a Play All Menu in Adobe Encore DVD : Adobe Encore DVD Tutorial

Best Export to DVD
 

I'm trying to figure out how to improve my footage when exporting to DVD. Please let me know where I can improve on... looks good but when comparing to any DVD, i know it could be improved.

Thanks.

My work process is:
1) Import miniDV footage into computer using a small handycam video camera.
2) All editing done in Adobe Premiere CS4
3) Once complete, export to microsoft AVI (.avi) - 740x480 - 29.97 fps - 16:9 ratio
4) Import into Encore, and from there it transcodes and burns onto DVD automatically...

I know there should be a better way... anyone?
thanks.

Unless you're exporting an uncompressed .avi from PP, you're losing quality. If you have CSx Production Premium, you can export to Encore directly from PP, omitting the step where you go back to .avi. I don't know if you can do this with the standalone version of PP and Encore.

That should improve your quality.

As Tripp stated, skip the intermediary file. In Premiere, use File > Export > Encore for a direct MPEG-2 encode and burn. You can change the settings for the encode - I prefer CBR encoding, and for anything 90 minutes or under, CBR 6.0 should provide a good image. The default setting may not be giving you optimal quality.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor

Mixing 24f and 60i clips on 1 DVD (encore CS3)
 

I am making a Bonus DVD for my films, and the clips vary from being filmed in 60i and 24f (canon). When I burn the dvd the 60i stuff looks great, the 24 is all jumpy and ugly. How can I get both frame rates to look right? Thanks. I am using Encore CS3

NTSC DVDs are natively 29.97. DVD players sense a flag set on the disk to playback 24p, but even that is written in 29.97. If you edit in Premier Pro, output via AME and author in Encore, this is all pretty invisible to you.

Keep you editor project settings the same for all segments. If the main feature is 29.97 use that. In your editor, interpret the 24f footage to the project's settings. That should get the pulldown right. If I understand what you are doing correctly, that should square you away.

I can confirm this. I use sony vegas 8.0 Pro. It comes with DVD architect 5.0 pro. Which can author a DVD in DDP 1.0, DDP 2.0 and DDP 2.10. It also has the ability to author Blu Ray which is pretty nifty. I would recommend using a trial version. The trial versions of such software is fully functional for 30 days I believe. I think the going rate for the package now is $549. And in case you were wondering, it can author Blu-Ray content to DVD 5 pr DVD 9 as well. There are tons of features, I won't use anything else.

If I have a 29.97 setting project and import 24 fps video, it seems to play fine. However if I interpret the footage as 29.97 it speeds up. So should I just put it on the 29.97 timeline as a 24 video, and then export? If so what export settings should I use? I am going nuts trying all different combos and its still not working

If you place a 24 fps video on a 29.97 fps timeline, it will add frames so that it plays back at the correct speed. If you Interpret the footage as 29.97, you are telling it that it doesn't need to do this conversion, and it will play it back at 24 fps on a 29.97 fps timeline, which will cause it to speed up.

If you have 24 fps footage, keep it on a 24 fps timeline, and encode it as 24p. It will actually be encoded as 29.97 but with the progressive flag which converts it back to 24p on the fly as the player plays it back (if the player supports progressive).

EDIT: I just realized you have both formats on the same timeline. This does create a complication. You must convert one of them to the other format BEFORE editing or else it can get messy. All clips need to be consistent with the framerate. By rendering it out separately before editing, you have more control over the frame blending of the conversion.

I am currently trying to figure out the best (highest quality) Encore workflow.

1. Edit footage in Final Cut Pro
2. Export finished timeline from Final Cut Pro (to a HD .mov file)

Choice (please give some feedback on your workflow)

3-1 Use Adobe Media Encoder to transcode to a DVD compatible format (which one is best?)
3-2 Use Apple's compressor to transcode to a DVD compatible format

What will generate the highest quality DVD discs? I shoot in HDV format so I need to downconvert. I own FCS, CS4, Sorenson Squeeze and MPEG Streamclip.

I exported .m2v files with Media Encoder but now Encore is transcoding the files. Not sure why it is doing that. I don't want to lose quality by double transcoding/encoding.