This seems to be a recurring problem among an increasing number of our Pro Motion Menu Kit users.
It seems many people are experiencing glitches with the dynamic link feature in Encore, where it displays the incorrect menu after linking it as the video background, or after building the disc, there are problems with the transitions where they display half of one transition, and half of another.
We have decided that it may be more trouble than it is worth to use the dynamic link feature, and you may get better results by just importing your rendered assets from After Effects directly into Encore.
Here are the main reasons we initially decided to use the Dynamic Link feature in Encore with our workflow, and why it won’t be needed now:
1) The linking of a menu’s audio and video motion background asset to a single quicktime video asset caused an error during the build process.
This bug appears to have been fixed in Encore CS5, allowing you to successfully use a single quicktime movie for both the audio and video motion background.
2) The rendering of menus would sometimes finish prematurely during the build process, causing your menu to last only a few seconds or sometimes cut off the last second or two of the menu.
We avoided this bug in the past by using the dynamic link feature, but it appears this bug has been fixed in Encore CS5.
3) You can only link a menu transition to a single asset, forcing you to combine separate audio and video assets into a single dynamic link composition.
This unfortunately is still a problem, even in the latest Encore CS5, however it can easily be overcome by rendering your audio/music into the quicktime movie either in After Effects before you render your final motion menus, or by opening the Dyn_Lnk.aep project in After Effects, and render out the compositions that you would normally import into Encore, as they take your separate audio and video files and combine them into a single quicktime video.
We will be working on an updated workflow in the coming weeks that will avoid using the Dynamic Link feature, and this should greatly reduce the number of problems people experience, as almost all the problems our customers experience seem to be related to the Dynamic Link feature.
Until then, please avoid using the dynamic link feature if you experience these problems, import your assets directly into Encore, and make sure your transition assets have the music/sound fx combined into the video. If you need any further assistance, please feel free to contact our support team.
Jon, not sure if you have tested all your products on CS5 but it seems like when you preview the menu/movie using Regal, the loop function does not work correctly. Maybe this is just at my end.
However, the menus work fine after the disc/image has been built.
Hi Jon,
I sent you a email earlier reference to a issue I have in the build on the Regal Cinema.
I am receiving a Error code 6 in the final stage of the Auth.
process of the Blu-ray image build.
It says:
Blu-ray Error: “file already exits”, Code: “6”, Note: “IG button exceeds video bounds.
Please help if you can.
Melvin
hi sir jon,
Why my Fusion final dvd has a black frame showing between the end of the intro sequence and beginning of the main menu. also between at the transistion main to scene ,to the scene menu,help plz
This could just be the preview, and the black will not show up on the final disc, or you have authored a Blu-ray disc, and your player is displaying black between menus while it loads the next one. Most players will freeze the last frame of the previous transition while it loads the next menu. Unfortunately some players show black during this period.
Hey Jon,
First I want to say that what you are doing is completely awesome. We purchased regal over the weekend and used it on a project and then purchased the clean “white wedding” template last night with plans for using it in our DVD demo!
I plan on calling you today with a few questions but this question seemed relevant to this topic so I figured I woud post it on up.
We own after effects CS3 and encore CS5…
The dynamic link option doesnt appear to be available from the menu in encore. It is there but greyed out. Is this because we only have CS3 and encore is expecting matching versions(CS5)?
We worked through not having the dynamic link file by manually building the DVD and it works awesome with the exception of a few extremely brief and hardly worth mentioning stutters inbetween the transition “video” and menu.
Thanks again for your super professional products and awesome tutorials. Your service is a bargain!!!!!!
The dynamic link feature only works with same version applications. Not using the dynamic link feature is actually the recommended method for Encore CS5, and we will soon be updating our tutorials and workflow accordingly.
Hey, lookin forward to the revised tutorials in which your new workflow is Dynamic LinkLESS. Any idea when they’ll be up and running?
Hoping to get those out this month. The workflow isn’t that different from the current one. It will involve adding the music to the Master Composition of the After Effects project before you render the menus. If you do this, the music will be combined with the videos into a single quicktime movie, and can be imported directly into Encore without dynamic link.
hehe.. I’ve been doing this for almost a year since getting the error/crazy menu not working! I should have came here and posted or sent you my results. I thought it was just my system…
Hey Jon,
for some reason whilst rendering the motion menus, it keeps on getting stuck “02_scene_menu_HD” even after i rebuilt it a second time. I am using a powerful system and runnin cs5.5… im lost as what to do fix the problem. codec is h.264 bluray – vide is 1920×1080 i50 but not sure if that would effect it? help please? Oh, i am using the enchanted waters 3.0 template
Paul
Hi Jon
I´m having some troubles with the main menu bottom from the scene and special menu to the main menu. When we click the main menu bottom this one make the transition to the main menu and then repeat again doing the transition twice. We are using the CS5, what do you think I did wrong ???
Hi Oscar,
Please refer to our support section on resolving this Encore bug. It is the ‘start at loop point bug’. You will also see we made a blog post on it long time ago if you do a search.
Hi Jon
Not sure if you will get this and my inquiry is just a long shot.
All is well with precomposed stuff purchased so far.
However, in looking for answers on Encore CS5 problem I thought you might just know what to do.
My Encore will not open but it did until a week ago work fine either by directly opening or going from Premier Pro CS5 to encore using the dynamic link.
Now it just hands up and will not open and worse still you cannot delete using Windows Task Manager which means forcing the PC to shut down.
Any ideas would be welcomed.
My last resort is to uninstall Premier Pro fully and I am assuming that if I reinstall it will give me a fresh Encore and allow me to access everything done and saved so far.
On checking my Adobe disks I have a 2 disc set for Premier Pro and assume Encore is part of the set as I cannot find any separate disc for Encore.
Hope this finds you well.
Best wishes
Barry