Our Adobe Encore tutorial that walks you through the process of authoring a Blu-ray or Standard DVD using custom motion menus has been updated!
It can be accessed from either of our Pro Motion Menu Kit tutorial pages located in the Tutorial Section under Product Tutorials.
The new tutorial incorporates the use of some features that make the authoring process much more streamlined, in addition to addressing many bugs and workarounds with the program.
Here are some of the bugs addressed:
Bug: Encoding of motion backgrounds fail that have an Audio and Video asset linked to the same quicktime movie
Solution: Use a separate audio asset for the motion menu, however this leads to our next bug
Bug: Rendering of motion menus finishes prematurely during the build process, causing your motion background to only last a few seconds
Solution: Use the Dynamic Link feature to import your menu assets from an After Effects composition
Bug: When using the dynamic linked assets for the background, a “LocalServer.cpp-142” error occurs when rendering the menus
Solution: Save your project, close it, then re-open it. This reloads the dynamic linked assets properly and allows you to build successfully
Bug: When creating a Chapter Index, if your next, previous, and main menu button contain text, subsequent chapter index menus may flip around the buttons
Solution: UNCHECK ‘Sync Button Text and Name’ for the Next, Previous, and Main Menu buttons before creating the chapter index
Bug: Encore re-renders motion backgrounds during the build process even if you already rendered them using the ‘File > Render > Motion Menus’
Solution: Don’t render them before the build process
Bug: Authoring a blu-ray disc in h.264 mode may result in errors during the build process
Solution: Author in MPEG2 mode, and change the individual transcode settings of your videos to h.264 if desired
Bug: Menu transitions do not display while in Blu-ray Preview Mode
Solution: Does not effect final build. Ignore preview
Bug: Motion Background repeats while highlighting a button in Blu-ray Preview Mode
Solution: Does not effect final build. Ignore preview
Bug: Setting User Permissions for menus or the disc results in an error during the build process of a Blu-ray disc
Solution: User permissions are intended for standard DVD output and don’t translate to the Blu-ray spec. You must leave them at default for a successful build
This is by no means a complete list of bugs. There are many more, however using my workarounds above, you at least have a chance of successfuly authoring a Blu-ray Disc in CS4. Some of the issues above also effect CS3 and standard definition DVDs. If you encounter them, use the solutions posted.
Wondering if you can help? In our office we have a few different PCs, but our acer ones seem to have a conflict with Encore! When we click build disc everything freezes up. Task manager says Encore is not responding! But if we wait 5 min it works again. Then the same problem when we press build! So the task of burning a DVD takes a lot longer than it should. Not a major problem, just very annoying and confusing.
The DVD burners are linked via SATA cables. Wondered if this has anything to do with it as that’s the only real difference between the PCs.
Thanks for listening.
Aidy.
This is likely caused by other software or drivers conflicting with Encore. There was a lengthy post a while back in the Adobe forums of software to avoid when using Encore. Here is the link:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/398769?tstart=0
Some of the programs are older, but you will get a good idea as to what kind of programs interfere with Encore functioning properly (programs that try and take control of the drive).
Thanks so much for all this info and your hard work. You speak of an issue with authoring blu-rays in h.264 mode and some bugs during the build. My issues are with the menu. Everything works great in the simulator and there are no errors when checking for errors. Once I build the folders, then burn the blu-ray disc, the menu button on the remote does not take it to where it is supposed to. For example, each timeline has an end action and a remote “menu” action. The end action works but when menu is pressed, it takes the disc back to the “First play” action. Also, track skip works in the simulator but not on the actual disc. Are these the issues you mention? Thanks again,
Jason
These are not issues we have encountered. However, we have ran into a bug where we forgot to set an end action for a menu, then realized it after building the image. We then went back into the project, changed the end action, everything previewed great, however once the image was built, it still didn’t have an end action. The only way to fix the problem was to remove the menu from the project, re-import, then re-link all the buttons and assets of the menu. It’s possible you could have encountered a similar bug to this.
Jon, I would like to use your Updated Adobe Encore Tutorial but I can’t get to it. Also do you have to use menus labeled HD from the Encore library to make Bluray dvds
Frank, what seems to be the problem with accessing the tutorial? Do any of the links not work? As far as the menus go, you do not have to use HD menus for Blu-ray authoring, however they look much better. So unless you are set on a particular SD design, I would recommend using the HD ones. Of course, all our products can be rendered out in SD or HD. So if you are making a Blu-ray disc, you would of course want to render it out in HD.
Jon
At the top of this page there is this link:
“Updated Adobe Encore Tutorial”
When I click on that link I don’t go anywhere.
Is there is another link?
Fran
Fran,
Yes, that link is for this blog post. To access the tutorial, please go to the “Tutorial” section of the website using the link in the navigation bar at the top, then click on “Authoring with the Motion Menu in Encore” for any of our products.
Why cant they just fix these problems? It seems so useless to have to go these round about ways for such common uses – like motion backgrounds. They shouldn’t release junk. Now i have to learn how to:
Solution: Use the Dynamic Link feature to import your menu assets from an After Effects composition
Which stinks because I’ve been using sony vegas to make my files.
So, I had the problem of the motion menus not fully rendering, they are 30 seconds – but it only renders 7 seconds then hangs forever. I did the fix by making the Aftereffects comp and importing that, using that as the menu background and upon rendering I got the Bug: When using the dynamic linked assets for the background,
“LocalServer.cpp-142″error, did the fix -restarted the program and instead was greeted with “LocalServer.cpp-121″ error – which I have figured out was related to having an Intel Core i7 Processor – I set the processor affinity in task manager to only use 2 cores and I am back to square one, It will render only 7 seconds and then hang..
Any ideas? I’m thinking this program is just a lie and its only for show. (I had several different issues yesterday – importing .wav files froze the computer and it corrupted my project 2x)
I have heard from 2 inside sources now that the project manager of Adobe Encore was incompetent. They have recently replaced him with the previous project manager who actually knows something about authoring. Adobe is now attempting to get things back on track with Encore, and actively listening to the community to see what features they want, and what needs to be fixed.
You seem to be encountering an unusual amount of problems. We also use an Intel Core i7 processor, and have encountered no such issues.
Do you encounter any problems with other applications?
It’s possible you have some hardware driver or software that is conflicting with Encore. I have heard people who use alternate media players (such as Windows Media Player Classic), which installs a large variety of codecs/decoders such as ffdshow, can cause issues with Encore. Most people are not encountering the issues you are having, using the exact same version of encore, with the exact same processor and operating system.
The bug I described with the rendering ending prematurely was different than what you are describing. Your rendering seems to hang/freeze, whereas the bug I described will just finish rendering after only a few seconds and continue with the build process as if nothing was wrong.
well.. at like 150frames in it skips to frame 810/900 sits there for a while then will eventually finish. But the clip will be short.
Im running windows 7 64 bit, this might be why. I have no special codec packs installed. Its a pretty clean install right now.
I guess I need to look for another DVD menu program.
Your problems could very well be because you are using an unsupported operating system. Adobe is likely working on some kind of compatibility update so it will work properly.
Hi Jon,
Every time i hit build in adobe encore it seems to just quit unexpectedly after an hour of transcoding. I know that changing anything in my adobe premier pro project after i have created my menu in encore is a no no, but still this problem persists….i really cant figure out what i should do. I work on a mac.
your help is much appreciated
What exactly is it transcoding? Motion Menus? Your actual video? If it’s your video, try encoding it to m2v/wav separately outside of Encore using the adobe media encoder or your encoder of choice.
I really like your menus. However, on occasion, the best solution for our videos with technical content is to take advantage of blu-ray’s built-in no-menu table of contents (Panasonic Direct Navigator (Top Menu)). Unfortunately, it appears the Encore does not have a clue about supporting this feature. If anybody knows how to make Encore allow access to the table, let us know! thanks Jon
I don’t believe the ‘no-menu table of contents’ is part of the blu-ray spec. Even if it were, you wouldn’t have a nice menu, just a boring list of titles to select and play, similar to those hideous menus created by DVR’s.
Although I do think it’s a great idea to deliver a video on SDHC card, I would still want to have a nice menu and not just an ugly list of videos on the drive.
However if the only purpose is just for playing videos at an event in combination with a video switcher (where nobody see’s the menu), then the no-menu table of contents would work.
Jon –
I seem to have a problem which I don’t know is specifically addressed in your blog, and I can’t find any answers on the internet, just the same situation I’m running into. After years of successful SD DVD authoring with Encore starting at the beginning (v1? 1.5?), and now with CS4, I’m now working on blu-ray authoring. The project is perfect in preview, and in fact I’ve been able to burn a couple successful discs, so I know the process I’m using does work. Problem is that of late I can’t get any output. The disc renders the menus in build-mode, but before it actually starts burning the disc Encore crashes. I reinstalled CS4 to see if there was a program issue, to no avail. I went so far as to go back to CS3 to see if it was a corrupted install disc, and CS3 does the same thing. I’ve tried building to an image, a folder and a disc, the same thing happens each time – it never gets to the disc, just crashes.
Again – I did successful create two discs this way – and they work just fine, so I know my process is correct. I know it’s not the burner, the disc, the computer, etc. as the SD discs I burn work just fine, process and all. It’s specifically tied to the blu-ray burning.
I was thinking perhaps there was some limitation with the motion menus I created. Again – it’s worked before. The program is only about 20G, so the disc wouldn’t be at capacity. I burned an SD version of the same project and it’s perfect. Just the blu-ray process is faulty.
In order to try and rule out some weird facet of this particular project which would crash the software, I also completely rebuilt the entire project from scratch to see if I could get it to work. I got further than I did initially, but it still crashed. My next step was to remove the sub-menus completely, and certain assets as well, just to see if i could get the project to burn.
Any light you can shed on this would be MOST appreciated!
Thank you,
Matt
You didn’t make it clear as to whether or not you could successfully create an image. If you CAN, then try using a program like IMGBurn to burn the image. There is likely some driver / software conflict causing the issue in Encore.
Jon, thank you so much for this informative site. I’ve been following your tutorial and everything seems to be working for me except this issue. I’m making a blu-ray video (over 2 hours) and transcoding in H.264 (Encore CS4). I followed your suggestion about setting the project settings to MPEG2 and each video asset to transcode using H.264. After menu builds and transcode has completed, encore proceeds to build streams. I get this error – (Blu-ray Error: “device not ready”, Code: “3”, Note: “File can not open (D:\DYNALINK\AuthorScriptHDMVSessions\_sessionFiles_Gsf_session_1_video.m4v.ves)). I quit the project and try transcoding again but the same issue came. Any advice would greatly be helpful. Thanks in advanced. I have an i7 920 running XP 64 bit. My project has a popup menu, motion background, animated buttons, and over 2 hours of HDV video.
Hi Ethan,
Would D:\ happen to be an external drive? If so, I highly recommend transferring your project to a local drive. If it’s not an external drive, you might want to go into your AuthorScriptHDMVSessions folder and delete the file it is having trouble with, and let it re-create it next time it builds.
Jon, “D:\” is actually an internal hard disk partition but deleting the AuthorScriptHDMVSessions folder worked!!! Thanks!! I waited 34 hours and this error showed up and I was so frustrated. Well, I got the BD-R burned and everything works great…well, I need to fix my popup menu…THANKS JON! You have impressive templates, I plan to buy one for my next wedding project. Take care.
-Ethan
Hi there Jon
I’ve just recently purchased your retro menus and firstly, well done on such a dazzling motion menu. I followed your tutorials for AE & ENC and successfully finalised a project for DVD, however am having major issues when trying to finalise for Blu-ray.
Details as follows:
1. Operating System: OS-X Snow Leopard
2. Everything works right up until and during the build process.
3. Motion Menus render and transcode
4. Then it comes to importing process and I get this same error when it comes to the Scene_Menu as follows:
Blu-ray Object:”06_Intro_Sequence_HD”, Error:”internal error 11 (internal software error:AVTreeNode.cpp, line 39)”, Code:”11″, Note:”bad cast: AVTreeRef::AsMultiNode 0″
I’ve tried Blu-ray Folder, ISO & Burn to Disc outputs and it does the same thing. The only thing I can think of (as I’ve read a few people have said that it has an issue with more than 18 chapters) – I had 20. So I have trimmed it down to 14 chapters and am trying again.
But if you can shed some light into this in the meantime, I’d be most grateful.
Kind regards,
Ant
The solution to this problem is discussed on our product support page:
http://www.precomposed.com/support/product_support.html
Ah, thank you so much for that! Strangely it seemed to have worked when I dropped the number of chapters down, but I will make a note of this method and apply it to future projects.
Much appreciated on your fast response and keep up the great work 🙂
Ant
Hi Jon
Just another quick question. After finalising my bluray and playing it on my Panasonic Bluray player, I’ve noticed that between every menu asset (ie., Intro > Main > Transition > Video) it doesn’t run seamlessly. There is a gap as the player loads the next menu. I suspected this may be a hardware issue of the player itself but was wondering if there was something I may have been doing wrong in the Encore set up. Reason I ask is that when I did the same project and exported as DVD it plays seamlessly on the player.
Help appreciated.
Thanks
Ant
This is more of a hardware issue, and the pause between menus will differ from player to player (some will behave just like the dvd does). We will soon be updating our encore workflow which will completely eliminate the pause between the intro and main menu… this seems to be the one most people would like removed.
Hi Jon,
Besides the software conflicts you mentioned above, are there any other reasons for transcoding to take a lot longer (many hours) than it it did previously?
I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean. What are you comparing? CS3 to CS4? Implementing these bug fixes and not implementing them? Please explain.
The program never finished the transcribing. It gave an error message half way through “Encode fail”. This was a project that had worked in the past but not now.
At what point does it fail? Does it fail attempting to transcode your main video? If so, you can transcode in the Adobe Media Encoder prior to bringing it into Encore. I usually prefer this method as it makes the authoring process much quicker and smoother.
It doesn’t fail during transcoding only after “build” is pressed.
After pressing “build” it goes for about an hour and then fails with the above message.
Shaul,
Have you enabled “Maximum Render Quality” in the transcode settings of any of your menu backgrounds or videos in Encore? If so, this can generate the ‘Encode Failed’ error message. Also, using a single quicktime mov for the audio and video of a motion background can generate the ‘Encode Failed’.
Jon,
I am experiencing the “encode Fail” in encore c4. I dynamically linked my AVI PPRO project in encore ( 3hr seq), with menu. Checked project, Pressed build. Trancoding… then error message appears. What am I missing that is preventing me to burn a simple DL DVD in Encore? How do I burn a DVD via Adobe Media Encoder, is this possible? I am desperate?
I really dislike using the dynamic link with the Premiere sequences in Encore. You should try exporting via the adobe media encoder. Do this with Encore closed, then go to File > Export > Media, and choose the mpeg2 dvd setting. Use a bitrate calculator to determine the necessary bitrate.
Hi John
Using cs4 encore i have successfully authored a dvd disc
however when then trying to create a flash version of this
the build fails on each occasion displaying an error with directory message
the flash file conversions are all completed however the final xml/player construct is not
any ideas
Robert
Sorry Robert, we have rarely used the flash export, and when we have, we did not experience problems. Have you tried the Adobe user to user forums for help?
Thx John
will try forums, it was just in case you had came across this
One other point
have you ever authored with encore using 1440×1080 i (1.33)
footage HQ codec
i had interlacing issues which i could only resolve by using after effects to transcode the content
perhaps you came across or found a solution for this ?
thx again Robert
Thanks Jon.I exported a 2min. sequence via adobe encoder. It produced 4 files ( movie clip, xmpses file, wave sound, xmp file). Using Window DVD maker, I burned the files to a +R DVD. I can see the movie clip but cannot not hear it on a portable DVD player. On a standard DVD players, DVD comes up as an DVD error. Why?
Jon, correction, I am using Windows Explorer as Window DVD Maker does not recognized these files…
You cannot just burn mpeg2 video and wav files to DVD and have them playback on a DVD player. DVD’s have a unique folder structure and file types, which requires you to use an authoring program such as Adobe Encore.
With the White Wedding Project, the menu button on the Special Features menu that links me back to the main menu transitions properly when pressed but reloads the intro with my logo on it. I have set at loop point checked. I am using CS4 for MAC.
Is it possible you are encountering glitches with the dynamic link feature, mentioned in a recent blog post?
Hi, I am on a Mac trying to create a blu-ray with Encore. The video file I’m trying to import came from compressor and is H264. The file is 9.66GB. The problem is it freezes when I try to import the file. My mac has 4 GB of ram. What would you suggest?
Thanks!
How long did you let it sit idle for? It can sometimes take a long time to import, and will appear to freeze while it does this.
Hi Jon,
I posted this issue on the Adobe Forums and someone pointed me to your wonderful blog and suggested checking/posting here.
I’m using Encore CS4 and have a 1:47 minute motion menu [.m2v] rendered in AE set to loop on the main menu. The audio is .ac3 (Dolby Digital).
I’m noticing that when I build my project and play it back on a DVD player (or through VLC if I build a DVD folder), the video portion of the motion menu freezes a few seconds in but the audio continues to play normally.
What could be causing this? Are there limits to a motion menu’s duration?
This is the last kink I need to work out in my project and I haven’t been able to find a solution anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve tried using the Dynamic Link to use the AE comp to no avail.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Jon!
I gave an error message in cs4 same as Anthony.
Blu-ray Object:”06_Intro_Sequence_HD”, Error:”internal error 11 (internal software error:AVTreeNode.cpp, line 39)”, Code:”11″, Note:”bad cast: AVTreeRef::AsMultiNode 0″
I don’t know what’s the problem.
Can u help me?
Kenyer007,
Our updated templates and tutorials use a different workflow to avoid this problem. Please update to the latest version of the template by sending us an email along with your Order ID.
Hi Jon
I hope you can help me. I created a popup menu when a clip plays and added a button to close the popup menu, but cant find a link to exit popup menu. My question is: can i do this in Encore CS6? I keep on seeing blu ray discs with this function. If encore cant do this. is there another program that would be able to do this?
Thanks
Eugene
Hi Eugene,
This is not possible with Encore alone. I believe you can use BluStreak Tracer to modify a completed Encore project to do this. Professional Blu-ray authoring applications can also do this, such as Scenarist and Do Studio, but those are very expensive. You should also be able to do this with EasyBD Studio from DVDLogic.