navigate site menu

Start learning with our library of video tutorials taught by experts. Get started

Encore CS5 Essential Training
John Hersey

Encore CS5 Essential Training

with Chad Perkins

 


In Encore CS5 Essential Training, author Chad Perkins gives an extensive overview of Encore CS5, Adobe's powerful application for authoring DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and Flash-based video for the web. This course covers adding audio and subtitle tracks, creating image slideshows, and using Encore as a presentation tool. Also explained are the Blu-ray enhancements in CS5, and advanced techniques such as creating games and hidden content for disc menus. Exercise files are included with the course.
Topics include:
  • Understanding television standards, transcoding, and pixel aspect ratios
  • Building multipage menus
  • Creating motion menus
  • Adding and linking buttons in menus
  • Inserting chapter markers
  • Defining user permissions for a disc
  • Adding text
  • Using audio in Encore
  • Looping menus
  • Transitioning between menus
  • Outputting to the web with Flash
  • Integrating with Premiere Pro and After Effects

show more

author
Chad Perkins
subject
Video, Video Delivery, DVD Authoring
software
Encore CS5
level
Beginner
duration
4h 3m
released
Apr 30, 2010

Share this course

Ready to join? get started


Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses.

submit Course details submit clicked more info

Please wait...

Search the closed captioning text for this course by entering the keyword you’d like to search, or browse the closed captioning text by selecting the chapter name below and choosing the video title you’d like to review.



1. Introduction
Welcome
00:04Hi! I'm Chad Perkins and welcome to Encore CS5 Essential Training.
00:08Encore CS5 is a powerful application that allows you to author DVDs, Blu-Ray
00:13discs and even Flash Web sites.
00:16In this training title, we're going to start out with a simple DVD authoring project.
00:20In just a few minutes, you'll have all the tools you need to make a basic DVD on your own.
00:25We'll look at how to add multiple audio and subtitle tracks to your DVDs,
00:30create image slide shows to show off images and how to use Encore as a presentation tool.
00:35We'll also be talking about some really great tips and tricks to use when
00:39authoring discs, such as how to create games, and create hidden content
00:43called Easter Eggs.
00:44Then we'll wrap it all up with a discussion of exporting to DVD, Blu-ray and
00:49even Flash Web sites.
00:50You don't need any previous experience to go through this training, just be
00:54prepared to learn and have a blast.
Collapse this transcript
What is Encore?
00:00Adobe Encore CS5 is a powerful but surprisingly-easy to use authoring tool
00:05used to create DVDs, high-definition Blu- ray discs and even Flash based Web sites.
00:10Encore ships with Premiere Pro as part of a well-integrated suite of video products.
00:15New users will be able to understand the simple and intuitive workflow, and will
00:19be able to assemble and burn a DVD within minutes of working with Encore CS5.
00:23More season DVD authors will be impressed with the more powerful features,
00:27such as Playlists, End Action Overrides, and powerful features for audio and subtitle tracks.
00:32Encore CS5 allows you to create high- definition Blue-ray discs, the industry
00:36standard now and for years to come.
00:39You can take advantage of the unique capabilities of Blu-ray discs in Encore
00:43building semi-transparent pop-up menus, so viewers can preview menu options
00:47while continuing to watch your video.
00:49These menus cannot only become menus for DVD and Blue-ray disc, but they also
00:53become Web pages when we output Flash Web site from Encore.
00:57Business users will also find help from Encore as a tool for creating
01:00presentations, building beautiful slideshows and slide captions, and the ability
01:04to add data contented discs as well as video content.
01:07Finally, Encore is primarily an authoring tool, and Encore CS5 does
01:11this remarkably well.
01:13Whether you're going to burn a single disc on your home computer, or take a
01:16copy-protected, region-encoded master to a professional replication facility,
01:21Encore has the tools for the job.
01:23With its impressive ease of use, colossal library of free content, and its
01:27incomparable set of features, you'll be very happy to see what Encore CS5 can
01:31do for you.
Collapse this transcript
Using the exercise files
00:00If you are a premium member of the lynda.com Online Training Library, or if you
00:04purchased this training on a disc, then you'll have access to the Exercise Files
00:08that accompany this training.
00:10So let me show you how I have laid those out.
00:12Now, there is a folder for every chapter of this training, and I've put the
00:18project files, the Encore.ncor project files, in the accompanying folder of
00:24that chapter.
00:25So while we're working in Chapter_04 in the training, then you'll find the
00:28projects we work on there in the Chapter_04 folder of the Exercise Files.
00:33Also in the Exercise Files, you'll find the Media folder, and it's here that
00:37you'll find the content linked to in the project.
00:41Now this will make more sense as we go throughout this training and explaining a
00:44little bit about Encore projects.
00:46But if you need an individual component, such as a PSD file, or an audio file,
00:51still image, video, or even one of the miscellaneous project files that we're
00:55going to be getting into here, you'll find those in the Media folder inside
00:59of the Exercise Files folder.
01:01Now, if you're a monthly or an annual subscriber to the lynda.com Online
01:05Training Library, then you won't have access to these files, but you could
01:08still just watch the training, or you could make up your own stuff and still follow along.
01:12So with that of the way, let's get to it.
Collapse this transcript
Reconnecting unlinked media
00:00Sometimes when you open up an Encore project, and sometimes maybe when you work
00:04with the Exercise Files that accompanying this training, you might get this
00:07dialog box, and basically what this means is that Encore cannot find a certain
00:12asset that you've imported into this project.
00:14So basically what you need to do is navigate to where the asset is, in this case
00:18it's in the Media folder/Video folder, and then yummy doughnuts right here.
00:23Now, if you accidentally click Offline, maybe you sneeze on it or something,
00:27let's go ahead and click Offline, and you have the Asset here in your project,
00:32you click to select it,
00:33you'll see this little icon, which means its offline, which means that
00:36Encore can't find it.
00:37So what we can do is right-click on it, choose Locate Asset, then navigate to the
00:42Asset, and go ahead and click Open, and then that's it.
00:47That's all you have to do.
00:48The Asset is now here in the Project panel, we can test that by clicking the play
00:51icon up here at the top of the Project panel, and you can see our Asset is
00:55intact and Encore has found it.
Collapse this transcript
2. Project: Building a Simple DVD
Project overview
00:00All right folks. In this chapter, we're going to jump into Encore and get our hands dirty.
00:05We're going to actually make a project from scratch, complete with a menu a
00:09Navigation, a Timeline, and all sorts of great stuff, and we're going to learn a
00:14lot about Encore and the Encore workflow in the process.
00:18Now if at the end of this chapter you still feel a little uneasy, that's okay.
00:22We're going to be going through each step in this chapter over and over again
00:26in much more detail as we go through this training series.
00:29But that being said, let me show you what the final project is going to look
00:32like once we're done.
00:33I'm going to go ahead and click this Preview button in Encore and here is the
00:37DVD, as if you were watching it on a set top player, and this is what you will
00:41be creating throughout this chapter.
00:43Let's check it out.
00:45(Music playing.)
00:46(Male speaker: Beautiful scenery, plenty of places to ride, beautiful weather - it just doesn't get any better than this.)
01:01So there you have it, and back to the menu it goes.
01:03This complete project, again, we're going to be starting from scratch,
01:07creating it here in Encore.
01:09So let's jump in and get going.
Collapse this transcript
Importing content
00:00The first step in this project is that we're going to import footage into
00:04our Encore Project.
00:05We can do this in several ways.
00:07We can go to the File menu and go to Import As > Asset.
00:11We can also use the keyboard shortcut Command+I on the Mac or Ctrl+I on the PC.
00:17We can also right-click in the Project panel and do the same thing.
00:20But one of the things I like to do when I Import, because I find it to be the
00:23easiest, just to go to the Project panel, and find some blank area here, and
00:28just double-click in the Project panel.
00:30I'm going to Navigate to the Video Folder. That's inside the Media Folder, that's
00:35inside the Exercise Files that came with this training.
00:37I'm going to select the Explore California ad.mp4 file and click open.
00:42This file has now been imported into our project and shows up in the Project panel.
00:47We can use this as a video to link to from a menu button, or we can use it in
00:52several other ways as well, as we'll discuss later on in the training.
00:56As we will get later, the Project panel is kind of like this storage bank,
00:59and everything that we import comes here in to the Project panel to be used later on.
01:05It's important to know that this file,
01:07this Explore California movie, is not embedded in this Project.
01:12We've basically imported just a Link to the Project.
01:15We cannot adjust this Video on our hard drives from Encore at all.
01:19We're only bringing in a Link to that file.
01:23So it's important before you import something, that you make sure that it's
01:26in the right spot with the right name, because if you change it's name or
01:30move it or delete it, then Encore won't be able to find it, and your Project
01:34will no longer work.
01:35Now in the same way that we imported this Video File, we could also import all
01:40kinds of files, Still Images, Flash Video, Audio Files and more.
01:46So there's tons that we can do here to bring into our Project to create assets
01:51that we can use throughout our Encore Project.
Collapse this transcript
Using included content
00:00One of my favorite parts about Encore is it comes with this huge library of free stuff.
00:05And who doesn't love free stuff?
00:07So I want to have this movie here right at the outside of the Training Series to
00:09tell you about this amazing bundle of goodies that comes with Encore.
00:14Now I'm going to be using the Library panel, and a panel is just a little area
00:18like this, like, for example, we were looking at the Project panel in the last
00:21Movie, here's the Properties panel, so it's just these little modules inside of Encore.
00:26We'll talk more about the interface a little bit later, but for now, know that
00:29most of the action is going to be taking place here in the Library panel as
00:33far as free stuff goes.
00:34If you're not seeing the Library panel, you can go over the Window menu,
00:37and select Library.
00:39Now, in the Library panel, we'll see the Set dropdown.
00:42If you click this here, you'll see there are actually many categories of free stuff.
00:47It equates to several gigabytes of goodies.
00:50Now if you've purchased Encore online, this stuff will be a separate download.
00:54So make sure you get that, and if you purchased Encore on a disc, then this will
00:59also be a separate installation on a different disc.
01:01So if you're only seeing General, then you missed out on all of the goodies, so
01:06make sure you go back and install those.
01:09But basically here, we'll be using throughout the Training Series, but there are tons of menus.
01:14We can click on, let's say, for example, Party menu HD, and we can click on
01:19Airplane, our little Airplane here.
01:21So there's different like Type Styles and Images and just little flourishes
01:26and buttons, all kinds of things that we can add to our projects, even
01:29background Images, and Shapes, and just little things that we can use to
01:34enhance our Project.
01:35So even if you only have a video to start out with, then you can use Encore's
01:40set of stuff to make your File DVD. You could use Encore's Buttons, Encore's
01:45included Backgrounds and menus.
01:47Now, of course, you can make your own, and I'll show how to do that, but it's
01:50really cool to know that all of the stuff that you absolutely need is already
01:54here for you in the program, and there's tons and tons of content, and there's
01:57tons of ways that you can customize it to your own choosing.
Collapse this transcript
Adding a menu to a project
00:00So now we are going to continue here and we're actually going to go over to our Library panel, and we're
00:03going to add a menu from the Library panel to our project and actually tweak
00:07that menu a little bit.
00:09So go to Library panel, and we have these buttons here, and these are
00:12essentially filters for different objects.
00:14As you can see, as I mouse over these, it says Toggle display of images,
00:18backgrounds, buttons, menus, and so by default, they are all pressed, so we are
00:22seeing all of these objects.
00:24Right now, I only want to see menus, so I'm going to just click this first
00:27button, and that will show me only menus.
00:30Keep in mind this is only in the General category, so if I want to see Wedding
00:34menus, if I'm making a Wedding DV, I can click on Wedding or Travel, if I want
00:38to see Travel menus, and so on.
00:40I'm going to leave this set to General for the time being, and I'm going to
00:42scroll down, and click once on the Sunset menu. As I click once on this menu,
00:48I can Preview this, and we are making a menu for this Explore California
00:52Company, so this menu is going to look pretty good.
00:55So we are going to go ahead and just double-click this menu in the Library
00:58panel, and in just a few moments it will be added to the Project panel as an
01:03asset that I can use as I please.
01:06Now it says Inspirational Thoughts here.
01:08That's not really what we're going for, and we only have one menu item here,
01:12just one movie to play.
01:14So what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on the languages button, and hit
01:17the Delete key on my keyboard.
01:18Same thing with special features, click Special Features, hit Delete, click
01:22Scene Selections and press Delete.
01:25If you are not able to do that, you'll need to make sure that you have this
01:27Black Arrow tool selected.
01:29It's called the Selection tool.
01:31You'll find in the upper left-hand corner of the interface in this tools area,
01:34and that will allow you to select the tools and then delete them.
01:38The next problem with this movie is the title of the menu here, so what I'm
01:43going to do is I'm going to select the Type tool here.
01:46It looks like a letter T here, and I'm going to go back over to this Text, and I
01:50don't want this bracket.
01:52See how I have this little bracket around my cursor?
01:54I don't want that. As I bring this closer to the Inspirational Thoughts text,
01:59those brackets go away.
02:00So this is bad, good, bad, good.
02:03So I'm going to click in here, once I have those brackets gone, and now those
02:06brackets tell me that I'm going to create New text, which is not what I want to do.
02:09When those brackets go away, it tells me I'm going to edit existing text,
02:13which is what I want.
02:13So I'm going to click in here with those brackets, and then I can hit the
02:18Delete key to delete these, and I'm going to type the real name of our menu,
02:23which is Explore California.
02:27To accept the text, go ahead and go back and select the Selection tool again in
02:31the Tools panel, and now we've created a menu, using the Library, and we've
02:36also tweaked it very quickly, without very much effort at all, and made it suit
02:41our purposes.
Collapse this transcript
What are timelines?
00:00So now that our little mini project has a menu, and a button and a video to
00:04link to, it should seem like all we have to do is just link up the button to the movie.
00:09But there is another step we need to go through first.
00:12And that is we need to take this video and put it inside of a Timeline.
00:15A Timeline is an Encore object, and that is what you need to put your videos
00:21into, if you want to be able to link to them.
00:24So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go down to the bottom of the Project
00:27panel, click this little dropdown here, and this creates a New something.
00:32Anytime you see this little piece of paper icon
00:33that looks like you are turning a page,
00:35this is Adobe's icon for making a New something.
00:38So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a new Timeline.
00:41So all I have to do is make a timeline, and then take this Footage and drag and
00:46drop it into our Timeline here.
00:49Now it doesn't have a Name, our Timeline doesn't, do what we could do is
00:54right-click on it and choose Rename.
00:57I'll call this Explore CA ad, and click OK, and then now we have this Timeline.
01:05And this object is the thing that we will link to when we link this up in the next movie.
01:10So again, we have our menu.
01:12We're going to link from the button to the Timeline, not the original movie.
01:16The Timeline thing is can be cool, because we put multiple movies, and even do
01:19some minor video Edits, here, in the Timeline.
01:22Now an even faster way to create a Timeline, if you're interested, is - I'm going to
01:26actually select this Timeline and Delete it, start from scratch here, select
01:30Yes - then I'm going to select the piece of Footage, the Asset that I want to
01:34turn into a Timeline,
01:35or put into a Timeline, and press the keyboard shortcut Command+T on the Mac,
01:40T for Timeline, or Ctrl+T on the PC.
01:43This automatically takes your Footage, puts it into a Timeline, and it already
01:48named it for us based on our Footage.
01:51So this Command+T, Ctrl+T shortcut is truly a shortcut indeed.
01:57Now we have these two Encore objects, a menu and a Timeline and we're ready to
02:00link them up together.
Collapse this transcript
Creating links and navigation
00:00So now that we have our menu and our Timeline we're ready connect this button to this Timeline.
00:05So when users press this button or activate this button, it plays this Timeline.
00:09Now there are two ways to link these objects, or in other words create navigation.
00:15One is the Properties panel.
00:17That's what we're going to talk about in this movie.
00:18Later on, we'll talk about another method called the Flowchart, this little tab right here.
00:23I actually prefer to use the Flowchart, but it's little bit more confusing for new users.
00:27We're going to see this for later on in the Training Series.
00:29I'm going to go back to NTSC_Sunset menu.
00:32You'll notice, in the Properties panel, if I expand my interface here, so I
00:36could see all of these properties,
00:38the Properties panel is this panel that is dynamic, based on what is selected.
00:44So if I click play movie, it's a button.
00:47So I'll be getting Properties for the button.
00:50So these options will change.
00:52If I select Timeline, I will get Timeline properties.
00:55So I could adjust those.
00:57If I click an Asset, I'll get Asset Properties.
00:59Menu, I'll get menu Properties and so on.
01:02So what I want to do then is click on this button in the Menu Viewer.
01:07If you're not seeing that, let's just double-click the menu, click on the
01:10button to select it.
01:12Then right here where it says Link, what we're going to do is grab this
01:15little icon right here.
01:16This is called the Pick Whip.
01:18So click and drag the pick whip over to what we want to link it to, which is the Timeline.
01:23So I am just going to click here.
01:26Now this is linked to the Timeline.
01:29Now if you inadvertently select something, like just a blank space or something
01:33like that, you get this little Spaghetti Whip icon.
01:36If you get that, that's indicating that it doesn't understand what you're doing,
01:40and that won't work.
01:41So you want to make sure that you don't Link to something that you can't Link to.
01:45So again, we want the button to go to the Timeline.
01:49For me, this is actually one of the most fun parts of Encore, because this
01:53little pick whip thing is very intuitive, but it's also very fun.
01:56So it's really great to use this Properties panel to link things up in this way.
02:00That's really all it takes to make an Encore project.
02:04Now one little tip that's quite important actually, that you might not be aware of.
02:08So let's say users watch your DVD, and they have this menu and there's this button
02:12they click, and they watch a little movie here.
02:14Well, what happens when that movie is done?
02:16Do they go on to a different movie, or do they go on back to the menu? What happens then?
02:22You might assume that it would go back to the menu, but Encore doesn't assume that.
02:25Encore has no idea what you want it to do.
02:27So what we need to do is actually click our Timeline, so that we could see
02:31the Timeline in the Properties panel here, and change something called the End Action,
02:37what you want Encore to tell the DVD Player to do once the Timeline comes to an end.
02:43Actually, what we want it to do is to go back to the menu.
02:45So under End Action with the Timeline selected in the Properties panel, click on
02:49the pick whip, this little At sign here,
02:51this little backwards At sign, actually.
02:53Click this, and drag this to the menu.
02:57So now we have a complete project.
02:59We have a menu with a button.
03:01When we click the button, we play the timeline.
03:03At the end of the timeline, we go back to the menu.
03:06We've created a perfect loop.
03:08Everything will work according to plan.
03:10We're ready to burn our DVD.
Collapse this transcript
Exporting
00:00So folks, congratulations.
00:01If you've been following along, you've just made your first DVD project.
00:05It's really just that easy.
00:07All the stuff that we have been going on through in this Training Series is
00:10basically refining what we've already done.
00:12I mean this really is the core workflow of Encore, and we've done it.
00:16Now before actually burn this to DVD, or Blu-ray, or make that a Flash-based Web
00:20site out of this, there's cool things that we want to do as we'll talk about
00:23later in this Training Series.
00:24First of all, we want to make sure that we didn't inadvertently mess something
00:28up, that we didn't miss something somewhere.
00:29Let's just say, for example, in the Timeline, I want to make sure we didn't
00:32forget to add an End Action, and we can actually have Encore go through the
00:36project automatically and see if there will be predicted errors.
00:40The other thing we want to do is want to preview our project and see what it
00:43would look like for the User
00:45once it's burnt to DVD. We can actually do that by clicking this little button
00:48right here. So I'm going to click the Preview button, the Disc in the toolbar,
00:52and we will get the Preview window and here is our DVD, and I can juts use my
00:57mouse as if it were DVD remote to click Play Movie.
01:02(Male speaker: Beautiful scenery, plenty of places to ride, beautiful weather - it just doesn't get any better than this.)
01:16Aha, so I played just as expected and again, as expected, as we told it to do, at
01:22the end of the Timeline, it came right back to the menu, and we are done. So, looking good.
01:28I'm going to click either Exit here, or Exit and Return. For our purposes here,
01:31doesn't matter, and we go over the Build panel, which, by default, is over from
01:36the Project panel here and again, if it's not showing, you can go the Window
01:39menu and choose Build.
01:41I'm just going to go ahead and click the Build tab here, stretch this out so we could see it
01:44a little bit better.
01:46If this is confusing you, how you move these panels around,
01:48we'll talk about that when we look at the interface a little later on.
01:51But basically, we need to choose the format here, whether we want to burn to
01:55DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or create a Flash-based Web site.
02:00And we could do all of these things, we could spit it out to DVD or Blu-ray or
02:03Flash from the same project, so we've to go start from scratch and make
02:06everything all over again,
02:07if we decide that we want to make our DVD a disc and then make it a Web site.
02:12We just have to simply change our options here.
02:15Now there are a host of options and parameters to fiddle with and adjust.
02:19We'll be going over these throughout the Training Series.
02:22But you basically know what you need to know, so if you wanted to, you could go
02:26ahead and click Build.
02:27It will actually burn your DVD to a disc.
02:31Now, of course, Encore gets much more powerful than this. Even as we'll see in
02:35the next chapter, there's a lot of technical details that go in to making a good-
02:38looking Encore project.
02:40But realistically, at the core of what we're doing, we have done it.
02:44This is what it takes to build a project in Encore, and if you could do what you just did in this
02:48chapter, then you'll easily be able to hang on for all that we cover in this
02:52training series. Again, congratulations are in order for what you've done, and
02:56let's get to it in the next chapters where we start digging a little bit deeper in
03:00to really making Encore's sing.
Collapse this transcript
3. Introductory Technical Concepts
Understanding disc formats
00:01In this chapter, we are going to look at several technical issues that will
00:04really help you, as we begin our journey into Encore.
00:08First of all, I want to talk about some disc formats.
00:10We know about DVD, and we know about Blu- ray, which is a High Definition disc,
00:15but there are different types of DVDs, and it's good to know, as you start
00:19planning your Projects, good to know about the different variations of
00:23these types of discs.
00:24Now DVD is still the most common of the optical media out there. Most DVDs come
00:31in one of two sizes, either Single layer, which is about 4.7 GB in size,
00:37now these are typically the DVDs that you find, if you go to like Office Depot
00:40or some other kind of consumer retail outlet.
00:42Then you'll get some DVDs maybe from Wal-Mart, or whatever.
00:46They're usually Single layer DVDs. Dual layer DVDs can actually store 8.5
00:52GB on them, and many, if not most, of the commercial Hollywood DVDs that
00:58you get are Dual layer DVDs.
01:00Now a standard, high-quality, 90-minute movie will fit perfectly on a Single
01:05layer DVD. A Dual layer DVD is often used so you can get a longer movie
01:10and/or extra special features, interviews, outtakes, that type of thing on there as well.
01:16Now when I say Dual layer, it's something that you can't really see from
01:19looking at the disc.
01:21It's something that happens in the disc itself.
01:24Then it's also important to know that Dual layer is not the same thing as Dual
01:27Sided, so there are some times when you get a disc, such as UHF, one of my
01:31favorite movies, if you buy the DVD of UHF, it's Dual Sided, so you could
01:35actually flip it over, and there's wide screen on one side, full screen on
01:39other side, and there's some special features on one side and another special features
01:42on the other side, because there's so much content there. So it is a Dual
01:46layer and a Dual Sided DVD.
01:49Now a Blu-ray, as we've talked about, is the new winner in the war for high
01:54definition optical disc format, and it's able to store tons of extra content on
01:59it, and it also has some special features that we will look at in the Blu-ray
02:03chapter, such as pop-up menus, which are not available on DVDs.
02:07Now, Blu-rays also have Single and Dual layers and a Single layer Blu-ray disc
02:13has about 25 GB of storage on it and a Dual layer Blu-ray disc has
02:18about 50 GB of storage space on it, so a lot of power there.
02:24Blu-ray hasn't really caught on as fast as DVDs have, so they are not quite as
02:28ubiquitous and also the compatibility is a little bit off, as of yet.
02:34So not everybody has a Blu-ray player, nor everybody is burning Blu-ray discs
02:37on their computers as we see with DVDs.
02:41But as of the time of this recording, all signs point to the fact that Blu-ray
02:44will become more and more popular over the next several years.
02:48So again, its good to be aware of these different disc sizes and these
02:52options as you go when you prepare your disc. If you're planning on making a
02:55two hour long movie, and you are planning on having tons of special features,
02:59then you might want get some special DVDs, either go up to Blu-ray, or get a
03:03Dual layer DVD.
Collapse this transcript
About television standards
00:01There are two main television standards used throughout the world, and it is
00:05good to be aware of these, because we want to be able to create DVDs for our
00:09target audience where the DVDs will be played back at.
00:12So it doesn't matter where you are.
00:15It matters where your DVD will be played. So if you're in Mexico, making a DVD
00:20for England, then you want to use the English settings and not the standards
00:25in your own country.
00:28Now when you create a new project, you're presented with the option for
00:31choosing a television standard. The two standards are NTSC, which stands for
00:35National Television Standards Committee, if you're nerdy and like to know the
00:38back story, or PAL, also called PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, again for the nerds.
00:44When a television standard like NTSC or like PAL is created, it basically
00:49determines a lot about the footage.
00:52It determines the pixel dimensions.
00:54So if I choose NTSC, we can see the dimensions are set 720 pixels wide by 480
00:59pixels tall, but if I choose PAL, those dimensions change to 720 by
01:04576. Also, the Frame Rate is 29.97, if you're working in NTSC, or
01:1125 frames per second, if you're working in PAL.
01:14Now, NTSC is the standard for North America and Japan, North America being
01:19Canada, United States and Mexico, and also Japan. And PAL is the standard for
01:24Europe and Australia, and also several other smaller countries scattered throughout the
01:29world have chosen NTSC and PAL as well.
01:32So make sure you check and find out where country that you're speaking to with
01:36your DVD, what their television standard is.
Collapse this transcript
What is transcoding?
00:00Video comes in all shapes and sizes, tons of different formats, tons of
00:04different ways to compress different files.
00:07But when the specifications for DVDs and Blu-ray discs were made, there were
00:13certain rules that DVDs only understand a certain type of compression, and that
00:18is MPEG-2 compression, and Blu-ray Discs understand MPEG-2 and H264, also called
00:25H.264, but those are the only means of compression that those file types, or
00:30those disc types will allow.
00:32So whatever video you bring in, it will probably have to be changed into MPEG-2
00:38or H264. In other words, it will need to be encoded, or an Encore speak, it'll
00:44need to be transcoded.
00:45Now in the Project panel here, if we resize this by putting our cursor at the
00:50vertical divider between this and the panel to its right, just stretch this out here,
00:55we can see that we have DVD Transcode Status and also DVD Transcode Settings.
01:00So right now, this file that I've just imported is un-transcoded, so it needs to
01:06be transcoded to DVD compliable or compliant video, before it can burn our DVD.
01:12And this process takes a long a time, a very long time.
01:16That's one of the biggest e-mails I get about Encore is, 'Is it broken?
01:21It's been taking hours and hours,' and yes, if you have a full-length movie,
01:25depending on the power of your system, it could take many hours to transcode video.
01:30This is normal.
01:31So what you can do is you could right- click on a video clip, in your Project
01:36panel, that you've imported, and choose Transcode Now.
01:40So Encore will allow you to have a footage being transcoded while you are
01:45assembling your project in Encore.
01:49If your computer is tough enough to handle you transcoding in the background
01:54while you're assembling your project, this could save you a lot of time in the end.
01:57Now let's talk about Transcode Settings.
01:59When you right-click on a clip, you could also choose Transcode Settings, so go
02:02ahead and choose that option.
02:03You get the Transcode Settings Dialog box here, and we can choose transcoding
02:08for DVD and for Blu-rays. Since this is an HD clip, 1280x720, we have the option
02:14to transcode for both DVD or Blu-ray.
02:18Now, by default, the Quality Preset for DVD Footage, if you're going to be
02:21transcoding DVD Footage, is automatic.
02:24That means it's going to make it as high of a quality as it possibly can.
02:29This clip is only 19 seconds long, so we know that we could fit in hour and a half
02:33of really high-quality video on a DVD, so if it's only 19 seconds long, it's
02:37going to be an extremely high quality.
02:39But if we brought in another hour and a half worth of footage, it might have
02:42to start compressing all of the extra files that we're bringing in order make space.
02:47So that's what the automatic Quality Preset means.
02:49Now we might have one piece of footage that is just absolutely amazing, and it
02:52needs to be very high-quality.
02:55So we could choose one of these High Quality Presets here. Now this 7Mb, 8Mb,
03:00this refers to megabits.
03:02This is the Data Rate of the Preset here.
03:05We'll talk a little more about this when we get into bits versus bytes, that
03:08can be a little confusing, but it's good to know about CBR versus VBR.
03:12CBR stands for Constant Bit Rate.
03:15That means you're going to get the same constant bit rate, and it's going to go
03:18faster when it encodes, so it's not going to take you as long.
03:21But the VBR means Variable Bit Rate. What that's going to do is actually be a
03:25little bit more intelligent and examine your footage.
03:28It's going to kind of look through it and see where there's patches where
03:31it might be able to compress things little bit more and get away with it and
03:34thereby give you higher quality, when there's action scenes, or something like
03:38that, but this does take a lot longer, because it has to go through two passes.
03:42That's what this means here. It has to go through two passes of your footage to know
03:45what it can compress or not.
03:47So it takes a lot longer to encode, but if you could deal with it, then you're
03:50going to have a much higher-quality result, and you're going to be able to fit more onto a disc.
03:55Now honestly, once you're in the 7-8 Mb range, I can't tell the difference,
04:00honestly, between these.
04:01This is pretty high megabit stuff, but when you get down to like 4 Mb or lower,
04:07especially when you are dealing with CBR, you can start to tell. If you're going
04:10down to something like 3 Mb, it's going to be very obvious.
04:14You don't want to do that.
04:15So you don't want to cram too much on a DVD. I mean, you can, and Encore will
04:18force itself to continually go lower and lower on quality, the more stuff you
04:22try to jam-pack into a DVD, but you don't want to do that.
04:26So let's say, for example, I want to do the VBR.
04:29I could click on this, and go ahead and click OK here, and I could right-click
04:34and choose Transcode Now on this clip, and I can have it transcoding in the
04:39background, so again, when it's time to burn this to DVD, I don't have to waste
04:43time transcoding this asset, which could take a very long time.
Collapse this transcript
Exporting video for Encore
00:01Another common question I get asked a lot is, 'How do you export video from a
00:05video application, and in what way should you go about doing that?' and there's
00:08actually two schools of thought behind that.
00:11So I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro, but if you're using something like Adobe After
00:14Effects, or even Final Cut, I believe the workflow would be very similar to this.
00:17I'm going to go to File, and I'm going to Export > Media, and that's going to open
00:24up the Export Settings Dialog box here.
00:26What's really cool is that if we go to the Format dropdown, we actually have
00:30settings for MPEG-2 DVD.
00:32So we can actually select that, and then if we were to then encode this from
00:37Premiere and bring this back into Encore, the asset is already transcoded.
00:42So it would already say, already transcoded in Encore, and we wouldn't have to
00:46spend really much time at all burning this to DVD, just the time it would take
00:50to actually burn to DVD but, again, the real bulk of the time here is spent
00:55transcoding the asset, so if you're already transcoding it from Premiere, it's
00:59going to save you a lot time on the back end.
01:00Now, the even though MPEG-2 is compatible for DVD, I still recommend
01:04choosing MPEG-2 DVD.
01:06You also notice that for Blu-ray, we have H264 Blu-ray and MPEG-2 Blu-ray.
01:11Now I mentioned before that there are two schools of thought. One is that you do
01:16this and you choose MPEG-2 DVD, and then you output this, and it's already
01:20transcoded once you bring it into Encore.
01:23The other school of thought is actually where I tend to lean on most projects,
01:27and that is I prefer to just output video from Premiere, or whatever video tool I'm using.
01:32Output it with the highest possible quality settings when bringing it over into Encore.
01:37The reason why I do this is because if I choose MPEG-2 DVD, from my video
01:42editing program, and I have it go through and transcode the assets for me,
01:47that's a long process.
01:48Sometimes, when I will bring in something into Encore, I might decide to add
01:52more and more to that project later on, that I didn't even know that I would
01:56need to. Maybe the client says, 'Add this. Add this,' and I wasn't planning on it
02:00before, and so maybe the project starts getting little bit tight, and so Encore
02:04might need to compress the assets a little bit more.
02:06Well, if it can't fit completely, it's going to have to re-transcode it, even if
02:10it already is transcoded.
02:12That's going to mean that your files are going to be compressed twice,
02:15thereby losing quality.
02:17Another reason as is if they're already transcoded, it going to be harder to
02:21place chapter points, which we will talk about little bit later. But the moral of
02:25the story, and the good news here, is that most video editing programs will have
02:30an option for exporting straight to DVD.
02:34So it kind of takes the guesswork out of trying to figure out what settings
02:37you need to use.
Collapse this transcript
Bits vs. bytes
00:01Another concept that's good to be aware of, as it pertains to compression, is
00:04that of bits versus bytes.
00:07I'm going to right-click on this clip, and I'm just going to go to
00:09Transcode Settings here.
00:10As we have looked at before, we had this Quality Preset here, and we notice that
00:14it says 4 Mb and 7 Mb.
00:17Well, oftentimes, we see a capital 'B' there.
00:21Well that actually makes a significant difference.
00:23If it's a small 'b', this refers to bits and if we let's say, for example, were
00:28to cancel this and go over to the Build menu, then when we see a 'B' here, it's a
00:34capital B, and this is referring to bytes.
00:37Typically, we refer to a capital 'B', bytes when we're talking about data
00:42storage. When we're talking about a data transfer rate, we're talking about bits, with a lower case 'b'.
00:49Now there are eight bits in one byte.
00:52So these numbers can vary wildly, so be careful about that.
00:56This is one of the reasons why, when we getting your Internet Service Provider
01:00all squared away, the rate sounds so great. You can get 5 Mb per seconds. It seems
01:05like, wow that's about the size of a song. A song is about 3 or 4-5 MB of music,
01:10so that means I can download in seconds.
01:11And then when you actually get to using that Internet speed, it's nothing like
01:16that, and the reason why is the difference between bits and bytes, because the
01:19data rate that they are telling you is in bits, and the file that you're trying to
01:23download is in bytes, and so the same thing applies to Encore DVDs.
01:29So oftentimes, when it refers to 7 bits per second, it's referring to bits and
01:33when we are actually talking about storage, it's bytes, and they don't always
01:36match up. And because they don't match up, sometimes it can be little confusing
01:40where you might get a DVD that has one statement in gigabytes, and then
01:45something else might tell you that that DVD holds a certain amount of gigabits or
01:49video that has this many gigabits, or what have you, so it is just something
01:53to be aware of in the back of your mind, as you're creating your project, and
01:56you see a little tiny 'b', know that its bits and when you see a capital 'B,'
01:59know that it is bytes.
Collapse this transcript
The importance of bit budgeting
00:01When authoring DVDs, there is a phrase often heard referred to as Bit Budgeting.
00:05Basically, that means that you're aware of what's going on in your project and
00:09how much space has been taken up.
00:11Now you might think that you have to go through and think about how big all
00:15these files are going to be, once they're transcoded and do a bunch of math.
00:17You don't have to do that.
00:18All you've to do is go over to the Build panel here.
00:21Encore keeps a running tally of all the stuff used in your project.
00:24Right here, in the Disc Info area, you can open this up here, and change the Size
00:29of your DVD, whether it's going to be a regular 4.7 GB or a dual layer 8.54 GB,
00:36how many sides it's going to have, and
00:38then there'll be a bar graph here that will go to the right as you continue to add content.
00:43So you can basically see how much space you've used up.
00:46So even though we have tons of stuff going on in this project, many videos, and
00:51there's even a motion menu, so if we are actually going to render this, we'd see
00:54that there is motion with this default menu we've got from Encore here,
00:58even with all this stuff going on, we've only used up a little bit of what is
01:03possible, as far as space goes within this Project.
01:06So again, keep in mind, as you are plotting out your project, how big everything is,
01:11especially if you're doing a DVD for a full-length movie or for maybe a TV
01:16series, keep in mind how things are filling up.
01:20As I mentioned before, the default setting for transcoding stuff is Automatic.
01:24So if you bring in too much stuff and you're not aware of it, then what's going
01:28to happen is that Encore is going to automatically start taking the quality
01:32down of your stuff.
01:34So make sure you keep a close eye in the Build panel and this Disc Info area
01:37about how much space you've used up
01:39to make sure that you don't accidentally squish your footage too much and
01:44lose some quality there.
Collapse this transcript
About pixel aspect ratios
00:01Another issue to be aware of is something called the pixel aspect ratio.
00:05Essentially, a pixel is a little square that makes up an image on a computer.
00:11On a monitor, on a computer, these are square.
00:14They are exactly as wide as they are tall.
00:16But on a TV screen, and especially when we're talking about Standard Definition
00:19Video, these are typically not square.
00:22It can mess up your final product.
00:26Even though what you're seeing here on Encore looks fantastic,
00:29when you go to play it back on your DVD, it will tend to look stretched, if you
00:32don't know what you're doing.
00:33Now here is the challenge.
00:35I have this piece of footage here,
00:37this Explore CA ad.
00:38As I click it to select it, the Project panel gives me a summary at the top of
00:43its core attributes,
00:44its pixel dimensions, 720 x 480, and its time length,
00:48This is saying it's 15 seconds and 13 frames long, and
00:51its frame rate. It's 23.976 frames per second.
00:55But folks, here is the rub.
00:58The difference between standard definition fullscreen video and widescreen
01:04video has nothing to do with pixel dimensions.
01:07Yes, you heard that correctly.
01:09The difference between fullscreen video and widescreen video is not the
01:15difference in pixels, only in the aspect of those pixels.
01:20So we can't tell just by looking at this footage, if it's fullscreen standard
01:23definition or if it's a wide screen standard definition.
01:28So thus becomes the challenge, because this is a little bit dangerous.
01:31We don't know what we're doing.
01:32So if we wanted to make a widescreen menu, and
01:37we are going to use something from our Library here,
01:39we want to find a menu that said WIDE, say, for example, this Radiant menu says WIDE?
01:45This is a widescreen menu.
01:46So for looking for something, again, widescreen,
01:49we would choose this here.
01:52Likewise, of course, you can choose any menu that had the word Wide in it.
01:56Otherwise, if it doesn't have WIDE, if it's just a regular menu, and it does not
02:00say HD, then it's going to assume fullscreen standard definition.
02:05So if I double-click Entertainment menu, for example, then we have this more
02:09squarish orientation.
02:11Now other than menus, the real concern with pixel aspect ratio is when you are
02:18creating your assets.
02:19So this is more of a help to you, if you have power over the control of assets.
02:23Sometimes when you're working in Encore, you get stuff later on down the pipeline.
02:27You don't have control over the art that's being created, but if you do have
02:30control over that stuff,
02:32then make sure that it is created with the correct output pixel aspect ratio
02:36ahead of time, because you can't change it here in Encore.
02:39You can't even tell what it is here on Encore.
02:41But if you go and you test your DVD on a set top player, and you find that it is
02:46really stretched out,
02:47It is probably because of the pixel aspect ratio.
Collapse this transcript
About overscan and safe areas
00:01When you're designing menus, and also when you're doing a lot of other work in
00:05Encore, and if you have the opportunity to create stuff to bring into Encore,
00:08it's good to be aware of a concept that televisions have called overscan.
00:13You see if we were designing this logo here for print, then this would be fine.
00:19We've got a little bit of extra stuff on the edge.
00:21So if we printed it out and whoever was printing it cropped it, there is
00:24plenty of extra room here. We are safe.
00:26But when we are designing for video, this is a no-no.
00:30I actually designed this.
00:31So this is my own fault, but be aware that if you were to display something like
00:35this on a television set, these edges would get cut off because of overscan.
00:39All televisions understand a signal, or display a signal, differently.
00:44Now here in the Monitor area, if you're not seeing the Monitor, just
00:46double-click the Timeline in the Project panel,
00:49you'll see this little target-looking thing here.
00:51Click that to show what are referred to as the Safe Areas.
00:54Because overscan is that attribute, again, of the television that eats away at
00:58the edges, we want to use these Safe Areas, as they're called, as a guide, to
01:04make sure that we have the important stuff in our projects doesn't get cropped off the screen.
01:08So this outer boundary here is referred to as the Action Safe Area.
01:12So any action that we want to have that's important,
01:16we want to make sure that's inside of this frame.
01:18You have to just kind of count on the fact that like everything outside of this
01:22frame could basically be lost, and probably will be.
01:26Now any text that we have, we want to make sure that it comes on the inside of
01:30the inside rectangle, which is the Title Safe rectangle.
01:34So if you have credits or something else like that, or if you're designing a
01:37menu and you have buttons or something, you want to make sure that those go
01:41inside of these Safe Areas, otherwise they may get cut off the screen and
01:45your viewers may not be able to even read what the buttons are.
01:48You could see here this is terrible design for a video,
01:51fine for print, but terrible for video, because inside this Title Safe Area is
01:55really the only stuff that's pretty much guaranteed to be safe. Everything
01:58outside of it may not show up.
02:01So you couldn't maybe even read the word California, because of the way
02:05that this was designed.
02:07So again, make sure that as you're designing,
02:09again, if you have any control over the creation of assets and videos, you want
02:13to make sure that you bring text inside of this inner rectangle and action
02:17inside of the Action Safe rectangle on the outside here.
02:22Plan on this outer rim here, everything from the Action Safe Area to the
02:27edge of the frame, just count on that probably being tossed out by most
02:32television sets.
Collapse this transcript
4. Creating Projects
Creating a new project
00:00In this chapter, we're going to back up just a little bit and talk about the
00:04foundations of Encore and starting from scratch here.
00:07So we're going to talk about creating a new project this movie.
00:10So with this Welcome Screen, go ahead and click on the New Project button.
00:14Here we have all the settings, which again, might be little intimidating if
00:17you're new to DVD authoring or to the world of video.
00:19But fear not, it's not as challenging as it might seem.
00:23First thing, we need to create a Name and a Location to save our project.
00:27So I'm going to go ahead and create a New Project, or I am going to call it New Project.
00:31I'm going to click Browse to choose where to save it.
00:33I'm going to choose the Chapter 04 folder of the Exercise Files.
00:37Of course, you could save yours wherever you'd like.
00:39I'm going to go ahead and click Choose.
00:40Now be aware that with Encore files, you'll also find other folders that
00:45are created by Encore.
00:47So if go back and click the Browse button, I go back to Exercise Files and look
00:49at a previous chapter we've have done, such as Chapter 03,
00:52you could see that there is an ncor file, ncore and Encore.
00:57That's kind of cool. That's the file extension for an Encore Project.
01:00So we made the Bits and Bytes project, but Encore also created the Bits and
01:04Bytes folder with all kinds of extra data and junk that it uses in the same folder
01:10as the Project folder.
01:11So I'm going to go ahead and hit Cancel.
01:13I just want to show you that Encore does that, just so you don't think you're crazy.
01:16There's are all these folders that you didn't create on your own, on your hard drive.
01:19That's where we choose, in our Project Settings area here, the Authoring mode, whether
01:24it's Blu-ray or whether it's DVD.
01:27Now as you could see here in that Transcode Settings area, this changes based on
01:31what we have selected.
01:32So if we click Blu-ray, than we automatically transcode something.
01:36These are the Dimension, the Frame Rate, all that kind of stuff it's going to have.
01:39We select DVD,
01:40it has a different set of Dimensions, and other attributes as well.
01:43Now as discussed before, this is also where we choose the Television
01:46Standard: NTSC or PAL.
01:48I'm just going to go ahead and set this to DVD, NTSC and click OK.
01:53So that's really all there is to creating a New Project.
01:57Now what we could do anytime is go up to the File menu here and choose Project Settings.
02:02If you do some research and you say, you know what? I actually want to change my project from
02:07NTSC to PAL, it's not going to let you do that.
02:10So notice that the Television Standard dropdown is set.
02:14So in that case, you'd have to start all over again with a new project.
02:17So again, that's why I mentioned in the last chapter, you really want to know
02:21where your final project is going be output to,
02:23so you create that Television Standard correctly from the first place.
02:27However, if you go through and make a bunch of menus, and you decide, you know what?
02:31I asked you want to burn this to Blu-ray,
02:33that is not actually a challenge.
02:35So you can just change this Authoring mode to Blu-ray.
02:37That will give you access to Blu-ray features and Blu-ray Transcode Settings.
02:42You go ahead and click OK.
02:43That's all there is to changing whether you're going to be outputting to
02:46Blu-ray or a DVD.
02:47Likewise, if you have your Project set to Blu-ray, of course, and you can just go back to
02:51DVD at any time as well.
02:53That's really all you need to know to create a new Encore project.
Collapse this transcript
Touring the interface
00:00Now we've already worked a little bit with the user interface, but I kind of
00:03want to take a movie and just show you all the tricks here, because it's a
00:06very cool, very intuitive interface and mastering it will make your work much more efficient.
00:12Now as discussed, we have a series of little modules here called panels
00:16that contain something with common themes, such as Properties, or
00:20Libraries, Styles, and whatnot.
00:22They are grouped together in groups of panels referred to as a Frame.
00:26So in this Frame, there is the Properties panel, the Character panel.
00:30I have a little horizontal scrollbar here, meaning that there is another panel
00:34I'm not clicking at here.
00:35So I can grab this little scrollbar and move it to the right and
00:38see that there actually is the Metadata panel here as well, grouped in the same frame.
00:43Now if you want to move things around, you totally can.
00:46Now if you want to your cursor in between a vertical divider line here, you can
00:50click and drag, and move your panels around.
00:54Same thing with horizontal bars between panels to resize things.
00:58If you put your cursor at a junction between several panels here, let's say at this
01:03spot, you get a four-way move icon there, indicating that we could move several
01:07panels at once, very handy.
01:10Now if you want to move panels to a different frame, you could do that as well.
01:14If I grab the Properties panel, I grab the name of the Properties panel and move
01:17it around, you can see that I get these little semi-transparent drop zones.
01:21If I use one of the outside drop zones, it indicates that I'm going to create
01:25brand-new frame with that panel in it.
01:28So if I use one of these side drop zones here, I make a new frame with just
01:32the Properties panel.
01:33If I want to group the Properties panel in with this main Monitor area here,
01:38I can click and drag and use the center drop zone to group panels in the same frame.
01:44To get these things back where they once were, just grab Properties,
01:48use the center drop zone in the previous frame, and there you have it.
01:53We could also click and drag to reorder our panels, just by clicking on a
01:57tab with its name on it as well.
01:59When you're working on Blu- ray menus, because they are HD,
02:02it's a good idea to have a second monitor.
02:05If you have a second monitor setup, what you can do is hold the Command key on
02:08the Mac or the Ctrl key on the PC.
02:11This is a dropdown here.
02:12So you can't grab the name of this viewer here, but there is a little grip right
02:15here on the left-hand side. You can use that.
02:17So hold the Command key or the Ctrl key, click and drag, and you will create a
02:21floating panel here, which then you can use to put on your second monitor over
02:25here, which I actually have set up, but you can't see it. Just trust me.
02:29Take my word on it that I stuck that over there for a second.
02:31So there we have our Menu Viewer back to where it was, because I simply dragged
02:35and dropped to these little grip things here and
02:38used the center drop zone again.
02:39Now if after all this screwing around, you find that things are all weird and messed up,
02:45that sometimes happens,
02:46you can go to the Window menu, go to Workspace,
02:49then we just say Reset the Default Workspace.
02:51There is a series of workspaces here for different tasks, such as a Menu Design
02:54or Timeline Editing.
02:56I'm just going to choose Reset the Default.
02:58It says, Are you sure you want to reset Default to the original layout. Yes.
03:02Then we're back to square one here.
03:04Now if you ever find that there is a panel that you're not seeing,
03:06let's say, for example, the Library panel, which is a really important panel here,
03:09I click the little X next to its name to close it,
03:12I can always go to the Window menu.
03:13That's where I can get all my panels.
03:15So I can just choose Window > Library, and back comes the Library to the same
03:19spot it was before, and I could drag its name around in the tab.
03:22So it is on the left here, as it was before.
03:25We could also choose different workspaces from the Workspace dropdown here.
03:29One other cool interface tip, the little Tilde, which is little squiggle
03:33that's above the tab key and to the left of the number one on the main area of the keyboard,
03:37if you press that Tilde key, you'll maximize whatever panel your cursor
03:42happens to be over.
03:44You could restore it by pressing the Tilde key again.
03:46So I'm going to double- click this Laptop menu here.
03:49Let's say I want to look a little bit closer at this photo or at the menu, again,
03:52hit the Tilde key to zoom in.
03:53Hit the Tilde key to zoom back out again.
03:56You'll also notice that after I've zoomed in on a panel, and then zoom back out
04:00again, that it has this gold outline around it.
04:03This outline around a panel means that it is selected.
04:07This is important, because there are certain keyboard shortcuts that only work
04:10if the correct panel is selected.
04:12So be aware of that.
04:15Now a lot of these other interface elements, such as these little flyout menus
04:18here, the menu bar at the top, the tools here and even this search area here,
04:24that you can use to search through Adobe Encore's help, very helpful,
04:29a lot of the stuff is pretty much self-explanatory.
04:31You'll just kind of get the hang of as you begin working.
04:34A lot of this stuff also, we'll get in more detail with as we go throughout
04:36this training series.
04:37But it's just, again, good to have a solid foundation of the interface of Encore
04:42before moving forward.
Collapse this transcript
Importing assets as Encore objects
00:00We've seen previously how we can import assets by simply double-clicking in the Project panel.
00:05However, this only imports object as assets and from there, we can convert things
00:10like say, we had video,
00:11we can convert that into a timeline.
00:13But if we know ahead of time that we are going to convert an asset into an
00:16Encore object, we can save ourselves a step by right-clicking in the Project
00:20panel, choosing Import As, and then instead of choosing Asset, we could choose
00:24the object. So say, for example, I could choose Import As > Timeline.
00:28And that can navigate to a video, such as Clip05_tahoe in the Video folder, in
00:32the Media folder of Exercise Files. Click Open and not only does that import
00:37that video clip as an asset, but also it creates a timeline and puts that clip
00:41in the timeline as well.
00:43This saved us a step, but in some cases, it's absolutely necessary to
00:48import things this way.
00:49I'm going to right-click in the Project panel again.
00:51I'm going to choose Import As > Menu, this time.
00:54Now, in the PSD Files folder of the Media folder of the Exercise Files, you'll
00:59find this Explore CA menu.
01:01Now, this is a Photoshop document,
01:03as we'll talk about a little bit more later on in this training series, but
01:06I can import this as an asset and use it as a still image, but there's a lot of
01:11layers here, and this is actually a full-blown menu.
01:14If I just import it as a PSD file, as a still image, then Encore will see it as
01:18a still image, and there will be no way to convert that from that still image
01:23to the Encore menu.
01:25So we need to import this as a menu in order for Encore to be able to recognize
01:31this as a menu, so it's not just a time saver.
Collapse this transcript
Using the Project panel
00:00As we talked about before, the Project panel is really key in the Encore
00:04workflow because it's where we import all of our stuff.
00:08Now because it's very import all of our stuff, it's very important to know how to
00:11use this panel effectively.
00:13Number one, as I mention before when we select a clip, I'll just click on olive sorting 02,
00:18I mentioned before how we get some important details about this file here at the
00:23top, but what I haven't mentioned is that we actually get a little mini timeline here.
00:27So if you wanted to preview a clip, simply select it, and then you could hit
00:31this play icon here in the Project panel.
00:34(Noise playing.)
00:39It's a rather a loud video, olives being sorted in a factory.
00:43We also get this little timeline here, which we can click and scrub, so we
00:46can just preview our entire video, just to make sure that this is the right
00:50video that we want.
00:51There is also - if we resize this panel here - tons of information about
00:55the clip including its type, its duration and all the transcode stuff we looked at before,
01:01also its size, to make sure you don't get like a low-res version of one that you
01:05want actually be a high quality version, maybe a shortened snippet instead of the
01:09real deal. So size can be very helpful, and also the last time it was modified, a
01:13lot of information here.
01:14Another thing it's really important about the Project panels that keep it organized.
01:18I mean this is a very small project so far, but already this is so disgusting to look at.
01:22It's distracting. And also, even worse, it's tough to kind of find away around to
01:27see what we need to find.
01:28So what I'd like to do is go down to this new icon again, and the first
01:33option is the Folder.
01:34I like to create folders.
01:35So I'm going to create a folder for my timelines.
01:38I'm just going to call this Timelines.
01:40And then I could grab timelines and drag and drop them into the Timelines
01:46folder if I so choose.
01:49I'd like to go through and create a folder for every type of Asset, so I
01:52might have created a folder for menus, a folder for just Assets, a folder for
01:56slide shows, and that way when I'm looking for something, I know exactly where to go to get it.
02:01Now, another thing that the Project panel allows you to do is this
02:04little dropdown here,
02:06this shows us all the things that we are allowed to look at, and if there is a
02:10checkmark here, then than means that we're seeing Assets, or menus, or what have you.
02:13But oftentimes, such as this, once I have created timelines, I really don't need
02:18to see the Assets here anymore, so what you could do if you wanted is click
02:22Assets to uncheck it, and the Assets will still be in your project, but you
02:26don't have to see that.
02:27So the timelines are still here, and if we double-click on one of them,
02:30they still work just fine, but we're just not seeing the Assets because of this display here.
02:35And if we want to see it again, just go ahead and click it to see them again.
02:38Now, I realize that if you're new to the world of DVD authoring that you
02:42probably have like, maybe one movie that you want to add and you have one menu
02:46and one movie, and it's very simple.
02:48But trust me, if you're going to do this for a living or with any kind of
02:51substantial complicated project, you're going to want to learn organization.
02:56It's not fun to talk about when you're wanting to learn a new program, but trust
03:00me on this one folks.
03:01This is something that you want to get in habit of doing.
03:03To be able to organize your footage, to be able to find it right when you want
03:06to and not just, again, your footage, but all of the objects in Encore so it
03:09starts getting really complex when you start having these Chapter Playlists,
03:12and Timelines, and Slideshows and all the other objects that we're talking about in Encore.
03:17It just gets to be such a big mess in here and also because when we import files
03:22into the Project panel, it doesn't affect the size of the entire project so you
03:25could feel free to import as much stuff as you want.
03:28You're just, again, bringing in links to the source of footage on your hard-drive.
03:32So if you're not sure which piece of audio to use for a slideshow, you could
03:36just import dozens of clips to see which one works best.
03:39And so, the Project panel really becomes this huge like repository of
03:43goodies and information.
03:44So it's really important to keep that sorted and organized.
Collapse this transcript
5. Creating Menus
Understanding menus
00:00In the next few chapters, we're going to look at several key Encore objects in depth.
00:04So in this chapter, we're going to look at menus and next, we're going to look at
00:07buttons, and subpictures.
00:09Look at this menu. This is a typical menu, and through this menu, we access the
00:14film, special features, different languages and other bonus items.
00:18So really, menus are almost like the way that you introduce your content to people.
00:24If you have an asset that's not connected to a menu, chances are people will
00:27not be able to find it. Even when you export to Flash, menus become the Web
00:32pages that you used to allow users to go from page to page.
00:36So menus really are critical, and that's why we're talking about menus first.
Collapse this transcript
Creating menus with the Library panel
00:00We've talked previously about how you can create menus from the Library panel
00:04simply by double-clicking, but what we're going to do here is we're going to
00:07use the Library panel to create separate elements to actually assemble a custom menu.
00:13Now the ultimate custom menu, of course, is created from Photoshop, and we'll
00:16talk about how to do that later in this training series.
00:18For now, go to Library panel, make sure you're in the General Set here and make
00:24sure that we're only seeing menus by clicking this first button here, and then
00:28go to the top, and I want Blank Menu, not Blank Menu HD, not Blank Menu Wide,
00:33but just Blank Menu.
00:35And if we double-click that, that will add this to our project, and now it's
00:38basically like an empty canvas that we can use to take other elements from the
00:43Library panel to our menu here to construct it.
00:47Now what I'm going to do is go to the Set dropdown, and I'm going to change
00:50this set to Education.
00:52Now, you notice that there was like a little bar that went very quickly through
00:55the Library panel as it loaded the Education Set, but the first time that you
01:00load any other Set besides General, it will take a very long time to load.
01:04So if you switch to the Education set, and you've never done so before, be
01:08prepared to wait a good 20 seconds for that to happen, depending on the speed of
01:12your computer, of course.
01:13Now, with this first button selected, we're only looking at menus, but
01:17we've already got a menu.
01:18So let's go and look at other stuff here.
01:20To click the next button, we'll look at Buttons.Tthe next button will show us
01:23images, and they are none in the Education Set currently, and I could click on backgrounds.
01:28And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take one of these backgrounds, and
01:31I'm going to apply it to my menu.
01:32If I want this Chalkboard background to be my menu background, all I have to do
01:37is just double-click it, and it will automatically go in as part of the
01:40background of my menu Set.
01:42Now, here is a little trick.
01:43If you know ahead of time that you want a certain background, let's just say the
01:46Elephant background, let's just say we want to make a menu out of this image.
01:51All we have to do is drag and drop it into our Project panel.
01:54It will assume that we want to make a menu with that image as the background.
01:58So as you go from set to set, realize that these background images are basically
02:02menus waiting to happen.
02:03Just so this isn't confusing, I'm going to select this Elephant background menu.
02:07I'm going to press the Trashcan at the bottom of the Project panel to delete
02:10this, so we can get back to working on our Chalkboard menu here.
02:13Now, we need some buttons on our background, so I'm actually going to click
02:17the Button, and I'm going to go to the top, and I'm going to select the Chalkboard button.
02:23And what I can do is drag and drop this button wherever I'd like, or I could
02:27just double-click it.
02:28And it will just kind of come in somewhere into my menu.
02:31Now, this is not where I want these.
02:33They should be here in this blank spot, but I'm going to fix that in next movie.
02:36For now, we need to move to get some text.
02:39So we could actually type out the name of our movie or that's a menu, or
02:42whatever, but just having buttons is not quite good enough.
02:46So I'm going to go over here to the T, and here we have different types of text.
02:50There is only three for the Education Set, but if we are in a different Set, like
02:53General, the different types of Type that you can use are really large.
02:58A lot of different styles here to play with, some little outdated and little
03:02cheesy, but there are some good ones in here as well.
03:04So I'm going to take the Set back to Education, and actually I wanted this
03:08Chalkboard Button Text, so I can just double-click or drag and drop, and that
03:11comes into my scene here.
03:14If we click it, it will not be selectable anymore unless we click directly on
03:18it, so there are kind of challenging to edit.
03:21So what we're going to do in the next movie is to talk about how to edit this
03:24mess that we've created.
03:26Now these are all the elements that I need, the buttons and the text, even though
03:29they are not set up right, and they are not in the right place and all that kind
03:33of stuff, but I could add more stuff.
03:35I could, for example, click on the Images button and add an image here.
03:39And we're not going to do that, but we could.
03:41There's no images, again, in the Education Set, so I could go down to General Set
03:44so we can mix and match.
03:46We don't have to take all elements from one set.
03:48Let's say I want to add a little plane here, just drag and drop.
03:52I put my cursor around the outside corners here, and we get a double-sided
03:56curved arrow, and if we click and drag with that, we'll be able to rotate this
04:00object while it's selected, and we could move that around and select that, but I
04:04don't really want that in my current menu.
04:07I'm just going to hit the Delete key to get rid of it, but we can drag and drop
04:09elements from the Library panel in any category, in any set, into our menu.
04:15Now, one final step, I want to start here in the next movie, so what I'm going to
04:20do is I'm going to go to File > Save As, and then I'm going to go to the Chapter
04:2505 folder of the Exercise Files.
04:27And then I'm going to type menu for Editing, and that way, my work on my menu
04:34will be saved, and I can start here in the next movie.
Collapse this transcript
Editing menus
00:00So we have this menu that we created from scratch in the last movie,
00:03well, kind of, it looks terrible so we got to fix it here.
00:05So what I'm going to do is grab my buttons here and move these into place.
00:10I want these to be here. Make sure that if you have buttons that overlap, they
00:14will get this red rectangle so make sure that you don't have that red rectangle.
00:18We'll also talk in later movies about how we can automatically align these so
00:22that they are perfectly lined up and orderly. For now we're just going to
00:25eyeball it here, and actually maybe I'll move these around.
00:28Now, if we try to click on our text to select it, we won't be able to, and that's
00:33because we need to use a different tool for the job.
00:35So I'm going to actually move over and select this arrow here.
00:38This is called the Direct Select tool.
00:40This will allow you to select objects that are not selectable with the
00:43regular Selection tool.
00:44So now I could click on my menu text, and we'll put it up top here.
00:49And then now I could go ahead and click on my Type tool and click in this field,
00:54select this text, and we'll call this Happy Times, and then I'm going to click
00:59on the Direct Select tool, the white arrow, move this in to place.
01:03If I need to I can scale this down just by clicking on one of the corner points,
01:08I'm going to, actually hold the Shift key to make sure that the proportions are
01:12constrained, so we don't get this.
01:15That's what happens if we don't hold Shift.
01:17It's easier to hold Shift and make sure everything's all nice and lined up.
01:20And then we could move this into place, click away, and we're good to go, and
01:24now I could go back to my Selection tool, put these buttons in a better place
01:28and there we have our custom made menu, made from scratch with elements from the Library panel.
01:35Now, what we could do, if we want a total control over the look of our menu, is
01:40we could actually select it in the Project panel and then click this button here
01:42in the toolbar this is Edit menu in Photoshop.
01:45This will automatically launch Photoshop and take this menu into Photoshop for editing.
01:50Let's go ahead and try that.
01:50And you'll get a little warning here, just go ahead and click OK.
01:54And now we have this menu, again, for further editing.
01:58So we could go, open up the Layers panel here, and I'll double-click the Adjustments panel.
02:02And then I'm going to go down to the bottom of the Layers panel, click this
02:05little half-black/half-white circle here.
02:07Let's go ahead and select Curves, and then we could maybe drag this point down a
02:13little bit to darken the Chalkboard, if we wanted to, click this point in the
02:17upper right-hand to brighten the brightness.
02:20And so we've basically increased the contrast of our menu, and it made it a
02:26little bit more striking.
02:27We could come back down to the Layers panel, and we can click the eye to see the
02:30before and the after.
02:32And if you're a Photoshop guru, let me just double-click the word Adjustments so we
02:36can see more of our layers here,
02:37then you can go in and really customize any component here.
02:41Let's say, for example, Happy Times, if you wanted to add a layer style to that
02:45here in Photoshop, you could do that.
02:46If you wanted to change the color of Lesson One, or the check box, or the chalk
02:51underline, or these pieces over here, anything you could do in Photoshop, you
02:55have access to it because these are all different layers, different little
02:57components that you could tweak in Photoshop.
02:59Now, just so that the change is a little bit more dramatic, I'm going to add
03:02another adjustment layer by selecting the Curves adjustment layer at the top.
03:05Going back to the half-black/half- white circle at the bottom of the Layers
03:08panel, and then I'm going to choose Hue/Saturation right there.
03:12And I'm going to adjust the Hue a little bit, while is going to tweak things
03:17considerably, and I think I like that a little bit better.
03:20It's a little bit screwy, but I'm just trying to make a point here.
03:23I'm going to hit Command+S to save, and then if I go back to Encore, we could
03:27see that the changes that we made in Photoshop are automatically updated here in Encore.
03:33So again, one of the things that we will keep stressing throughout this
03:35training series is is it's good to know Photoshop if you're going to be working
03:39in Encore seriously.
Collapse this transcript
The Menu Viewer vs. the Menus panel
00:00If you double-click a menu in a Project panel, it will open up in a panel
00:04called the Menu Viewer.
00:06And this is where we can make some adjustments and see different things down
00:09here that we'll talk about later at the bottom of the Menu Viewer.
00:13But it can be a little confusing because you might think of this as the Menu
00:16panel, but over here there is the Menus panel also.
00:20So what's the deal?
00:21Well, they serve different purposes.
00:23The one that we looked at to see our menu is called the Menu Viewer, and this is
00:28to referred to as the Menus panel.
00:30So the Menus panel is to allow us to look at our menu at a glance.
00:34It's extremely helpful, so I could click on a menu here and when we click that
00:38menu to select it down below here, it will show us all kinds of information
00:42about our menu, specifically each button.
00:46So if I look at Big fish prize, if I go back to my menu you could see that
00:50the menu button names are Big Fish Prize, Take Home Pay, Excursion - Day 1 and preparations.
00:55These are the same buttons here.
00:56And again, a lot of the stuff is going to make sense later on.
00:58A very important feature called End Action Override, so we could see the end
01:02action override at a glance, and tons of other information, including the Link.
01:07So if we could see that's Not Set then we know that that button is not
01:10connected to anything.
01:11So this can be a very helpful way to look at information about the menu itself
01:17and also each button at a glance.
Collapse this transcript
Creating motion menus
00:00When we're dealing with menus, sometimes, in this day and age, especially, just
00:04having a static image in the background may not be what you want all the time.
00:09If you're just making a DVD of home movies or whatever, then the menu doesn't
00:13need to be that spectacular.
00:14But if you're making it for a client and you really want it to be very
00:18impressive and engaging, you could actually create motion in the background.
00:22This is referred to as a Motion menu.
00:25I'm going to show you two different ways to do that.
00:27First of all, let's turn our attention back to the Library panel, and I've
00:30clicked on this Menu button to see only menus.
00:34Most of the icons here are very similar, but every once in a while, we'll see
00:39a menu with like a folded over, dogeared flap in the upper right-hand corner there.
00:45That indicates that this menu is different from the others, because it is a Motion menu.
00:50See, this is a regular old menu that we're looking at here, and it's just a
00:53still image in the background, and that's fine.
00:55But this one right here, again, with the folded over corner, indicates if we
00:58were to add this to our project, this is actually a Motion menu.
01:02This is not a still image in the background. This is a movie.
01:05So this particular movie has, like, this 3D rendered baby crib, which is really cool.
01:09Actually, what we're going to do is go to the Corporate set, and then we are
01:13going to scroll down here, and we are going to go to the Clock menu.
01:18Go ahead and double-click the Clock menu, which, again, as you could tell by the
01:20folded over corner of the icon, is a Motion menu.
01:23So double-click that to add that to your project.
01:25When you add that to your product, it not only adds the menu to your project,
01:29but the accompanying movie that is the menu's background.
01:32Now if we were to preview this menu, we would not see any of the motion, by
01:38default, because these Motion menus must be rendered first.
01:43So to render this Motion menu, we're going to go to the File menu > Render > Motion menus.
01:52After a minute or two, the render will be complete and ready to preview this
01:56Motion menu, and I'm just going to right-click on the menu itself, the
02:00NTSC_Clock menu, and I'm going to choose Preview from Here.
02:03We haven't really connected this anywhere to our project, but we just want to
02:06preview this object and choosing Preview from Here will allow us to preview just this object.
02:11We could see this really cool clock animation going on, and this happens in our
02:16background while the viewers are just kind of hanging out looking at the menu.
02:21So this is much more stimulating and engaging than just a simple still image in the background.
02:26Again, not appropriate for every audience or for every project, but for those
02:30ones where you want to make a strong impression, Motion menus can really make a difference.
02:34Let me go ahead and click Exit and Return here.
02:37There might be times when you want to make your own Motion menu.
02:40So I'm going to double- click this NTSC_Blank menu.
02:43As you can see, it's not a blank menu.
02:44I've added a background, and I've added some buttons and some text here.
02:48But I also have my own video clip, and what I want to do is add my own video clip
02:53as the background video to this menu here.
02:56So what I'm going to do is hold the Option key on the Mac or the Alt key on the
03:00PC while I drag this video to the background.
03:04Again, you need to hold down the Option or Alt key as you're dragging to do
03:08this, but once you do, it replaces the background and puts your video as the new background.
03:13So now, again, I need to go to File > Render > Motion menus, which will render
03:18this background, and then will allow us to preview this as a video.
03:23So now that that's rendered, I'm going to, again, right-click on the menu and
03:26choose Preview from Here, beautiful!
03:28So as you could see our video in the background, and it play while viewers are
03:33waiting to make their choice. Again, it's just a much more engaging way of
03:38presenting information.
03:39Now, it's important that you don't confuse Motion menus with what I call Video menus.
03:44Motion menus, as we've been talking about here, are basically just a menu, and
03:48the background is video.
03:49Later on in this training series when we get into advanced cool tricks and
03:53tips later on, I'm going to show you how to actually take a video and make
03:56that an entire menu.
03:58So the buttons can be videos as well.
04:02But for now, you've got to admit, it's a pretty cool trick.
04:04I challenge you to go out and play in the Library panel.
04:07Look through the different sets. Look through the different Motion menus. Make
04:10your own Motion menus.
04:11Bring in videos of your own.
04:12Put those as backgrounds and menus and see what you can come up with.
Collapse this transcript
About submenus
00:00As you are meandering your way through the Library panel, you will find that
00:05when there is a menu, there is an accompanying submenu.
00:09That's what we're going to look at in this movie.
00:10So I've added this Pro menu from the Government set to our project here, and we
00:15have all these different links.
00:17Let's say, for example, that the Investors movie isn't actually a movie, but
00:22several movies of different investors.
00:24So what we could do is double-click the Pro Submenu.
00:28And essentially, what we have is a menu based on the same visual theme, but the
00:32opportunity to choose scenes.
00:35That's typically what we use submenus for is for scene selections.
00:40These little buttons here are video buttons that will allow you to put
00:44thumbnails from your videos so that people could actually see different scenes.
00:48We'll talk about how to do that little bit later.
00:50So what I would do in this case would be to double-click the Pro menu to open it up,
00:54select the Investors button, and then in the Properties panel, drag the pick
00:58whip from the link over to the Submenu.
01:01So that way, they might click on timelines when these buttons are clicked.
01:05When the user clicks Investors, then the link opens up the Submenu, and they can
01:10choose which investor to learn more about.
01:13Now, you might be tempted to just kind of avoid this whole Submenu, Chapter
01:16Selection menu thing, but I strongly recommend that if you have something that's
01:20going to be longer than just a few minutes, that you do create one of these
01:24scene selection submenus, because it's very helpful to viewers.
01:28Not everybody can sit through an entire presentation, even like a movie.
01:31Sometimes life just happens and people are called away, and they want to come
01:34back, and they don't want to have to fast forward through the entire thing and
01:37so allowing them to jump back into the project is very helpful.
01:40You could also, if there's buttons like this here, Previous and Next buttons,
01:45you could create multiple Chapter Selection menus.
01:47So you might have 20 different investors or 20 different scenes in your movie
01:51and so you can continue to add another Submenu, because not all of my scenes
01:57will fit in this Chapter Selection menu.
01:59Then we could just link the Next button to the Submenu and so on and so forth.
02:03So submenus then are a great way for your users to be able to jump in and get to
02:10the spot of your content that they want to go to.
Collapse this transcript
6. Creating Buttons
The anatomy of a button
00:00Now we're going to turn our attention to look at buttons,
00:03but what exactly is a button?
00:05What makes up a button?
00:06That's what we're going to look at in this movie here.
00:08I have here a menu, and we have several buttons here.
00:12If you look, we have a few components.
00:14We have the text of the button.
00:17We have a little graphic element that suggests the button even when we're not
00:22activating that particular button.
00:23So even if we had success stories activated, we could still see there's little
00:27rectangles for these other buttons here.
00:30There's another component as well.
00:32I'm going to right-click on this NTSC_ Organic menu and choose Preview from Here.
00:37When we select a button with our DVD remotes, there is often a little
00:41extra picture here called a subpicture highlight, or often referred to as just a highlight.
00:47This denotes that a button is selected.
00:51So it doesn't mean that we've actually chosen that option.
00:53It just means that that is the option that we have currently selected.
00:57This, of course, tells the viewer that if they want to watch, for example,
01:0030-year plan, go ahead and push play now, because that's what you have selected.
01:04So we have here three components, but they're not always necessary.
01:09Let's go ahead and close this.
01:10I'm going to click either Exit here or Exit and return.
01:13With this menu selected here, I'm going to click in the Menu Viewer to select it.
01:17Let's go over to the Layers panel.
01:20Again, if you're familiar with Photoshop, this will feel very second nature
01:23to you, because basically the layers here are referring to the layers in the Photoshop file.
01:30Buttons are actually a layer group in the Photoshop file.
01:34If we open up the layer group, in other words, these little folders here, we
01:37could see these different components.
01:39As mentioned, we have the Bracket here, the graphic element.
01:42We have the text, denoted by the little T here, the T icon, mission statement in this case.
01:48Then we also have the Highlight.
01:49Notice that the visible elements have Eyes next to them, and there is no Eye
01:54icon next to the subpicture Highlight, so we can't see it right now.
01:58We'll talk much more about subpicture highlights towards the end of this chapter.
02:02But we don't necessarily need all of these components, and we could have several more.
02:07So some of these, like the Bracket, are just design elements, and Encore doesn't
02:11necessarily need those.
02:13What I do recommend that you have is text and a subpicture Highlight.
02:18This tells people what they are selecting and if something is selected or not.
02:23Now later on when we get in the fun and games section of Encore, the advanced
02:27stuff later on the training series, we'll talk about how you can create a button
02:30without text, without a bracket and just a secret subpicture highlight, and you
02:34could use that to store secret content on your discs.
02:38We refer to that type of content as Easter eggs.
02:40So we'll talk about how to do that later on.
02:42Let's look at another example of buttons.
02:44I'm going to open up this NTSC_Atomic menu.
02:47This is a little bit more complex menu.
02:49There are these things called replacement layers here, which we'll talk about later.
02:52There's also a Motion menu background, and yet still, what makes buttons up here are the same.
03:00We have a green background, and then we have the text, and there's a
03:03subpicture highlight.
03:04So if we open up one of these, say, for example, Alpha here, we could see that
03:08there's a subpicture highlight, ALPHA text, and the button background.
03:13So be aware that that is really the nuts and bolts of what a button is.
03:17It's a folder in Photoshop with these special codes.
03:21This is what tells Encore when you bring in a Photoshop document, what
03:26exactly this object is.
03:27So this code means something.
03:29This code means a highlight.
03:31We'll talk a lot later about these different codes that we could put in our
03:34documents in Photoshop.
03:36But for now, just know that a button is a series of objects grouped into
03:40a folder.
Collapse this transcript
Creating buttons
00:00Encore actually allows you to turn anything into buttons. As we saw in the last movie,
00:04buttons can be a component, like a graphic component.
00:07It could be text, a subpicture or any one of those, and Encore allows you to just
00:12select one and make it a button.
00:14So let's go ahead and right-click in the Project panel, go to Import As > Menu,
00:19and let's go to the PSD Files folder, in the Media folder, in the Exercise Files.
00:23Let's go ahead and choose Hansel and Petal menu.psd.
00:26Let's go ahead and choose Open, and notice that we have a menu here.
00:30Let me just resize this so
00:32this is a little bit bigger.
00:33Now what I neglected to do when I created this menu is to specify a button.
00:39So if we go over to Layers panel, and actually let me click on the Menu Viewer to
00:43select our menu here, you could see that we don't have any menu buttons.
00:47There are no codes here.
00:49So what I want to do is take this flower and this text, which is grouped into
00:53this folder, Group 1, and make this into a button.
00:57Even if I don't know the codes, I can select this group, and I can go over to
01:02the Object menu and simply choose Convert to Button.
01:05It adds the codes for me, and now we have our text, and we have our little
01:10graphic representation.
01:11We don't really need either one of those, but both are a good idea.
01:14And so now we have them.
01:16But again, we could pretty much turn anything into a button.
01:18We could go to Library panel and in the General set, I'm going to go to images
01:23here, and I might choose a rocket, which is awesome, and drag and drop that on to
01:30our Hansel and Petal ad, which thematically does not work really well, but we're
01:33going to go with it.
01:34With the Rocket selected, I'll go to Object > Convert to Button and boom!
01:39That is now a button.
01:40When it's selected, we can create links to this or from this, so if someone
01:45chooses the Rocket, it can go somewhere.
01:48So basically, anything that we need, any text that we create in Encore here can
01:53be converted to a button.
Collapse this transcript
Editing buttons
00:00If you ever need to edit buttons, or rather, edit the components of buttons, it's
00:04just as easy as creating them.
00:05Here we have a menu that I've put a little bit more effort into, and we
00:09have this Set Up button looking pretty good here, a cloud with the text
00:13setup centered in it.
00:15But here we have Scenes as text moving off of the cloud. That's not good.
00:19And here we have the Play All text in the right spot, but the clouds move.
00:22So what I want to do is move the cloud part of this button and with the text
00:25part of this button and fix things.
00:27But when we click on these buttons, all we get are the buttons themselves.
00:31I'm just going to undo that by hitting Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on the PC.
00:35What I need access to, in this situation, are the individual components of the
00:39button, the text, the cloud.
00:41So what I'm going to do is choose the white arrow, the Direct Select tool.
00:45Usually, it's a general rule that the Selection tool selects entire objects or
00:50groups of objects, and then if you need to whittle down and select a component
00:54or a piece of that object, then that is what we use the Direct Select tool for.
00:59So what I'm going to do now with my white arrow, my Direct Selection tool, is
01:03click on any one of these components.
01:04I'll click on the cloud here.
01:06Now I could click and drag and move the cloud into place.
01:10I could also click and drag the Scenes text and move that into place.
01:15So again, we can adjust the individual components of buttons, not just the
01:20entire button itself, by using the Direct Select tool.
Collapse this transcript
Viewing and adjusting button routing
00:00Button routing allows your viewers to control how buttons are selected.
00:05This is especially important in complex menus such as submenus like this,
00:10where there are buttons that allow you go back to a previous submenu or to the next submenu.
00:16There are multiple buttons, and there's a Main menu button.
00:19So how do your viewers go from button to button?
00:23Now first we want to make sure that our menu is showing in the Menu Viewer.
00:27You could do that by double- clicking it in the Project panel here.
00:30Next, we need to show the button routing.
00:34To do that, go down here at the bottom of the Menu Viewer to this button and
00:38click that, which will show you the button routing.
00:41So this 1 here in the center indicates this one button is, in fact, button 1.
00:47Then this is button 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and then, in a weird twist of craziness, this is button 7.
00:55This is button 8, and then the Main menu is button 9.
01:00Now the numbers on the outside of the center tell you what would happen if
01:04a viewer had that button selected and then pushed that direction with their remote.
01:11This is a little bit screwy, and a lot of times the default button routing for
01:16the default menus, or the menus that come with Encore, are little bit off and
01:20I actually haven't changed any of this,
01:21so this is actually the way it comes to you.
01:23So in other words, if I'm on button 4, for example, and as a user, I push the Up
01:29button on my DVD remote, it's going to take me to button 6, which is down here.
01:35That doesn't make any sense to me.
01:36I mean, if I was a user, to me, in my mind, and I was on button 4 and I push the
01:41Up button, I would think that it would take me to this button here.
01:44So I want to change that.
01:45That's kind of screwy to me.
01:46Also, if I was on button 4 and if I push the right direction, I think that I
01:52would be going to the Main menu.
01:54But no, I go back to number 1, which seems very counterintuitive to go to the
01:59left when I actually push to the right.
02:02Really, the only way to get back to the Main menu button is to somehow get back
02:08to one of these buttons, button 7 or 8, and then push up, if you're on button 8,
02:13or down if you're on button 7.
02:15That's just anarchy. That's crazy.
02:16I wanted to be able to be easier for my users to change things than that.
02:21But there's not much we can do until we go back and select the menu in the Project panel.
02:26When the menu is selected in our Project panel, you could see it in
02:29the Properties panel.
02:31Then in the Menu properties, there is an option that says Automatically Route Buttons.
02:35If this is chosen, then you have no control over how the routing of the buttons goes.
02:41So before we change things, we need to click this to deselect it, giving us
02:45total control over button routing.
02:48So now we can go, and I could select button 4, for example, and click on the
02:52right tab, I get a little hand here.
02:54I could click and drag this to button 9.
02:58Now it makes it so that when viewers click to the right, they will go to
03:01the Main menu button.
03:03If I want them to go back to button 7, I could click and drag on the 6 here, and
03:08they will go to button 7.
03:11If they're here and I want them to go direct to button 8, if they click
03:14left, which makes more sense to me, then I'll click and drag and move this over to button 8.
03:19So using this, we can control button routing, giving our users a very
03:23predictable and intuitive user experience.
Collapse this transcript
Creating video buttons
00:00When you create Scene Selection menus and stuff along those lines, having Text
00:05buttons is not very descriptive.
00:07How are people going to know which of those buttons to click on?
00:10So we usually use Video buttons, or buttons with video previews.
00:14So what we need to do is go to the Library panel.
00:18I am going to choose the Wedding Set.
00:20And I clicked on the Display button here, so we are only looking at buttons.
00:23And I am going to go down to the Rose Video Button here.
00:26I am going to drag and drop this into our scene.
00:30This is a really big button that's meant for an HD menu.
00:33So I am going to grab the corners here.
00:35I'm going to hold the Shift key to resize this, make this a little bit smaller.
00:39I can also hold the Option key down to scale it from the center.
00:43That will be the Alt key on the PC, make that little bit smaller and go ahead
00:48and click outside of it to accept it.
00:50When you see buttons like this, it basically means that you are supposed to put
00:54content, or video, inside of this little square. So what I can do,
00:59one of the things I can do is to take my Timeline here of this footage of some
01:04flowers, and drag this Timeline into this Video button, and then the video goes
01:12inside of the button.
01:14Now, when people want to preview different scenes, they have a thumbnail, a
01:18little clip playing, to show them what that scene looks like.
01:22If you want this to actually play the video inside the button, there is a couple
01:27things you need to do.
01:28First of all, we need to go to the menu, then go over to the Properties panel
01:33with the menu selected, and then click on the Motion tab.
01:36By default, you are on the Basic tab here, so you need to click on the Motion tab.
01:40And you need to check Animate Buttons, which is unchecked, by default.
01:45So again, this is unchecked, by default.
01:47So by default, it will just be a still image representation of your clip here,
01:51your video Timeline.
01:52So if you want to see this moving, you need to check Animate Buttons, and then
01:56we also need to render this the same way we render Motion menus.
02:00So let's go to File > Render > Motion menus.
02:07So with that rendered, we could then right- click on the menu, choose Preview from Here.
02:14Now as you can see, once that plays back, we have video playing back inside of our button.
02:20Now again, the four steps that you need to make this magic happen is that one,
02:25you need a video button, two, you need to drag footage into the Video button,
02:29three, you need to check Animate Buttons in the Menu properties, in the
02:34Properties panel, and four, you need to render Motion menus.
02:39One little piece of advice.
02:41When you are creating Video buttons, they are great.
02:45They add a lot of pizzazz to your menus.
02:48And it's great if you only have one or two buttons, but if you have a huge
02:51Submenu full of 6, 8, 10, 12 Video buttons, and they're all going concurrently,
02:58they're all moving,
02:59that could be a little noisy.
03:01So just keep in mind, as you are creating your Video buttons, to make sure that
03:05your menus are not overkill, there's too much going on with all of these Video buttons.
03:10But used appropriately, Video buttons can help your viewers understand a little
03:15bit more about the scene that they are going to watch.
Collapse this transcript
Understanding subpicture states
00:00So now we are going to turn our focus to subpictures, and beginning that
00:04discussion, we are going to look at the states of subpictures.
00:07There are three states, and this is very similar to Web design, if you
00:10are familiar with that.
00:12There is the Nothing State, so when an object is not selected.
00:16Then we have the subpicture State where something is selected.
00:20Then we have a very brief period where the button is actually chosen by the user and selected.
00:26Now we could preview these states by going to the bottom of the Menu Viewer, and
00:30we have these three buttons here.
00:31So we Normal, and this is when it's not selected.
00:35This is Selected, and this is what the subpicture looks like when it is
00:40selected, and this is the Activated State.
00:43Now for 90% of buttons, you are going to have the Activated State the same exact
00:49thing as the Selected State, because again, it's just a very brief split second.
00:53So let's say we have the behind the scenes button here.
00:55And while it's selected, it looks like this.
00:58And then when we press it, the brief amount of time that it takes the DVD
01:02player to acknowledge that it has been selected and then load the actual
01:07behind the scenes link, whatever it links to, that is the time that we will see
01:12the Activated subpicture highlight, which is, again, a very brief period of time.
01:15So most of the time, this Activated State will be the same as the Selected State.
01:20Be aware that as you're working on design of your menus and stuff, that when
01:25you use these subpicture states that you click them to get back to the main way that they look.
01:30Otherwise, you are going to be looking at the subpictures, and that might throw off
01:34your design a little bit.
01:34So again, click it again to deselect it and get back to the regular way of
01:39looking at your menu.
01:40So those are the different states of subpictures.
Collapse this transcript
Changing subpicture colors
00:00All right, folks.
00:01Prepare yourself for this.
00:02This is going to be one of the most mentally challenging ideas and concepts and
00:08features in Encore in this entire training series, but also in this entire
00:12program to work with.
00:14I am going to talk about changing the color of subpicture Highlights.
00:17You might want to go on with the rest of training series, come back to this
00:20later if you need it, because again, it is a very advanced concept.
00:24Adobe has done a great job with this, in my opinion.
00:26But just the way that DVDs have been set up are very limiting as far as
00:31subpicture colors go, and so it's a little bit daunting of a task.
00:34Now, if I go ahead and show the selected state of the Subpicture Highlight, we
00:39can see the Subpicture Highlight here. The Subpicture,
00:42it's important to know, is just an area that is a solid color, and that's all it is.
00:48We cannot have shades of color.
00:50We cannot have an image as a subpicture per se.
00:53Again, later on in the training series I will show you creative ways to get
00:56around that, but a subpicture on its own, a true subpicture, is just really
01:01a flat area of color.
01:03So here's how we change this.
01:05I'm going to go and click the menu and the Menu Viewer, make sure it's showing
01:10in the Properties panel as a menu here.
01:12Then go to the Menu menu at the top of the screen, which is kind of fun to say,
01:17then choose Edit Menu Color Set.
01:19Okay, an Edit Menu Color Set gets you to the Menu Color Set dialog, which allows
01:24you to change the colors of your subpicture highlights.
01:29By default, the Color Set is set to Automatic, which means that the Selected and
01:34Activated States are the same, and the color for the Subpicture Highlight is
01:38obtained automatically from the menu by Encore.
01:41So Encore looks at your menu and says hey!
01:43That looks like a bluish menu and then automatically chooses this blue color.
01:48So if you want to manually change the color, we need to change the Color Set
01:51from Automatic to Menu Default.
01:54That opens up these values, and we can now choose to use these different values.
01:59So the Normal Group, by default, is set to Black, but the Opacity is 0%,
02:05so basically, an invisible Subpicture Highlight, still there, but
02:09completely transparent.
02:11By the way, if you want to preview different states you can check Preview here,
02:14and then this is what it looks like normally.
02:16This is what it looks like selected when we are using the Menu Default, and this
02:19is what it looks like in a brief moment when it is activated. Notice this,
02:24if we look to the right here we could see some partial transparency because the
02:27Opacity right here on the right-hand side is set to this dropdown, and it's
02:31about halfway transparent. So, kind of cool.
02:33It allows you to see through the object, which can make the subpictures appear
02:37to be more interesting than they are.
02:38There is a neat button here that allows you to use the selected colors for
02:41the activated colors.
02:42So they're both the same.
02:43You don't have to worry about that.
02:45Now you'll notice that there are three groups in each of the Highlight groups.
02:49And this is where it gets kind of confusing.
02:51You might remember earlier when we looked at the Layers panel here, that there
02:55was an =1 in parentheses.
02:57Well the =1 tells Encore which of the color schemes to use.
03:04So if it says =1 it is going to use the black here, and then the orange, and the red.
03:09If we would have said =2, then it would use the 2 track. Number 2,
03:13it would use the Gray.
03:14It would use the brighter yellow, and the salmon color here, number 2.
03:19Now, to add to the confusion, there is actually two different Highlight groups.
03:23So what if we wanted to use this really light purple and blue for the colors for our buttons?
03:29Well, what we could do is go back and select the button, and then with the
03:34button selected in the Properties panel, we could change the Highlight Group
03:38from Group 1 to Group 2.
03:41So now we have the Normal State, the Selected State, and the Activated State.
03:47You could see that you could actually combine different Highlight groups in the same menu.
03:52So you could actually have multiple colored Subpicture Highlights in the same
03:56menu, which is kind of cool.
03:57So again, I am going to click on the menu, go back to Menu > Edit Menu Color Set here.
04:02Again, this is a little bit of a brainteaser.
04:05By default, most of the Highlights that you'll find in the Library stuff of the
04:10Encore created menus will use the =1 sign, so
04:14you will be using this 1 track here for the majority of your
04:17Subpicture Highlights.
04:18And if you want to change one of the colors, just click in this field, and we
04:21can choose by Hue, Saturation, Brightness, or any one of these other color
04:26schemes, to choose a new color if so inclined, and we can also, again, change
04:32the Opacity as well.
04:34So again, that's how we change the color of Subpicture Highlights.
04:38It is very complicated for something that seems like it should be very easy.
04:42But again, the folks at Adobe I think have done a pretty good job here.
04:45It's really the fault of the DVD spec that says that this is how colors kind
04:49of need to go with Subpicture Highlights, and have made things a little bit confusing.
04:53So that is how to do it.
04:55If it's a little overwhelming, then you might want to continue with the
04:57Training Series and come back here if you need to change the color of
05:00Subpicture Highlights.
Collapse this transcript
7. Working with the Timeline
Using the Monitor
00:00In this chapter, we are going to look at Timelines, and one of the first
00:03things you need to know about Timelines is that we view the contents of
00:06Timelines differently than we've typically been looking at stuff in this
00:10Training Series so far.
00:11Most of the time we have been looking at the Menu Viewer, but when we open up
00:15Timelines, they open up in something called the Monitor panel.
00:19So we preview our Timelines, and this is what we will be doing throughout this chapter here.
00:24We preview our Timelines through the Monitor panel.
00:27The Monitor panel also has certain features down here at the bottom that we will
00:31look at, that are really helpful just for working in Timelines.
00:35We have the Action and Tile Safe areas, and we have some chapter of Marker
00:40Creators, and Navigators as well.
00:43If you find that your Monitor panel isn't showing, of course, we can go to the
00:46Window menu and choose Monitor.
00:48We could use the keyboard shortcut, or we could simply just double-click the
00:52Timeline that we would like to view.
Collapse this transcript
Creating chapter markers
00:00Next, we are going to look at creating Chapter Markers, which is hugely
00:03important when you're creating scenes and submenus, so that people know exactly
00:08where they need to go.
00:10If they are watching your DVD, and they hit the Next button, they will advance to
00:14the next chapter marker.
00:15So it's important that these are placed at interesting spots.
00:18Now for this Training Series we can't really fit an entire 90-minute full-length
00:23movie with the Exercise Files.
00:25It's just too big, and you probably wouldn't want to download that anyway.
00:28So we have here a movie file with some different scenes in it, and this is kind
00:32of representative of a full-length movies, of course, it's only 15 seconds long.
00:36But this symbolically will represent a full-length movie.
00:40So we have here this train scene, and then we cut to some guys on a bike.
00:46So what I want to do is come down here to my Timeline panel here, which is where
00:52the Timeline exists.
00:54And there actually already is a Chapter Marker for you here at the first frame.
00:58Encore does that automatically.
01:00You can see part of it is sticking out here.
01:01So I can move on, and I want to find the first frame of the bikes, which is
01:06right there at 3 seconds and 6 frames in.
01:11Then to create a Chapter Marker, I could simply click this button here in
01:14the Timeline panel.
01:15That creates a new Chapter, Chapter 2.
01:17I could also click this button here in the monitor.
01:21I'm going to now move along until the next cut, which will be right here on the beach.
01:27Let's say this is the next scene, at 6 seconds and 7 frames in.
01:31And again, I could hit the Add Chapter button at the bottom of the monitor.
01:34Now I could navigate through these chapters by clicking these buttons here at
01:38the bottom of the monitor, go to the Previous Chapter or the Next Chapter.
01:42I am going to find one more scene, the next cut here, which should be the guy talking.
01:48There he is.
01:49On this frame, I'm going to add another Chapter Marker, but I am going to do it
01:52in an easier way by using a keyboard shortcut.
01:55That is the Asterisk key on the numeric keypad on my computer.
01:58Press that and the Chapter Marker is, again, automatically added.
02:03So now imagine it is a full-length movie. People are watching this train for a
02:07good long while, and if they're done with it, they can press the Fast Forward
02:10button, and skim it, or they could push the Next button, and that will jump them
02:14to this number 2 Chapter Marker.
02:17Now, again, this is really helpful because if I have a Submenu here, which
02:21I'll go ahead and launch from the General Set of the Library panel, Blue Notes
02:24Submenu, we could actually drag these Chapter Markers to different video
02:30buttons.
02:31So we are actually not showing different videos.
02:35We are actually showing different scenes of the same video.
02:39Now, if you notice when I drag the first Chapter Marker, which is the area
02:44with the train, and I drag that first Chapter Marker up to the Take 1 video
02:49button here, you notice that it had a different look for taking this frame
02:54over here where this 1 is.
02:55Now it's because the Poster Frame for Frame 0, the starting frame, was not
03:02appropriate, and so it used a different frame called a Poster Frame.
03:05So we'll talk about that in the next movie.
03:07But be aware that Chapter Markers are really an integral part of DVD
03:11authoring because of this very feature, so that people can get into the video
03:15where they want.
Collapse this transcript
Setting poster frames
00:00In the last movie, we noticed that when we took this first chapter marker and
00:05dragged it to a Video button here, that we got a different frame than where
00:10the chapter marker was.
00:11Let's go back to the Monitor here with this timeline, and we'll notice that the
00:15first chapter marker is here at the first frame, which fades in from black.
00:19But we are actually seeing, in this Video button, a frame from over here, where
00:24this little rectangle is here.
00:26This little rectangle is what's referred to as a poster frame.
00:29You see, Encore looks at that first frame that actually is black, and it fades
00:33in, and it says you know what?
00:35This is not going to work.
00:36This is not a good representative frame, because if we dragged this as is
00:40here, then it would just be a solid black, and that doesn't help anybody
00:42figure anything out.
00:43So what it does is it automatically goes a few seconds down the road and places
00:48a poster frame there.
00:50And the poster frame says that this is the frame that we'll represent visually
00:55this chapter marker.
00:56So each chapter marker can have its own poster frame.
01:00Now, in our case here, the poster frame is not really indicative of this first chapter.
01:05So what we can do is grab this poster frame and move it.
01:10Now, it represents more of what this first chapter marker represents.
01:14Let's look at another example here.
01:16In the other timeline, we have B-roll_RideBy_04.
01:19I'll go to the Monitor here.
01:21We have some bike riders and when we want people to be able to start watching
01:27this, it's right about here at the beginning.
01:29This is when things start up, and there is actually a chapter marker for us here already.
01:33So even though it doesn't from black, we don't want this to be the poster
01:36frame, because if this is the poster frame, people can't really tell what's going on here.
01:39So we want people to play this when they click on this chapter.
01:44However, we'd like to have maybe this, or maybe back up a little bit.
01:49Maybe this would be the poster frame.
01:51So that way it represents more what is happening.
01:54So what I can do is click on this chapter marker with my Current Time Indicator,
02:00which is this yellow playhead with the red vertical line underneath it.
02:04I am going to have this at five seconds and 22 frames in.
02:08And with this first chapter marker selected, I am going to right-click on it,
02:12and choose Set Poster Frame.
02:14And that will create a poster frame where my Current TIme Indicator is.
02:18Now, if I were to add this first chapter marker to this Video button, it would
02:23not be the frame without bicyclist, but it would be the poster frame.
02:26Now, let's go back to the Explore CA ad Timeline here, and let's go to the
02:31Monitor, and we'll move in time here a little bit.
02:34Let's go to this scene, and let's say we'll add another chapter marker here by
02:38clicking the Add Marker button or one of the other various other ways we talked
02:41about in the last movie.
02:42Another way that I can create a poster frame is simply by clicking on a chapter
02:46marker and the using Command+Option on the Mac or Ctrl+Alt on the PC, holding
02:51those down while I drag away from that current marker, and that creates a poster frame.
02:58And you'll see that I am getting a live update in the monitor of where
03:02that poster frame is.
03:03So once I find it could representative frame, I could let go, and now, a poster
03:07frame has been created.
03:08So again, a poster frame is kind of like a representative, an agent of the
03:13chapter marker, if you will.
03:14So even though the chapter will actually begin playing here, or perhaps over
03:20here, the video thumbnail representation of the Video button will come from the
03:25poster frame, not from where the frame that actually will begin playing.
03:29So again, they see this frame here in the Video button.
03:33But when it actually goes and plays, it actually starts from the chapter marker.
Collapse this transcript
Creating chapter points automatically
00:00Sometimes when you are creating a DVD for something that's not telling a
00:03narrative story, something like maybe a wedding or a sporting event, and you
00:08basically just have a long period of time there, and you want to create chapter markers,
00:12there is a very quick and easy way to have Encore automatically set chapter
00:18markers at given intervals.
00:19Now, in this clip here, we have a bunch of really awesome doughnuts.
00:24So we are going to pretend that this is a movie that doesn't really have a
00:28beginning, middle and an end.
00:29It's just one long continuous shot of doughnuts.
00:32So what we could do is select this clip or this timeline and then go to the
00:36Timeline menu at the top, and then we are going to choose this, Add Chapter
00:41Points at intervals.
00:42And then, what I am going to do is leave this for 8 seconds.
00:46So every 8 seconds, this would create an interval.
00:48Now, you probably want to do this for a little bit longer, if this were maybe
00:52like an hour longer or two hours long.
00:54Again, with the timecode here, this is hours, minutes, seconds and frames.
01:00So if you wanted to apply chapter points every 45 minutes, then you might go in
01:05here and change this to look like that.
01:10That would be every 45 minutes, which in a 90-minute movie would only create
01:13one chapter marker.
01:14That's probably a bad example.
01:16Maybe every 15 minutes or so.
01:18But what I am going to do here is change this back to 0, and because this
01:20footage is so short, I am just going to say 8 seconds.
01:24And then, if you wanted to, you could actually remove existing chapter points as
01:28well, so that you are adding in intervals are the only ones.
01:31I am just going to go ahead and leave it as this at 8 seconds and click OK.
01:35In just a couple of seconds there, we have an entire timeline full of organized
01:40chapter markers at given intervals that we did not have to add.
01:44Encore did them automatically for us.
Collapse this transcript
Editing video in the timeline
00:00Encore allows you do some light video editing.
00:03Now, Encore is definitely not built for this.
00:06So it's not recommended that you do a majority of your video editing here.
00:09But in pinch, it's good to know that there are a few little helpers here
00:14allowing you to do some light video editing.
00:16In my Timeline here, I have this flower clip, and as we play it, we realize
00:20that the camera guys kind of like pulling focus and just kind of getting it all set up and stuff.
00:24This is not the stuff that our viewers will need to see.
00:27It's really right about there, at about 13 seconds and 20 frames in, and this is
00:32where we want the clip to start.
00:33So all this junk right here, the first part of the clip is not anything that I need.
00:37So I am going to put my cursor over the beginning here and just like in Adobe
00:41Premiere Pro, we get this Trimming icon that we could click and drag this to our
00:47Current TIme Indicator, thereby chopping off those initial bits.
00:52Now, this does leave a hole here.
00:54So what we will need to do is click and drag and put this back in its place.
01:01Now remember that Encore does not have the power to change your source material.
01:05So we are not really changing the footage here or deleting the footage here.
01:09So I could go back at any time and move this back, and then re-stretch it out if I wanted to.
01:14I am just going to undo that, because I actually kind of liked it trimmed there.
01:18I could do the same thing to the end of the clip.
01:20At the end of the clip here, we see that there is a refrigerator door or
01:24something like that that closes or whatever. We don't that.
01:27So right about there is the end of the usable portion of the clip.
01:31So I can grab the end of the clip and drag it to where the Current TIme Indicator is.
01:35And I am basically just using the Current TIme Indicator as a reference.
01:38You don't need to, but I find that it helps.
01:41Now again, it's not time or the place for video editing, only it's kind of a
01:45last ditch emergency thing.
01:46But if you did need to use it as an emergency, you could double-click on the Project panel.
01:51I am going to import another piece of footage here.
01:53It doesn't really matter what it is.
01:55Let's just go with this RideBy clip.
01:57Bring this in and drag this down.
02:00And so, I am actually adding this clip to the Timeline as well.
02:03It automatically adds a chapter marker for me, which is pretty cool.
02:06Basically, now, I have two clips that I have added to the same Timeline.
02:09So if you are doing like a Greatest Hits Reel or something like that, you can
02:14drag all those clips here into the same timeline in Encore, again, do light
02:19video editing on these clips.
02:20I could trim this here a little bit and move it around.
02:23So again, Encore is not going to win you the Academy Award as Best Video Editor,
02:27but in a pinch, if you need to assemble clips, trim off the beginning and end,
02:32move them around, Encore does give you the ability to do that.
Collapse this transcript
The Timeline Viewer vs. the Timeline panel
00:00Similar to what we saw with the Menu Viewer and the Menu panel, there is also a
00:05Timeline Viewer and the Timeline panel.
00:07Just so that we are clear, I wanted to explain those briefly to you. What we are
00:10looking at here when we are playing around with our content, editing footage,
00:13editing chapter markers, et cetera, et cetera.
00:15This here is the Timeline Viewer.
00:18That's what we are looking at here.
00:20If you have multiple timelines, you can choose those from this dropdown here,
00:24as well as, if you had multiple menus, you could choose them from the Menu
00:27Viewer dropdown here.
00:29And then you also notice, just like with menus, we have a Timelines panel.
00:33And the Timelines panel, again ,just like the menus panel over here, it allows
00:37you to see all the timelines in your product at a glance.
00:40And if you click on one of those timelines and select it, you'll see all of the
00:43chapter markers below.
00:45And just like with the Menus panel, when we select a menu and we see all of the
00:50buttons here and how they are linked,
00:51when we select a timeline in the Timelines panel, the second half, the lower
00:56hemisphere, if you will, of this panel shows you all of the chapter markers.
01:01It shows you which timeline they are associated with, and also shows you In
01:05points where the Poster Frame is and if there's Links and all that kind of stuff as well.
01:10So if you hear me refer to the Timelines panel or the Timeline Viewer, don't get confused.
01:16Again, just like with menus, there is a viewer and a panel, and they
01:20do different things.
Collapse this transcript
8. Creating Links and Navigation
Creating navigation with the Flowchart
00:00So far, in this training series, we've been creating links by using the
00:03Properties panel, and that's an absolutely acceptable way to do it.
00:06But there is another way to create navigation, and that's with something
00:10called the Flowchart.
00:11The Flowchart is typically found in the center- top of the interface next to the Menu Viewer.
00:15If you are not seeing it, again you could go to Window > Flowchart here.
00:19This is just a logical, visual way to lay out your DVD.
00:23Even if you use the Properties panel, I might recommend still checking out
00:26the flowchart just to see how your project is doing, see the visual flow of information.
00:31And also, Encore objects down here at the bottom of the flowchart, they are not
00:35connected to anything.
00:36This is referred to as the orphanage, and these are orphan Encore objects,
00:41because they are not linked to anything in the project.
00:44So we have our disc here.
00:45And the very first thing that users are going to see in this project is this menu here.
00:51That's because this menu is set as the first play object, which we'll talk
00:55about in the next movie.
00:56Now, this menu, if we go back to the menu here, has three buttons:
00:59Play All, Scenes, Setup.
01:01Now, in the flowchart, we see these three buttons:
01:04Play All, Scenes and Setup.
01:06If we want to create a link, all we have to do is click and drag from Play All,
01:11and then we get pick whip here, just like we did from the Properties panel here.
01:14I am going to drag this to the Clip05-tahoe timeline, and that link has been created now.
01:20So now that button links to the timeline.
01:23That's really all we had to do.
01:25Now, if you want to link the Scenes button, we can simply click here on Scenes.
01:28Click and drag to the Explore CA ad, for example, and let's go ahead and click
01:32on Setup and link to this slide show here, which is actually empty slide show,
01:36but we are just using it to talk about the flowchart here.
01:39Now, as we discussed at the beginning of this training series, one of the key
01:43ingredients to a successful Encore project is End Actions.
01:47So we want to make sure that all of our Encore elements have End Actions.
01:52So at the end of this timeline, what happens?
01:54So I am going to click at the end of this timeline, on the right-hand side, and
01:57I am going to drag back to this Explore CA menu.
02:01Now, we've created an End Action that way.
02:03Do the same thing for this timeline as well.
02:07Now, the End Action could be something else entirely.
02:10It could go to, for example, a different menu, and that's perfectly acceptable.
02:14You could go to a different clip.
02:15You could really do anything you want here.
02:17As you could see in the flowchart, how wonderful it is to have a visual
02:20representation of the flow that our users will be following as they travel the
02:25different courses that you lay out for them through the navigation of your menus
02:29in your DVD project.
02:31If things starting to get a little bit too big for you, you could also use
02:33this navigation slider here to zoom out a little bit and see more of your
02:37project at a glance, if your project starts getting a little bit too big.
02:40So that's just an introductory look at the flowchart and the power therein.
Collapse this transcript
Setting a "first play" object
00:00As we saw in our flowchart, that first arrow coming out of this dick icon in the
00:04flowchart represents the first play object, the first thing that will happen
00:09when our disk is played in a DVD player.
00:12And you could tell that this Explore CA menu is the first played object here in
00:16the Project panel, because it's denoted by this little icon here.
00:18It's a circle with an arrow.
00:20So in another words, this is the first thing that will happen.
00:23Well, a lot of times when you are watching a DVD, you actually might want to
00:26play a timeline first.
00:27And a lot of times when you are watching Hollywood DVDs, it doesn't
00:29actually start with a menu.
00:30It starts with a little movie, maybe an FBI warning, or whatever it is.
00:34And so, you might want to put that timeline first and have the timeline's End
00:38Action go automatically to the menu.
00:41So the way that we create a first play object is quite simple.
00:43We simply right-click an object and choose Set as First Play.
00:48And then, now this object has the circle with the arrow in it, and it becomes
00:53the first thing coming out of the disk.
00:55I should also point out that just like with End Actions, if you do not have a
00:59first play object setup, then Encore will give you a warning when you go to
01:03check for errors, and you burn a disc or make a Web site or whatever.
01:07It will let you know that this is a problem.
01:09You absolutely need to have a first play object.
Collapse this transcript
Auto-selecting button names from links
00:00When we are creating linkage, or navigation, from the Properties panel or the
00:04Flowchart, we want to be aware of the name of the clip.
00:09Let's say I want to link up this Footage button to this Timeline here in Clip05-tahoe.
00:13I would want to, probably in this case, leave the name of the button Footage.
00:17I probably wouldn't want to change this to Clip05-tahoe.
00:20However, you might bring in footage that you want the clip name here to change
00:26the name of the button.
00:27By default, now, when I click on this button and I create the link and I link up
00:32to the Timeline here,
00:33it says the name of the link right here, and it doesn't change the name of the
00:37button, which you could actually find right here with the button selected in
00:40the Properties panel.
00:41However, this way it used to be, the default is this Set Name from Link Button
00:46used to be selected.
00:48When that happens, and I'll just undo this, so I can start over again,
00:50I'll click Set Name for Link,
00:52when that happens and we link to something, then the name of the button
00:57changes based on the name of the timeline.
01:00So just be aware of that.
01:02Most of the time you might not want that.
01:03But sometimes that could be a timesaver for you.
01:06And if you aren't aware that this is there, and you get on somebody else's
01:09machine, or this is automatically set that way, so this Set Name from Link is checked,
01:13that could drive you nuts.
01:15So just be aware of this option if you want it or do not want it.
Collapse this transcript
Creating user permissions for a disc
00:00Another thing that will really affect navigation, and also the user's whole
00:04experience, is how you set permissions.
00:07You see you can allow users to do stuff or not do stuff based on Permissions.
00:12So I am going to go ahead and click on this timeline in the Timeline panel so I
00:15could adjust its properties in the Properties panel.
00:18Now, you'll see this frequently, Operations: All permitted.
00:21So this is where you can set permissions for this particular timeline.
00:26So I click on Set, and by default, everything is permitted.
00:30You might want to allow them to do nothing, but more than likely, you'll
00:34probably want to customize a timeline user operation, especially if they're
00:37something like an FBI warning or something like that and you need them, by law, to
00:42see that, or maybe it's like required by your company that they see some
00:45disclaimer or something.
00:47Just to make sure that they can't rewind or fast forward by leaving this unchecked.
00:51But you want to be able to probably have them stop something or pause
00:55something in most cases.
00:56So set to All, unless I have a very distinct reason for choosing Custom.
01:01A lot of times on a DVD remote, they will have an Audio button and a Subtitle
01:05button, which allows them to change the audio tracks and the subtitle tracks
01:08without having to go back to the menu and choose those things, which is really convenient.
01:13So if you uncheck these, they won't be able to do that.
01:15Again, sometimes you'll have things that you'll want your viewers,
01:19you'll force them to watch, as it were.
01:21But this tends to drive users crazy.
01:23I know that when I am watching a DVD, and they kind of force me to watch previews,
01:27and I can't skip pass them,
01:28it drives me bonkers.
01:29Generally, people like to have the power to adjust things if possible.
01:33But if you need to change things, that's where they are.
01:36Now, you also have the opportunity to change user permissions for menus and the disc as well.
01:42So if I click on a menu, for example, I go over here to the Properties panel
01:46with the menu selected, and I could click on Operations:
01:48All Permitted, and I could choose some options here, not too much in the way of power here.
01:53The real control is over the Timeline Permission.
01:56That's really where it's very important.
01:58But you can change some permissions here.
02:00If I click a blank area in the project, so essentially nothing is selected in
02:04the Project panel, then, when I go over to the Properties panel, I am actually
02:07controlling the properties of the entire disc itself.
02:10So with the disc selected, I can go and set some user permissions for the entire disc.
02:16So that's how you set permissions for the disc, for menus and for Timelines.
02:21Be aware that you need to do this for each timeline individually.
02:24You may not want to allow users to skip and fastforward through the FBI
02:28warning before your movie.
02:30But you may want them to be able to fastforward through the actual video
02:33that they're watching.
02:34Just be aware that changing user permissions will drastically change the user's experience.
02:41And sometimes you need to do that, for your own sake, the sake of your company
02:45and whoever your client is, but as much as possible, you want to give the user
02:50as much control as you can.
Collapse this transcript
9. Object Basics
Creating and adjusting text
00:00We've seen before how you can add text to any menu, or project, or whatever you are
00:04doing, from the Library panel by going to the text area here, looking at the text items,
00:09and you could choose a font size or an actual font or a style and just drag and
00:14drop that into your project.
00:16But now I want to show you how to create text from scratch, and also how to
00:19tweak that text manually.
00:21What we are going to do is go to the toolbar here, and we are going to choose
00:24this tool, which is the Text tool. Click that, and I am just going to click here
00:28at the top of my menu.
00:30Actually this menu is just a background for the time being, so I am going to
00:33type My Movie Project.
00:37Now, what I am going to do, instead of clicking the Selection tool to select
00:40this, I am going to change this.
00:42I definitely don't like a lot about it actually.
00:44I am going to click and highlight it.
00:46Then I am going to go over to the right side of my interface here, and I am
00:49going to choose the Character panel.
00:50The Character panel has all that you need to tweak your text.
00:54First thing I want to do is change this really clashing green color by
00:57clicking in this Color Swatch, and I'm actually going to click the radio
01:01button next to H, which gives me a different color scheme, a way to choose
01:05color, that I prefer much more.
01:07So I am going to go down to the red- green area in this Hue bar here, this
01:13vertical bar, until I'm kind of in the ballpark of what's going on here in menu background.
01:18Let's make a text that's a little bit darker than that by going to the
01:21right-hand side here.
01:22That looks pretty good, so I will go ahead and click OK.
01:25Now, it's a little bit harder to see.
01:27But if we are going to click this Selection tool and click away, we could see
01:30that the text color now blends in with this background much better.
01:34Now, I am going to go back to the Type tool and again, once our brackets go
01:38away around the edge of our cursor with the Type tool, then we can click
01:42next to existing text to create it.
01:45And I think I accidentally did that wrong.
01:46I am going press the Escape key here and try that one more time. There we go!
01:49Click and drag to select my text.
01:52Now, you could fiddle with it.
01:53You could change the font from the top dropdown here.
01:56Right now, the font that I am using is Arial Narrow.
01:59I kind of don't like that.
02:00Oftentimes, I've noticed when you have very thin, very wispy fonts,
02:04they don't end up looking that great when you burn things to DVD.
02:08There is a lot of variables at play as far as output onto a TV screen and whatnot.
02:13I find usually that thicker fonts, like Arial Black, work better.
02:17If you want to use a thinner font, like Arial Narrow, what you can do is click
02:23on this Style button.
02:24That's Faux Bold on the bottom left.
02:26These are all different styles you could use for your text.
02:29Some of them aren't that helpful, like Strike Through, but it's still here.
02:33So I am going to click on this button here on the left, which is Faux Bold and it
02:36just kind of thickens these things up a little bit.
02:38If we have a paragraph of text to add, we could change the justification here, we
02:41have Align Left, Align Center and Align Right or Justify Alignment.
02:46I am just going to leave this set to Left Align for now.
02:49We can also change the style of our font: Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold
02:52Italic, and that's only for fonts where you have those other options loaded on your system.
02:57From this dropdown, we could change the size of our text.
02:59I like to keep things big and thick.
03:02If we go down too small, that's going to get broken up by the lines on our TV screen.
03:06So it's good to keep things substantial, if we can.
03:09It's here in your Character panel where you will also get access to basic text
03:13editing properties that you would find in Photoshop, Illustrator, as well as
03:17Premiere or After Effects.
03:18For example, we have Leading, which is just the space between lines.
03:22So if we had multiple lines of text in the same text bracket, this would adjust
03:25the space between them.
03:26We could just the Tracking, which is the space between all the letters on a line of text.
03:32We could also adjust the Kerning, which is the spaces between just two letters.
03:36Also adjust the Vertical Height and Horizontal Width here.
03:40Typically, you want to keep these both at 100%, so that your text is
03:44proportionately scaled.
03:45But there might be times when you want to squash the text or stretch it out.
03:49Once you have the text the way you want it, go ahead and click on the Selection tool.
03:52That's the black arrow on the upper left-hand corner of the Tools panel, and
03:56that will accept our text, and now we can click away from the text to
03:59deselect it as well.
04:02So that's how we create and edit text.
Collapse this transcript
Applying styles
00:00If you are feeling like the text that you've created is just a little bit too
00:03bland and boring, you could apply styles to it, and give it some extra pizzazz.
00:07What you can do is go over to the Styles panel, typically grouped with the
00:10Library panel in that frame.
00:12Click on Styles, and we have a group, or a series of sets here actually of
00:17different categories.
00:18So we'll start here with Basics, and as you could see, right now we have image
00:22styles, text styles and shape styles and by default, they are all selected.
00:26If you want to choose one, just like with the Library panel, we could click on
00:29text to see just text styles.
00:31And I could see all of them again by clicking with the Option key held down on
00:35the Mac or the Alt key on the PC.
00:37Now to be honest with you, all of these styles work on everything.
00:40So the little T denotes a text style, the picture here represents an image
00:45style, and then the little pen represents styles for shapes.
00:49But I can click and drag on this style for shapes and apply it to my text.
00:54As you could see here, +Drop Shadow means add a drop shadow.
00:58The Plus icon means that I'm just going to add the style to whatever is there.
01:02So if I add +Emboss Smooth Down here, then it's going to add this embossing to
01:08our text, and it's going to leave the Drop Shadow.
01:11So that's what the Plus means.
01:12It's not going to completely replace what's there.
01:14It means it's going to add to it.
01:15Now one of the image styles is Clear All Styles, so I could actually just drag
01:21and drop that on to my text and get rid of all the styles.
01:24Now as I mentioned, there are tons of categories here.
01:26There's Colors and Gradients.
01:28There is Glass Styles.
01:29So if we want to add some magenta glass to this, we can do that.
01:33We can also undo by hitting Command+ Z on the Mac and Ctrl+Z on the PC.
01:38Now as indicated, these styles are not just for Text but for Shapes and Images as well.
01:42So we can go to the Library panel here, and we could go over to shapes by
01:46clicking the Pen icon, and then we could go and choose a shape, let's say
01:52this Brush stroke here.
01:53Drag and drop this into our project.
01:55Just want to do some decoration.
01:56Then we could go over to the Styles panel and take one of these styles,
02:01I'm just going to use Magenta Glass Down, and just drag and drop it onto
02:04our Brush stroke there.
02:05Likewise, we can go back to the basics, and we can apply maybe a Drop Shadow.
02:11Just drag and drop a Drop Shadow if we want to.
02:13So again, just like the Library, the Styles area, it is another place that
02:18Encore really excels because it comes with tons and tons of free content.
02:22You don't have to worry about doing it manually.
02:24You could just drag and drop a style, and there you go!
Collapse this transcript
Automatically arranging objects
00:00A lot of times when you're designing in Encore things can get messy,
00:04typically not this messy.
00:05This is an exaggerated example.
00:06But I have four buttons here that I have dragged and dropped into this menu, and
00:10they are all over the place.
00:11And I could eyeball it and move these closer together and align them, but
00:16that's just a big mess.
00:17It's not something I want to do.
00:18So what I'm going to do is select all of these.
00:20I'm going to click on one of them with the Selection tool, and I'm going to hold
00:23the Shift key down and click on the others so that they are all selected.
00:27Then I could go to the Object menu, and the first thing I'm going to do is
00:30I'm going to align these.
00:31So I'm going to go to Align, and then I'm going to choose Right, so that the
00:36right edges are aligned.
00:38And instantly this looks so much better, and at least horizontally, they are all lined up.
00:43But now I want to not line them up, but I want to distribute them evenly.
00:48So what I could do is go to Object, and this time I'm going to go down to Distribute.
00:52And I'm going to distribute them vertically.
00:55So then now, they are equally spaced.
00:58So what was once chaos is now very orderly, the right edges are aligned and
01:04vertically they are equally distributed.
Collapse this transcript
Transforming objects
00:00Throughout this training series, we've talked a little bit about transforming
00:02objects, but I want to go a little bit more into detail here.
00:05We're going to be transforming this little arabesque ribbon here.
00:09So I'm going to select the Direct Select tool and click on the little graphic
00:13here, as we can play with it.
00:14We know that once we click on an object, we get a bounding box that allows us to
00:17do most transformations, at least most common transformations.
00:21And we can resize it horizontally by clicking one of the dots on either side
00:25here, or the anchor points we'll call them.
00:28I'm just going to undo that.
00:29We could resize this vertically by clicking on one of the center points on the
00:33top line or on the bottom line.
00:36I'm just going to undo that again, by hitting Command+Z or Ctrl+Z a couple of times.
00:40If we click on the corner point, we can resize this, both vertically and
00:45horizontally if we choose to.
00:47Adding the Shift key will make sure that our proportions are constrained.
00:52We don't want to take this, if it's an image, we don't want to go above 100%.
00:55So whatever the original size was, we don't want to go bigger than that, because
00:59then it starts looking pixelated and fuzzy, so that's not a good idea.
01:03But we can use Shift to make this proportionately smaller or larger.
01:07Now if I add Option to the mix, or actually I don't have to hold down Shift for
01:11this, but if I hold down the Option key on the Mac or the Alt key on the PC,
01:15then I scale from the center.
01:18If I just scale, by default, I'm scaling from typically the opposite corner.
01:22So I'm scaling from the lower left-hand corner with this particular graphic and
01:27again, Option or Alt makes it so that it scales from the center.
01:31So if I hold the Shift key and the Option key, or the Shift key and the Alt
01:35key on the PC, then I'm going to scale it from the center, and I'm going to
01:39scale proportionately.
01:41Now, if you're playing around with your object and you get something really
01:44screwy like this, let me just stretch this really out of proportion here,
01:47in other Adobe programs, you could press the Escape key, and it will cancel the
01:50transformation, and I'm not able to do that here.
01:53So I hit Command+Z or Ctrl+Z to undo that.
01:56With an object selected, you could also go up to the Object menu, and there are
01:59several ways to transform an object here.
02:02If I want to rotate something 180 degrees or 90 degrees clockwise or
02:06counterclockwise, I could do this here without having to guess while I'm rotating.
02:11I could also arrange this.
02:12If there are layers of objects, I can change their arrangement by bringing other
02:16objects forward or backwards.
02:18I could also flip this horizontally, and I could also flip it vertically as well
02:24from the Object menu.
02:26And so you will probably notice that most of the tutorials from this chapter
02:29have come from this great Object menu, which allows us to Align, Distribute
02:34objects as well as Arrange and Rotate them and Flip them.
02:37And there is also a special Drop Shadow option here. If you wanted to add a Drop
02:42Shadow here from the Styles panel,
02:44there's not really any control over it and because Drop Shadows are so common,
02:48it's often advisable to go to the Object menu and apply a Drop Shadow that way.
02:52So that way you could manually control different parameters, such as the Opacity
02:57of the Drop Shadow and the Angle and also the Distance from the object, which is
03:03an important one for text.
03:04Sometimes you just want it a little bit like that, and it works perfect.
03:08But you might want something appearing to fly off the page and a lot of distance
03:12helps with that illusion.
03:13But if you wanted to add a Drop Shadow that way and have manual control over all
03:17the properties of a Drop Shadow, this is one way to do it as well.
03:20So again, if you're going to transform an object, if you have something, and
03:24you go to the Library panel, drag an image, or a shape, or something like that,
03:28oftentimes the Object menu can help you shape it and mold it to get it where
03:32you want it to be.
Collapse this transcript
10. Creating Slideshows
Introducing slideshows
00:00Perhaps my favorite Encore feature is Slideshows.
00:03We're going to take a look at that throughout this chapter, and also I should
00:06point that later on in this training series, we're going to have a chapter on
00:09using Encore as a presentation tool.
00:11And so if slideshows interest you, I am going to save some advanced Slideshow
00:14concepts for that chapter, and I invite you to check that out as well.
00:17So first step here, go to the Project panel, double-click in a blank area here
00:21to Import as Assets.
00:23And I'm here in this Stills folder, in the Media folder, in the Exercise Files
00:27folder, and we're going to click on the first file, 3835_beach_yoga, and scroll
00:32down to the bottom file and hold Shift and click marina_west, so all of these
00:37will be imported as assets.
00:39Go ahead and click Open then. All right.
00:41So, after a minute, these images have been imported, and the first thing I
00:46like to do, although it's not necessary to create Slideshows, is I like to organize this
00:50because as you start bringing in slides to create Slideshows, that's when your
00:54project becomes extra-extra messy.
00:56So what I'm going to do is go down to the bottom of the Project panel and choose New Folder.
01:00I'll call this Stills.
01:03And then I'm going to click the top image again and Shift+Click the bottom image
01:08and drag these stills to that folder so that at anytime I could then click this
01:12little arrow here and close up this folder when I'm done with these images.
01:16Now, the first thing I'm going to do to actually create the Slideshow is go
01:19down under the Project panel again, at the bottom here, and I'm not going to
01:22choose Folder this time.
01:23I'm going to choose Slideshow.
01:24So I'm going to have Encore create for me a new slideshow.
01:28We've talked before about how there are a menu viewer and about how there are
01:32Timeline viewers and when you create a new slideshow you work with a Slideshow
01:36in the Slideshow viewer, so that's where we are here.
01:39So to add slides to our Slideshow, we open up the folder and select the images
01:45that you want, I'm just going to select all of these.
01:47I'm going to click one here again, and then Shift+Click the last one, and I'm
01:51going to drag these down into the Slideshow viewer where they are assembled as slides.
01:57Now we also get some timecodes that tells us how long our slideshow is and also
02:01at which point that particular slide enters the slideshow.
02:05So this first one starts at the beginning, and then this one comes in at 6
02:08seconds in, 12 seconds, 18 seconds, 24 seconds and so forth.
02:12Now we talked before also about how we use the Monitor panel to view timelines,
02:17but we also use the Monitor panel to view Slideshows as well.
02:21So, I can come down her, and I can click the Play button, and we get the time-
02:24code for our slideshow and when this gets to 24 seconds, this is going to jump
02:29to the next line, as seen, and I can click Pause to stop the Slideshow playback.
02:34I realize for the time being that it is quite boring to sit there and look at
02:38one image for 6 seconds and then just jump to the next image.
02:43So, we'll be polishing this up a lot as we go throughout this chapter.
02:46Now, I'm going to go to a blank area actually here, and I'm going to click in
02:51there to deselect all of the slides.
02:52And what I can do now is move these slides around to rearrange them.
02:56This is going to be an Explore California slideshow, so I might start with this
03:00romantic shot of this couple on the beach.
03:03The colors are really beautiful, so I can click and drag this to the left, and
03:07this little black bar indicates where the slide is going to go now.
03:10Drag this all the way to the left, and that now becomes the very first slide in my slideshow.
03:14So I can click and drag and move and rearrange these to my heart's content.
03:18Now it's important to know that even though we have this entire folder of
03:21Stills, I'm just going to close this folder here,
03:23you'll see that we have this Slideshow object now, and this is what we would to link to.
03:27Let's say if we had a menu, we get the button selected, and we've got the Pick Whip,
03:31we want to link the button to this Slideshow object.
03:35I want to add some pizzazz to this slideshow, so I'm going to double-click in
03:38the Project panel again.
03:40I'm going to go to the Media folder in the Exercise Files folder.
03:42This time I'm going to go to the Audio folder, then click on this audio track,
03:46Explore California Intro W perc & bass. Click Open and then drag and drop this
03:51audio track into this repository here, this little depot.
03:56And this is where we can add audio to our Slideshow.
04:00Now I'm going to click on the first slide and then click Play in the Monitor panel.
04:03(Music playing.)
04:11So slides are on way too long, but we've got the audio going for us, which is pretty cool.
04:16Now, of course, there's a lot of polishing we need to do and again, we're going
04:19to look at that in the rest of the movies in this chapter.
04:21One other important note about slideshows and the limitations there, you could
04:26only have 99 images per Slideshow.
04:30So, what you have to do is make multiple slideshows.
04:33So you could make the end action of one slideshow another slideshow, so it goes
04:37from slideshow to slideshow to slideshow.
04:40And in that way you kind of get around this thing that only allows you have 99
04:43images per slideshow.
Collapse this transcript
Adjusting slideshow properties
00:00Now as I mentioned, the real power in Encore Slideshows are in the fiddling with
00:05them, the adjusting the properties and options and stuff.
00:07This can be a little confusing because there are several ways to do this.
00:10In the Slideshow Viewer, for example, there is a Slideshow Options area.
00:15So there are several options we can choose to adjust here.
00:18Now, of course, we could also adjust things using the Properties panel, and this
00:22works in basically two ways.
00:23If we click on let's say, the Slideshow, for example, in the Project panel, then
00:28we could adjust the properties of the slideshow, and you could see that there
00:32are tons of options here.
00:33Notice there is actually even multiple tabs for different options.
00:37Now we could also adjust individual stills.
00:40So if I click on a slide, for example, here in the Slideshow viewer, it will be
00:44selected, and you could see the properties for the Slide.
00:48And the slide itself also has three different tabs.
00:50You could adjust the Basic, Transition and Effects areas here.
00:54So it does get confusing because you might be looking either here in the
00:57Slideshow viewer for options or in the Properties panel for Slide or the
01:01Properties panel for Slideshows looking for options.
01:04So again, keep that in mind that it is a little bit of challenge finding the
01:07options you're needing, but the good news is is that you don't need every
01:11option for every project.
01:12You'll find that you use only a few of these, and then it's easy to
01:15remember where they are.
01:17It's also important to remember the distinction between the image here in the
01:21Slideshow Viewer and the image here in the Project panel.
01:24So if I were to, for example, find this image here, I could go through the Project
01:29panel here, kind of browse around until I found that one, and that's going to be
01:34here, the harbor_ducks image.
01:36If I have this selected in the Project panel, then it's not really a slide in
01:41the slideshow, it's just considered an asset.
01:43So if I select the image here to fiddle with it, then you'll see that in the
01:46Properties panel I just have the generic Asset properties, and it's really not
01:50much you could do here.
01:51So if you want to adjust that slide, you'll need to select it in the
01:54actual Slideshow Viewer.
01:56Now again, there is tons of great features here.
01:58If I select this slide, and I'm looking at the Slide Properties,
02:00for example, the Basic tab, we can change the Scale.
02:03For this image, I did not go through
02:06and go into like an Image Editor like Photoshop and crop this correctly.
02:10So it has a vertical, or portrait, orientation, rather than a sideways, or
02:15landscape, orientation, and so it's a really good idea to go in to your image and
02:18make sure you crop them and adjust them, so that when they're brought in, in
02:21your slideshow they have the right orientation.
02:23We could go to Scale here and by default,
02:25it's Scale and Apply Matte.
02:27Encore shrinks this down so the whole image fits and applies a Matte on the sides.
02:32We could also choose to Scale and Crop the Edges.
02:35So basically this will fit as far as the width goes, and then it will crop the
02:39edges, and we could also just have it Do Nothing and have it be full size, and
02:44now we're just looking at the center of the image, which in this case is very
02:47similar to Scale and Crop Edges.
02:48But even though it's cropping off a lot of important areas of the image, you may
02:52prefer to choose this option just so you couldn't fill the whole screen and not
02:55have a bunch of black on the sides.
02:57Now also in the Properties panel, we can choose whether we want this slide to
03:01Match the Slideshow or not.
03:03As we go through this chapter, we're going to be looking to all these cool
03:05things you could do for the slideshow, and if you want like some renegade
03:08slide that has some different properties than the rest of the slideshow, then you
03:11could uncheck Match Slideshow and give it a longer or shorter Duration, or what have you.
03:16So again, to recap, if you're going to fiddle with your slideshow and customize
03:19it, you could adjust the slideshow options in the Slideshow Viewer here or the
03:23Slide Properties or the Slideshow Properties.
Collapse this transcript
Adding motion and transitions
00:00All right. These next couple of movies cover the feature that I really think just make
00:04Encore Slideshows as awesome as they are.
00:06What I'm going to do is I'm going to select the slideshow here in the Project
00:09panel, so I could look at the Slideshow Properties.
00:11Now one of the thing that's really boring about slideshows traditionally, like
00:15the actual like literal slideshows, is that you know you play it, and you're
00:19watching this slide forever, it's describing it, and then they click a
00:22little button on the remote control, it goes the next slide.
00:25That's just very boring.
00:26So what we're going to do is go back to the Slideshow here and what I could do
00:29is check Random Pan & Zoom.
00:33What this will allow you to do is to go in as a viewer, and you will see the
00:37slides kind of coming towards you and moving side to side in this random way and
00:42if I click Play here, you'll see a big difference.
00:52See it's significantly more engaging.
00:54There's just random motion to every single slide and to people that are watching
00:58this slideshow, they don't know that Encore did this automatically.
01:01So it seems like you put all this work and effort into making these image kind
01:05of come toward the viewer and pan side to side, just a really great look.
01:09Another thing I'm going to do to make this more interesting to the viewer is
01:12I'm going to click on the Slideshow, and I'm going to do them a favor and take
01:16down the Slide Duration.
01:17By default, it's 6 seconds long for each slide.
01:19That's a little bit too long for just looking at pictures.
01:22If we're going to describe something then 6 seconds might be good.
01:25It's a little long for my taste, so I'm going to select this, and I'm actually
01:28going to type 3., that will type 3, and then it will advance it over to the next spot.
01:35So this will actually create a 3-second-long slide duration.
01:39If we just hit the Enter key, you'll see that it converts it automatically to 3
01:43seconds, a little trick there.
01:44Now if we click on a single slide to look at its properties, we could look at its effects.
01:49So you could see Pan & Zoom is here and if we wanted to, what we could do is we
01:54can manually control the Pan of every slide.
01:56So we could have it go Southeast to Northwest, from East to Center or whatever.
02:01So if there's a certain look we're looking for, for a particular slide, like
02:04there's a car that's going from left to right in the shot, we could actually
02:07move the slide from left to right
02:10to mimic what's going on with the car, if we wanted to.
02:12We could also change the zoom.
02:14We could have it zoom in, or zoom out, or nothing.
02:16So we don't have to do Random Pan & Zoom and again, this could be manually
02:20adjusted for every slide, but it's just so easy to have Encore do the work for you.
02:24Now also with the slide, we can set up a transition, Dip to Black or to do a
02:29Wipe, Push, Slide, all these different cool little effects from slide to slide.
02:33But again, it's really tedious to do this manually for every slide in your
02:37slideshow, especially if you have a few hundred images to go through for all
02:41of your slideshows.
02:42So what I'm going to do is click on the Slideshow again, and I'm going to go to
02:45the Transition here, and if we change the Transition for the entire slideshow,
02:50then what it's going to do is it's going to change the transitions for all the
02:53slides in the whole slideshow.
02:55And then as long as each slide has the Match Slideshow option checked for
02:59Transitions, then they will all perform the same transition.
03:03I'm going to change the Transition to Cross Dissolve.
03:06What that's going to do, as you could see here, we have a kind of like a cross
03:09fade, and we'll see how much more interesting this makes our slideshow.
03:13Actually I'm going to go back to the beginning, just click on that first
03:16slide. Let's start here.
03:18(Music playing.)
03:28See, now that's a slideshow I don't mind sitting through.
03:32Every slide is moving as it goes from one slide to the next. There's this beautiful,
03:35soft Cross Dissolve transition, and it's just a much more engaging presentation.
03:40Now one quick word here, when we added the Random Pan & Zoom, we notice
03:44the Effects icon in the bottom right and a little red line over the top of the slide.
03:49So the Effects icon indicates that we have added one of the effects.
03:55We have added a Pan or a Zoom effect to this slide and this little square here
04:00indicates a transition.
04:01So there's transition applied for this slide.
04:03So when you see these icons that is what they mean.
04:06The red line here is basically saying that this is not a rendered slideshow.
04:10We could click this button here to render the slideshow, so that the effects and
04:13transitions will play back in real speed.
04:15You might notice that the computer is kind of chugging along here as it was
04:18playing back the slideshow.
04:20So we can click this button to render the slideshow, and then we preview it.
04:23It will be perfect, and that red line will go away.
Collapse this transcript
Syncing slideshows to audio
00:01My other favorite Encore Slideshow feature is the ability to sync our entire
00:05slideshow to the duration of a single or multiple audio tracks.
00:10So we could bring in a bunch of audio tracks if we want to, and then what we
00:13could do is choose Fit Slideshow to Audio Duration. It we'll look at all of the audio tracks,
00:18we can drag into this slideshow and add it up and then make this slideshow
00:22automatically last as long as the audio track.
00:24For example, if we play this one, you'll notice that the audio track is 20
00:28seconds and 9 frames, and that gives out about slide 7 here and then for the
00:33remainder of the slides we have no music, there is nothing there.
00:36It's just empty space, which could be really awkward.
00:38So what we could do, instead of having to divide up like 20 seconds and 9
00:42frames divide it by 12 images, what we could do is just check Fit Slideshow to Audio Duration.
00:47In that case, it will ignore the slide duration that we have added, and it will
00:52automatically create a new slide duration by dividing the time each slide is on
00:56frame by the duration of the audio tracks.
01:00In this case, it makes each slide duration 1 second and 21 frames.
01:04A little short, but we'll see how that goes.
01:06I'm going to click on Slide 1, and now let's play our slideshow.
01:11(Music playing.)
01:27All right. Good.
01:29Now in the case of our particular audio track, it fades out and has a long tail
01:34at the end, as far as the audio goes.
01:35So it's fading out for several seconds.
01:37There are a few slides that are in apparent silence, even though it's really the
01:41audio track fading out.
01:43Now another thing that we could do, I'm going to click a blank space in the
01:46Slideshow Viewer to select the Slideshow in the Properties panel, and then we
01:49could go to the Transition tab in the Slideshow Properties, and we could change
01:53the Duration of the Cross Dissolve.
01:54Because right now the Duration of the Cross Dissolve is two seconds, although
01:57the entire Slide Duration is only 1 second and 21 frames.
02:01So the duration of the Cross Dissolve is actually lasting longer than each slide.
02:06So I'm going to take this to actually just a few frames here, maybe like 15
02:11frames, and then if we go back, we'll still have this nice, soft fade from slide
02:17to slide, but it will happen much more quickly.
02:19(Music playing.)
02:27Very nice.
02:28It's a slide and then a very brief but soft Cross Dissolve to the next slide.
02:34Now another audio option that you have, if I uncheck Fit Slideshow to Audio
02:38Duration, is I could check Loop Audio.
02:40So maybe you have the Slide Duration exactly the way you want it.
02:43Maybe you have a 4-minute presentation that you need to fill and so it's got to
02:47be 4 minutes, and you don't want to change it to the audio.
02:49What you do is choose Loop Audio, and that will just keep playing the audio over
02:53and over and over again until the slides are done.
02:56Now this Fit Slideshow to Audio Duration is one of the greatest features of all time.
03:00Again, I have mention before I've done a few wedding slideshows, and you could
03:04always the couple picture like fading out while the song is going.
03:08It's just magical and Encore makes it so that setting up these beautiful
03:12dramatic moments like this timed to music, works out just perfectly.
03:16It makes me look like a champ every time, with very little work on my part.
Collapse this transcript
Slideshows and bit budgeting
00:00Now we've got our final slideshow project here, which is really awesome, and
00:04we're going to talk later on this training series in the chapter about using
00:07Encore as a presentation tool, a little bit more than about slideshows.
00:09But before we do this chapter, I want you be aware of an important concept as
00:13far as slideshows and bit budgeting goes.
00:16You're trying to plan your menus in how much space that you have.
00:19When you have these slides that just go from slide to side, but there is no effects,
00:22there is no transitions, just solid slide to slide to slide, then Encore treats
00:27them as just pictures.
00:29They basically take up no space, maybe a just a little tiny bit of space, on the DVD.
00:34So you can have a boring slideshow like that on a menu with a full-length movie
00:38and probably not have any problems.
00:40It probably won't affect the compression of the movie at all.
00:43However, when you add a transition, what Encore does is that it renders the slide
00:49itself as a picture, but for the entire time that you have a transition going,
00:53it has to render that out as a movie.
00:56That will add a lot to your bit budgeting and to the size of your project.
01:01If you use the Random Pan & Zoom, which you actually find here in the
01:05Slideshow Viewer as well,
01:06the Random Pan & Zoom will make it so that it will render the entire
01:09slideshow as a movie file.
01:13In other words, if you have like a 20 minute long slideshow and you're using
01:17Random Pan & Zoom, it's just like you had a 20 minute movie.
01:20So to tone things down and still keep it interesting, you can use just still
01:25images with a transition.
01:27If that's still too big for you, then you could remove the transitions and the
01:31Random Pan & Zoom effects as well.
Collapse this transcript
11. Using Playlists
What is a playlist?
00:00In this brief chapter, we're going to look at Playlists, which will allow you to
00:04give your viewers more control over what they're watching.
00:07Now this concept is a little bit more complex than most of the stuff we've looked at.
00:10So I need you to follow along with me as I explain what I've done with this project here.
00:15Now we have four Timelines in our project, and there's a Movie in each of these timelines.
00:21If I click on the Play All button, I've set it up so that it plays all of these timelines.
00:26The button, as you can see here in the Properties panel, is set up to play Ocean Movie 1.
00:30So it's going to go to Ocean Movie 1. The end action of Ocean Movie 1 is not to
00:37go back to the menu, but to play the Ocean Movie 2 Timeline.
00:41So we'll play the Ocean Movie 2 Timeline.
00:43Now in the Ocean Movie 2 Timeline, its End Action is set up to go to Olive Movie 1.
00:49The Olive Movie 1's End Action is set up to go to Olive Movie 2, and then the End
00:53Action of Olive Movie 2 is to go back to the menu.
00:56So basically they play in this order.
00:58Ocean Movie 1, 2, Olive Movie 1 and 2 and then back to the menu.
01:02But what if your viewers don't want to see the Olive Movies, or don't want to
01:07see the Ocean Movies?
01:08You want to be able to give them the control over what they want.
01:11But the problem is that if they were to go watch just the Ocean Movies then the
01:16End Action of the Ocean Movie is to go to the Olive Movies.
01:19So what we can do is create a Playlist.
01:22So, for example, we have these Ocean Movies here.
01:26So what I'm going to do is go down to the bottom of the Project panel here.
01:28I'm going to create a New Playlist.
01:31I'm going to call this Ocean Movie Playlist.
01:36Now let's go ahead and go to our Playlist, go ahead and click once on it and
01:43once it's clicked once, we could see it in the Properties panel.
01:46So what I'm going to do, actually, I'm just going to go ahead and delete this,
01:52I'm going to drag Ocean Movie 1, actually, I can't do that I'm sorry.
01:56I need to use the Pick whip here in the Properties panel.
01:59Use the pick whip to select Ocean Movie 1, and then next, I'm going to select,
02:04with the pick whip, Ocean Movie 2.
02:07So it's going to play Ocean Movie 1 and then Ocean Movie 2, and I could actually
02:13drag and drop and rearrange these, actually using these arrows here if I wanted
02:17to, and then I want the End Action to go back to the menu.
02:23Next, I need to link it up so that the Ocean Movies button links to this Playlist.
02:29Now when users click on this Ocean Movies button, assuming they just want to see
02:33the Ocean Movies only,
02:35it will go to this Playlist, which will play Ocean Movie 1, Ocean Movie 2, and
02:41then the End Action will take it back to the menu.
02:43Let's do that one more time for the Olive Oil Movies.
02:47I'm going to create a New Playlist.
02:49We'll call this Olive Oil Movie Playlist, and then I will select it in the
02:58Project panel and then making sure that it's selected here in my Properties
03:02panel, I'm going to drag a pick whip to Olive Movie 1, then Olive Movie 2, set
03:10an End Action to go back to the menu,
03:13once it's done with these two timelines, and now we just need to link this
03:17button up in the menu to the Olive Oil Movie Playlist.
03:24So now we have a project, or a menu, that allows users to get what they want.
03:30They can Play All if they want to, and they will all play in order, as expected,
03:35or they could look at just the Ocean Movies, or just the Olive Oil Movies, and we
03:40give them control over that by using Playlists.
Collapse this transcript
Using chapter playlists
00:00Chapter Playlist are very similar to the playlists we just looked at in the last
00:03movie, almost identical, in fact, except that the Chapter Playlist gives you
00:07control over what viewers are watching within a given Timeline.
00:12So previously, when we looked at the playlist, you can choose different Timelines
00:16and what order they are played in, and for Chapter Playlists it allows you to look
00:21at the different chapters of a Timeline and pick and choose in what order those
00:27chapters are watched.
00:29Now here we have a clip.
00:30It's not a full-length movie, but for our purposes here it's fairly long, over 6 minutes long.
00:35It's a travel podcast, and we start with this intro here.
00:38This is the first chapter.
00:40And the second chapter is basically an introduction, Welcome to the Explore
00:44California podcast, and then the third chapter are viewer pictures.
00:49The fourth chapter, as you could see here, this is using chapter four and
00:54chapter five. Chapter four is a very long tour through an olive factory here,
01:00Ohio Olive Oil, and it basically takes up the entire podcast.
01:04It's the what the podcast is about. And then we wrap up with this final little
01:08Snowboard California thing where there is all these cool like snowboarding clips
01:12for the last little piece of it.
01:13So let's see, for example, that we want to make it so if viewers are not
01:18interested in the Olive Oil, they can skip it and watch the entire podcast
01:23except for the Olive Oil segment.
01:26So you can come down here to the New button in the Project panel and create a
01:29new Chapter Playlist.
01:31And again, remember that Chapter Playlists allow you to play different
01:34chapters within a Timeline.
01:37So we need to select the Timeline we're going to be
01:39using and click OK.
01:40We're then brought to yet another viewer, this time the Chapter Playlist viewer.
01:46And so here are the different chapters in our Timeline, and we need to move them
01:51over here to our Chapter Playlist.
01:53So we'll bring over Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and we're going to skip
01:59Chapter 4 because that's the Olive Oil presentation one, and then Chapter 5.
02:04So if we were to link to this Chapter Playlist from a menu button, for example,
02:07people were to watch this, it would play chapters 1, 2, 3 and 5 in that order.
02:13Now we can shuffle and rearrange.
02:15We can drag and drop to our heart's content.
02:17We don't necessarily have to go in order, and that's the benefit of a Chapter Playlist.
02:21And again, just like regular playlists, this is incredibly handy.
02:24Let's say you had a really long video with tons of stuff in it,
02:27let's say for a sporting event, for example.
02:29Let's say you have this long 2 hour game, and you don't want people have to
02:33sit and watch do the whole thing, maybe you just want to jump in and get the
02:36highlights, or maybe they just want to see when the goals were scored or whatever.
02:40So the Chapter Playlist will allow you to let viewer see just the key elements,
02:45maybe you can make a Chapter Playlist of when one team scored the goals and then
02:49maybe another Chapter Playlist when the other team scored goals.
02:52So again, Chapter Playlists are another way that you will allow viewers to get
02:56to the content that they want.
Collapse this transcript
12. Using Audio and Subtitles
Using audio in Encore
00:00In this chapter, we're going to look at using audio and subtitle tracks.
00:04Now I've already imported a video asset and made a timeline out of it, and we
00:09are looking at that here in this viewer.
00:11I've also imported an audio asset, and you could distinguish between video
00:14assets and audio assets because video assets have the filmstrip and audio assets
00:18have the speaker icon.
00:20Now if I were to add this audio to this clip of these bicycling guys, if I were
00:27to drag and drop this, then it's going to make a new audio track, as you can see here.
00:33We can add it to the same audio track.
00:35It would overwrite the audio, and I can also create a new track this way.
00:39Now if you're familiar with a video editing program, you will know that this is
00:44nothing new here, a new audio track is created.
00:46However, this is very different than what you might expect.
00:50We cannot add audio to this video.
00:54If you were going to add this music to this video clip, you would need to do
00:59that in a different program, such as a video editing program.
01:03You'll see that once I added this audio track, this speaker icon turned off for
01:08this clips audio and turned on for this music tracks.
01:12So we cannot have both playing at the same time in Encore.
01:16So your audio in Encore needs to be premixed.
01:19We can turn it off by clicking the speaker icon here, but these are
01:23mutually exclusive.
01:24We cannot have both of them playing at the same time.
01:28As we see, as we go throughout this chapter, multiple audio tracks in Encore are
01:32not meant, as they are in video editing programs, to make like a sound mix.
01:35The audio tracks in Encore are typically meant for different languages, or
01:41perhaps even a commentary track.
01:43So for now, just be aware of that going forward.
Collapse this transcript
Adding audio to a menu
00:00Now this doesn't particularly pertain to working with audio in a Timeline, but
00:05one of the tricks you can do with audio is actually add it to the background of a menu.
00:08So that way while users are watching your menu trying to figure out what to
00:13pick, they have a nice little audio track in the background kind of entertaining
00:16them and keeping them company.
00:18The way to do this is simply import an audio track.
00:20I've already done that for you here, and simply drag and drop it onto a menu.
00:26Now don't drag and drop it onto a button or anything, just some blank area in the
00:29background and just let go.
00:32Now the bummer here is there's no confirmation saying, hey good job.
00:35You added audio to a menu or anything. It just happened.
00:38To double-check it, you can click the menu in the Project panel to see it in the
00:42Properties panel here. Then click the Motion tab, which doesn't really make very
00:46much sense at all, but in the Motion tab there is an audio area and here is the
00:51audio track that we've added.
00:53You can also additionally use the pick whip to select an audio track to use
00:58as well.
Collapse this transcript
Allowing users to change languages
00:01In this movie, we're going to look at how to allow users to change the language
00:06that they're listening to.
00:08Basically, what we're going to be doing here is changing the audio track
00:11that users are listening to so you can put audio commentary, or an alternate
00:16audio take, or whatever in there in its place, but we're just going to be
00:19using languages here.
00:20This trick is actually a little more challenging than you might expect.
00:24Let me go through the setup for what I have here.
00:26I have two menus in this project.
00:28I have the Main menu, which links to our Timeline, which is basically this
00:33ocean footage here.
00:34That's all it's going on in that Timeline.
00:36Then we have a button that links to our Languages menu.
00:40So if I go over to the menus here, double-click on Language menu, here is our
00:45menu Language, where users will be able to choose the language that they want
00:48to view our content in.
00:50So we have English, Spanish, and Italian.
00:53I speak none of these languages, including English, very well.
00:57So what I did is I went and had a computer reader create an English, Italian
01:01and Spanish tracks.
01:02So the English Tracks sounds like this. (Computerized Male Voice: I am speaking English.)
01:06Italian. (Computerized Male Voice: Now, I am speaking Italian.)
01:08And Spanish. (Computerized Female Voice: I am a voice that speaks Spanish.)
01:13Beautiful.
01:14So the first thing we need to do is create audio tracks for each of our
01:18different languages.
01:20So I'm going to drag English down to my Timeline on a new Track.
01:25Let's do Spanish, and then Italian.
01:30Actually, it's not letting me add another track that way.
01:32So I'm just going to right-click on the audio track name and choose Add Audio Track.
01:39I can actually scroll down if I need to, or I can drag this divider bar here,
01:45which allows me to see more of my tracks.
01:48Now I can easily add Italian to Audio Track 4.
01:53Now something else that helps is we can change the language here.
01:57It doesn't really do anything.
01:58It's just kind of a way for us to keep track of the languages that we have
02:02on that audio track.
02:03So for Audio Track 3, I'm going to change en to Espanol, Spanish.
02:09So I'm going to go down, look for Spanish under S. The abbreviation is es.
02:15Then I'm going to change Italian.
02:17From this dropdown, we'll find Italian from the menu here it, IT, and these little
02:22abbreviations, again, help us to keep track of these languages.
02:25It's important that you stick to a format.
02:28You create a system that you have, if you have multiple timelines, for example,
02:33if you're going to have English on Audio Track 2 here, then you have English on
02:36Audio Track 2 on all of your Timelines.
02:39If you're going to have Spanish on Track 3, then you have Spanish on Track 3 on
02:42all of your Timelines, and so forth.
02:45Now, with all our audio clips on different tracks, we're now ready to start
02:52setting up our links here.
02:55So what I'm going to do is I'm going to click the Italian button here.
03:01Again, what I want to happen is that when users click Italian, from now on,
03:06they're going to be watching all timelines in Italian.
03:10So the way that I do that is by clicking this button, going to the Link area in
03:14the Properties panel, and instead of using the pick whip or typing anything,
03:18we're going to go to this little arrow on the right-hand side, click this, and
03:22at the very bottom, choose Specify Link.
03:27Now what we're going to do is change the Audio to Track 4 for Italian.
03:35Now we can't click OK yet.
03:36It's not giving us that choice, because we've not actually set a link for the button.
03:41All buttons have to have links to something.
03:44So even though we've had this button change the audio track, it still has
03:48to have a destination.
03:50Well, what I want users to do is just to come back to the same menu, even with
03:53the same button selected.
03:55So let's go to the Language menu.
03:59I need not just choose the Language menu.
04:01I want to maintain the Italian button on the Language menu.
04:05So we could just choose a Language menu and click OK, and then it choose the
04:09default button, which is English, and that's not what I want.
04:11I want the Italian button to be still selected.
04:15So I click OK here.
04:16When users click Italian, the menu will just kind of flash for a second, and
04:20they will still be selecting the Italian menu.
04:23Let's try this again with a Spanish button.
04:24I'm going to click Spanish, and go to the Link area here, go to the flyout menu,
04:30choose Specify Link.
04:33This time we're going to change the Audio Tracks 3, because that's what track
04:36our Spanish is on, Audio 3.
04:40Language menu, and we'll choose the Spanish button in the Language menu.
04:45So again, we're linking it to itself. Click OK.
04:47Do this again with English.
04:49Final test here, English, Specify Link, Audio Track 2, Language menu, English,
04:58OK, and now we are ready to preview our menu and see what we have.
05:04So the Main menu is our first play objects.
05:08Let's go ahead and click the Preview button to preview this from there.
05:12Before we watch our Timeline, let's go to the Languages menu, and let's choose English.
05:19There should be no change here. That's fine.
05:21Then we'll go back to the Main menu, and we'll play our Timeline.
05:24Hopefully, hear English. (Computerized Male Voice: I am speaking English.)
05:29Beautiful!
05:29Okay, so let's go back to the menu with this menu Button here, click that.
05:33Let's go back to Languages.
05:35Let's choose Spanish this time, Main menu, Timeline.
05:41(Computerized Female Voice: I am the voice that speaks Spanish.)
05:44Beautiful!
05:45Now what we can also do is that we can use this dropdown to preview different
05:50audio tracks as well.
05:51So if we have a commentary track, I'll just go ahead and just choose
05:54Italian for right now,
05:55then I'm going to go ahead and rewind it by clicking this button.
05:58(Computerized Male Voice: Now, I am speaking Italian.)
06:01So we can preview the audio tracks again from this dropdown, or whatever.
06:05If we have a commentary, or whatever, we can preview, again, from that dropdown.
06:09As I mentioned before, if you don't change the Timeline permissions, then users
06:13will be able to switch audio tracks with their remote control, but it's not as
06:19clear cut, and it's a little bit better if we give them the choice, visually, with
06:24a Language menu like this.
Collapse this transcript
Creating subtitles
00:00So now we're going to talk about creating subtitles,
00:02basically, text at the bottom of the screen that describes what is going on.
00:07Also, it's good for translating what is being said in two different languages.
00:12Now we create subtitles by starting out in the Timeline.
00:16If we right-click right below an audio track, we get to the option to Add an Audio Track.
00:21Now we looked in the last movie about how we have this divider line here.
00:24Well, if we go below the divider line and then right-click, we will Add a
00:28Subtitle Track instead of an Audio Track.
00:31So when you have this divider in the Timeline panel, everything north of this
00:34line is for audio, south of this line is for subtitles.
00:38So I'm going to right-click, create a new Subtitle Track.
00:42Now we can go in with the Type tool, and click and add some text, some
00:50subtitles here Please enjoy some olives with me.
00:57We can click the Selection tool to accept that.
01:00We can move this wherever you wanted to onscreen.
01:02We can resize it with the corners if we wanted to.
01:05Here we have this little clip here.
01:06If you're familiar with a video editing program, it works the same way.
01:09We could trim the beginning or the end to extend this, make this as long as we want.
01:13We can also click and drag the middle of the clip to move it in time.
01:18Notice that where my Current Time Indicator is that this subtitle is not.
01:22So I'm not seeing it onscreen.
01:24But if I back up to where it is, then I will see it onscreen.
01:28To add another subtitle clip, we could simply move our cursor to where we want
01:33another subtitle clip to be, and we can just click to type another Subtitle.
01:38Olives are over there.
01:42We'll go ahead and click the Selection tool, and click away to accept it.
01:46Now on the left side of the Timeline panel, we could use these little arrows
01:51here to navigate to the beginning of all our different subtitle clips.
01:55So I can click these arrows here, and you can see that I'm jumping back and
01:58forth between the beginnings of these different subtitle clips.
02:02Those are the basics of creating and editing subtitles.
02:08
Collapse this transcript
Importing and exporting subtitles
00:00If you're working on a short project, it's really no big deal just to
00:04manually create your own subtitles, or actually, if you're working on a
00:07really big project, let's say you're working on a really long science fiction
00:11movie, DVD, maybe there is like a brief part where aliens talk some jibberish
00:15or something like that.
00:16So you just need to make a quick subtitle.
00:17No big deal, knock yourself out, go ahead and do in Encore, but for
00:21full-length projects,
00:22if you're going to have subtitles over a full-length movie, then typically that
00:26job is outsourced to a company that does subtitles.
00:29So if we right-click in the subtitle area, we can see that we can Import
00:32Subtitles in three ways.
00:34We can import Text Script, which we will in the moment.
00:36Also, there is a FAB Images Script, and also an Image Script.
00:40Oftentimes, these can come from the company that does scripts.
00:45So if you have one of these, you can import it there as well.
00:48Before I import the Text Script, I want to show you what it looks like in case
00:51you need to create something like this on your own.
00:54Here is the Text Script.
00:55Basically, what it does is that it numbers these different subtitle clips, and
01:00it gives the timecode of when these will be imported.
01:04So from two frames in to one second and 20 frames, the subtitle Checkout these dance moves!
01:11is played, and then from 2 seconds to 3 seconds and 20 frames it says, Get
01:15ready, and so on and so forth.
01:17So, now let's go back and right- click in the subtitle area, choose Import
01:21Subtitles > Text Script.
01:24Next, navigate to the Miscellaneous Files folder in the Media folder of the
01:28Exercise Files, and click on this Subtitles.txt file and click Open.
01:33We get this little Import Subtitles dialog box here where we can change
01:37some formatting issues.
01:38If we wanted to change the font or the size, or any of these other issues, we can do that.
01:44We can also do that in the program.
01:45This is kind of a preliminary check so that all of your subtitles that you're
01:49importing can be set by the same standard.
01:52I'm just going to go ahead and click OK, and leave things as is.
01:55Now as expected, we can go out two frames in our Timeline here, and see that our
02:03subtitles begin at two frames in.
02:05It says all the text that we expected it to say.
02:07Basically, this guy, by the way this is a clip from Ninja Death 3.
02:11Now Check out these dance moves! Get ready.
02:16Break it down. Fantastic!
02:19Now we can also export subtitles as well.
02:22We might want to send this out for review. Maybe we're doing some translation
02:27for a different language, when we want somebody to preview and approve of our
02:32translation or something,
02:33we can right-click on the subtitle track.
02:35I can choose Export Subtitles > Text Script, and then I can navigate to where I
02:41want to save this text file.
02:43So that is how to import and export subtitles.
Collapse this transcript
Changing subtitle color
00:00When you have multiple characters in a scene, sometimes it gets a little bit
00:03confusing with the subtitles.
00:05We have multiple bikers, in this case.
00:08Somebody says, Hey, let's go ride bikes.
00:11Then the next guy says, Yeah, let's do it!
00:14We don't know who is saying what.
00:17So, what we can do is actually add some color variation here.
00:22Now, you might be tempted to right- click here and say Add Subtitle Track, then
00:28make different texts on the second subtitle track.
00:32But be advised that subtitle tracks work like audio tracks, in that they are
00:39meant for different languages, and they can only be used one at a time.
00:45I might also recommend that your Audio Track languages and your Subtitle
00:49Track languages line up.
00:51So if you have English on Track 2 for Audio, then I recommend having English on
00:56your Subtitle Track 2 as well.
00:58If you have say Spanish on Track 3 for Audio, I recommend that you have Spanish
01:02on Track 3 for Subtitles also.
01:04That's going to help you keep things nice and orderly there.
01:06I'm just going to right-click on the second Subtitle Track and select
01:10Remove Subtitle Track.
01:12What I'm going to do to show you how this works is go to the Timeline menu, and
01:16I'm going to choose Edit Timeline Color Set.
01:19Earlier in this training series, we looked at Menu Color Sets when we talked
01:22about Subpicture Highlights.
01:23That was a little bit confusing.
01:25This is much easier to deal with, although it looks very similar.
01:28So I'm going to choose Edit Timeline Color Set.
01:31The Menu Colors that we looked at before were for Subpicture Highlights.
01:35The Timeline Colors are for Subtitles.
01:38Now there are three different options you have, three different groups
01:41of Subtitle colors.
01:43For each group, you can choose the Fill, the basic color of the text, the
01:47Stroke, the color of the outline, and also the Anti-alias.
01:51The Anti-alias is the color in between the Fill and the Stroke.
01:55If you choose this option here, this is going to take the Anti-alias value from
02:00the midpoint between the Fill and the Stroke colors.
02:03Now typically, this is what you see.
02:05You have a light-colored Fill with a dark-colored Stroke.
02:07That way, it makes sure that your text shows up whether or not you have a dark
02:11background or a light background.
02:13I'm actually not going to change any of these colors here.
02:16I'm just going to go ahead hit Cancel.
02:18But with each clip, you're allowed to choose which color set it's going to use.
02:22So let's say, for example, we have the Hey, let's go ride bikes clip.
02:26We'll just leave that yellow text.
02:27But for this, Yeah, let's do it.
02:29Let's go ahead and change the color, so it's obvious that this line of dialog is
02:33coming from a different character.
02:35So with this Subtitle clip selected and highlighted, we could see here in the
02:39Properties panel, we can also adjust the text of the clip here in the Properties
02:43panel, which is nice.
02:44I'm going to change the Highlight from Group 1 to Group 2, and it becomes that pink color.
02:49We could also choose Group 3 here as well.
02:51Let's go ahead and leave it set to Group 2 for now.
02:54Now again, people can see that one person says, Hey, let's go ride bikes, and
02:58because of the color change, we can see that somebody else is saying this.
03:01This is also good for people who are hearing-impaired and might not be able to
03:06hear the different characters speaking.
03:08Even if they are understanding the language, they could visually see that there is a
03:12difference in someone speaking.
Collapse this transcript
13. Advanced Authoring Concepts
The power of end action overrides
00:00Kind of like Playlists, End Action Overrides are another way that you can give
00:04your viewers more control over what they are watching.
00:08In this example, which is actually very similar to the Playlist example, we have
00:12a Play All button, which plays a beach slideshow.
00:16The End Action of the Beach Slideshow is the Cal Orchards Slideshow.
00:21Then we go back to the menu after the Orchards Slideshow.
00:26But what if when we want to play the Beach Slideshow, we want it to just play
00:30the Beach Slideshow, and then come straight back to the menu.
00:33Well, for that what we could do is set up an End Action Override.
00:38So with this Beach button selected, I'm going to set the link as the Beach Slideshow.
00:44Now the End Action of the Beach Slideshow is to go to the Cal Orchards
00:48Slideshow, but I don't want that to happen.
00:50When they access the Beach Slideshow from this Button, I want the End Action of
00:56the Beach Slideshow to be different.
00:58So I set up the new End Action here in the Override area for this button.
01:04So in other words, again, the Override, the End Action Override is actually a
01:10function of the button.
01:12So, I have this Button selected still, the Link is to Beach Slideshow. The
01:16Override will be to take it back to the menu.
01:20So what I'm going to do now, double- check the Beach Slideshow, make sure the
01:24Slide Duration is only 3 seconds.
01:26Actually, we could take this down to 2 seconds.
01:30Then I'm going to take the Cal Orchards Slideshow Slide Duration to 2 seconds as well.
01:34So when we preview this, it's not taking forever.
01:37Let's go ahead and preview, clicking the Preview button.
01:40When we click the Play All button, we play the first slideshow, the Beach
01:48Slideshow, which again, I have going really fast.
01:50We don't have to sit here waiting for this thing forever.
01:56It's almost done here.
01:57That's the final image.
01:59End Action is to go to the Orchards Slideshow.
02:02There are just a few images here, and they don't move.
02:07Then they go back to the menu.
02:09So that is how we set up the End Actions with the Slideshow.
02:13Actually, I set that up before the project started.
02:15So now we're going to click on the Beach button.
02:18This is going to take us to the Beach Slideshow only.
02:21Then hopefully, if everything has been set up correctly, at the end of this
02:28Beach Slideshow, we'll be taken back to the menu, because the End Action of
02:34the Beach Slideshow will have been overridden by our End Action Override for
02:40the Beach Button.
02:42It has, and it worked.
02:43So, End Action Overrides, again, just like Playlist are another way that you can
02:48control the way that viewers see your content.
Collapse this transcript
Using replacement layers
00:00Sometimes, when you're playing around with menus from Encore's Library, I've
00:04noticed this particularly with the Wedding Set especially, but you'll see,
00:07sometimes images with this bowl with the downwards-facing arrow in it.
00:11This icon represents what is called a replacement layer.
00:14That is an object meant to be replaced by a layer of your own.
00:19Oftentimes, there is a certain cropping or maybe certain effects applied to them in Photoshop.
00:24Then those effects, or cropping, or whatever carry over onto your images as well
00:29without any work on your own.
00:31So I've imported this beach_models photo here.
00:34What I'm going to do is just drag and drop on top of this replacement layer.
00:39As soon as I let go, you notice it's faded a little bit to blend it with the background.
00:44It has been tilted to fit in with this other background as well, kind of cool.
00:49Let's look at another example.
00:50I'm going to double-click of this Bride menu here.
00:53As we can see by this icon, this also is a replacement layer.
00:56So in other words, we're not supposed to use this image of this bride here.
01:00But we have a sepia tone.
01:02We have some interesting contrast here.
01:04We have some feathered edges.
01:05So let's see what our image looks like when applied to this replacement layer.
01:10I select beach_models.jpg, our image, drag and drop onto this image. Let go.
01:16Boy, what a difference!
01:17Look at those beautiful effects with the soft, feathered edges with a sepia tone.
01:21We have a little bit more intense contrast, perhaps, or maybe that's just the
01:25way the image looks.
01:27But regardless, we have a lot of those same effects from the original image
01:31with the replacement layer, translated over into our image without really any effort on our own.
01:36So, be aware that when you see that icon, that's what that means.
01:40It means that you are supposed to use one of your own images to replace what is there.
01:46Now later on in this training series, when we get to the chapter on Photoshop,
01:49and we'll talk about how to create menus from scratch and use those layer codes
01:53and stuff like that,
01:54I'll show you how to set up these replacement layers, so that you can not only
01:58utilize them with Encore's Library, but also you can create them yourself.
Collapse this transcript
Looping motion menus
00:00Sometimes, when you're working with Motion menus, you could run into some problems.
00:04I'm going to show you how to fix those in this movie.
00:06First, let me show you what I did.
00:07I have this Scientific menu here.
00:09This is a static, non-moving menu that I found in the Encore Library.
00:14Then I took this into Adobe After Effects and animated it.
00:18Let me show you what I did here.
00:20This is what the movie looks like.
00:22So the squares move around and then the buttons come on, the text comes on, and
00:27then the objects continue to animate.
00:30So what I did is I held the Option key on the Mac, Alt key on the PC, and
00:35dragged this to the background and made this the background for the Motion menu.
00:40I've rendered the Motion menu.
00:42If we preview this, you'll see one of the problems.
00:45I'm going to right-click on the menu in the Project panel and choose Preview from Here.
00:49Now already we have the Subpicture Highlights active, even before the
00:52buttons come on the screen. That's bad news.
00:55Another object of bad news will come after the 15-second mark, which we're getting to.
01:01Watch this!
01:02After 15 seconds, it repeats, and the menu animates on again.
01:07Well, we don't want this thing to animate on every 15 seconds. That's terrible!
01:12We also don't want Subpicture Highlights indicating where buttons will be.
01:15It just looks tacky.
01:17I'm going to go ahead and click Exit and return.
01:19The way that we're going to fix this problem is by adjusting the Menu Loop Point.
01:25So with the menu selected, I'm going to go to the Properties panel and
01:30choose the Motion tab.
01:32Here we can access the Loop Point.
01:35You see what I want to have happen is I wanted to play the animation.
01:39If we click this asset in the Project panel, we'll see it's 15 seconds long.
01:44The first five seconds are the menu animating on.
01:48The remaining 10 seconds are the good seconds that we want to have the menu displaying.
01:54So, with the menu selected, in the Properties panel, Motion tab, I'm going to
01:58change the Loop Point to 10 seconds, which means that it will play for the first time.
02:05It will animate on for the first five seconds.
02:08Then it will play for the rest of the 15 seconds.
02:11Then it will loop back to the 5-second mark and just keep playing the last 10
02:16seconds over and over again.
02:18Thus we will have our menu.
02:20So let's select a menu in the Project panel, click the Preview button, and see what we have.
02:27Now as expected, we have our first five seconds where the buttons animate on,
02:33the text animates on.
02:34It's all hunky-dory.
02:36Then the telling part of this, to see if we did this correctly, we'll see at the
02:40end of the 15 seconds, what happens?
02:43It just goes back to the 11-second mark.
02:46It keeps looping, so that we can just use our buttons.
02:53This menu functions as normal without going back to the beginning.
02:56So, such is the power of Loop Points, which allows us to control what part of
03:03the Motion menu continues to get played back.
Collapse this transcript
Replacing a menu
00:00In this tutorial, we're going to look at a feature that you probably won't use
00:03every time you use Encore, but when you do use it, you'll be so in love with
00:08Encore for having this amazing feature.
00:10I have this menu here. I like this menu.
00:13But let's say I wanted to swap it out for something else.
00:15Now I put a lot of effort into this menu.
00:17I've created buttons.
00:18I have links to all these different timelines, for all of these different
00:22buttons, and everything's set up exactly the way I wanted.
00:25But what if I decide to go with a different motif, and to change the buttons,
00:29and to change the background, the whole entire theme?
00:31Well, the work is not in vain because Encore can actually go and swap out the
00:38existing menu for a new menu.
00:41Let me show you what I'm talking about here.
00:41I'm going to go to the Library panel.
00:43I'm going to change this Set to Travel.
00:47Let's say, for example, I see this Beach menu WIDE menu.
00:51I'm thinking oh, man!
00:53That would go with my theme of Explore California so much better. I love it!
00:57I want it! I need it!
00:58So what I can do is select the menu in the Project panel, select the Beach
01:02menu WIDE here in the Library panel and click this button, which is Replace,
01:07second from the left.
01:09I click that button.
01:11Momentarily, I now have a new menu.
01:15The Play All even has the thumbnail set up.
01:17I have a Play All button still.
01:19I have the Olive Oil Movies button still, and the Ocean Movies.
01:23If I click these buttons and look at them in the Properties panel, and
01:28actually the Link has not been set for these, but all of my other links work out just fine.
01:33So I can click on the Olive Oil Movies, and now continue to link up.
01:37But the Play All link that was created is still all set up.
01:41The buttons have the same names and everything.
01:43So I just swapped out the background, and the look and the style of the buttons,
01:49but the core of my navigation remains intact.
Collapse this transcript
Creating a chapter index
00:00We've talked before about adding chapter markers to your timeline.
00:03We've also talked before about submenus and how we use them to play these
00:08different chapter markers.
00:09We've also linked these up together.
00:11But what happens when you have tons of chapter markers, as we do in this
00:176-minute movie here?
00:18This is actually only 13.
00:19For a full-length movie, you might have even more than that.
00:22But what happens when we create these submenus?
00:25Here we only have four buttons.
00:26So if we have dozens of these chapter markers to link up to these little video
00:31buttons here, this is going to take a long time.
00:34Encore realizes this and has pity upon our poor souls.
00:38It's created a feature that allows us to create one link between a timeline and a submenu.
00:44Then Encore will do the rest automatically.
00:47What I'm going to do is drag and drop this first chapter marker to the
00:53first video button here.
00:55That's all I've done.
00:56That's the only link between this timeline and this submenu, and there are no
01:00other menus in our project, but watch this!
01:04I select the timeline here.
01:06Now I'm going to go to the Menu here.
01:08That's where we need to go.
01:09Actually, if I go here and I select my timeline, and then go back to the Menu
01:14menu, you see that it's still grayed out here.
01:16So what I need to do is select the menu in the Project panel, then go to the
01:21Menu menu at the top of the interface.
01:24Then what I want to do is create a chapter index.
01:27Go ahead and click that button.
01:31Miraculously, what Encore will do is it will put in the remaining chapter
01:37markers into these buttons.
01:40You notice that we had way more chapter markers than buttons.
01:43So what Encore did for us is to create new menus and put these markers in these
01:51submenus for us automatically.
01:53Absolutely miraculous! Even look at this!
01:56If I go and select these navigational buttons, and actually what these are for
02:00us is for navigating between submenus.
02:03So we have the Main menu button here. It takes us to the Main menu. Then we have
02:06these arrows that take us to the previous submenu and to the next submenu.
02:10The links for both of these have already been all set up.
02:13So, all of these menus are already connected to one another.
02:17All of our chapter markers are there automatically.
02:21That, my friends, is a time saving feature.
02:25So again, we select the menu, go to the Menu menu and choose Create
02:30Chapter Index.
Collapse this transcript
Using photos as subpictures
00:00This next tutorial is a great trick, just a phenomenal tool to be able to
00:05have in your arsenal.
00:07It is very challenging, probably the most challenging in the training series, but man!
00:12What a great secret trick.
00:13If I was a magician, they would have to kill me for sharing this with you.
00:15But what we're going to do is we're going to have a workaround for Subpictures.
00:20Subpictures, to me look, so cheesy, just these little graphic overlays,
00:24over buttons, and they always look kind of blocky and kind of chintzy.
00:27So what we're going to do is we're going to make it so that I, this is me right here,
00:33I am going to be the Subpicture.
00:35And I'm going to point at the activated button.
00:38The way that we're going to fake this is that we're going to actually have four
00:43separate menus here that appear to the audience to be one menu.
00:48So we have one menu where I'm pointing to button 1, one menu where I'm pointing
00:53to button 2, one to button 3, and one to button 4.
00:58These are four separate menus again, but we're going to use a feature called
01:01Auto Activate, which will make the audience think that this is one menu.
01:06Now, I've already set up menus 2, 3, and 4 for you.
01:09So let's go ahead and double- click on menu number 1 to set this up.
01:13Now, when users choose button number 2, when they select it with their DVD remote, not
01:20necessarily when they choose it as far as like pressing Enter, but just when
01:25they select it, we want it to go to the number 2 menu automatically without them
01:32pushing a button, because if they have to push a button, then the mystery is up.
01:35So what we want to do is use this feature in the Properties panel with the
01:38Button selected called Auto Activate.
01:41So that means that as soon as users choose this button, it will
01:46automatically activate the link.
01:49So we want the link to be menu number 2.
01:53So what we're going to do is choose the link, and we're going to go to
01:58number 2-Upper Right menu.
02:00And when we make our link from the flyout menu, we cannot only choose the menu
02:05to link to, but which button is active.
02:07So when users choose button number 2, we will have the number 2 button active.
02:13Likewise, when users choose button number 4, then we will Auto Activate button 4.
02:20And from the flyout menu, we will choose menu number 4, and button number 4 of
02:25menu number 4, and likewise with number 3.
02:27We'll Auto Activate that.
02:30From the Link flyout, we'll choose the third menu and the number 3 button of the third menu.
02:37So as it mixes what's going on here as the users choose button number 2, for
02:41example, or as they just move their cursor to button number 2, then we go to the number 2 menu.
02:48If they then push down on their remote control, it will instantly, automatically
02:53because of this Auto Activate thing,
02:54they'll automatically be taken to the fourth menu, the 4-Lower Right menu.
03:00Now, you might be asking to yourself, how would they actually link to the object
03:03to watch a movie then?
03:05Well, if you are on menu number 4, for example, then menu number 4, this button
03:11would be activated, and then you could set this link to whatever object.
03:14So each button would only have one real link to another object in your project.
03:21So again, number 1, here is the real button.
03:24As they selected number 2, they're automatically be taken to this menu, 3,
03:28they're automatically be taken to that menu, 4, automatically be taken to this menu.
03:33So it would appear to them as if they are just kind of browsing around, and
03:39as if I am moving according to their choices, but really this is four separate menus.
03:44So let's see how this works.
03:44I'm going to right-click on menu number 1.
03:47That's our first play object.
03:49I'm going to choose Preview from Here.
03:51Now, instead of using my mouse, which will be kind of messy in this example, I'm
03:55going to use these arrows here to simulate the DVD remote.
03:58So if I click on the right to select button number 2, it's automatically going
04:03to switch over, because we Auto Activated the Link to go to the Upper Right
04:07menu, it's automatically now in menu number 2.
04:11I push down to go to button number 4, and I'm actually in menu number 4.
04:14So it appears to the viewer as if we are controlling the actual menu itself, but
04:22really, I am as if the Subpicture, I'm pretending to be the Subpicture.
04:26I'm not really the Subpicture, but it appears that way because of Auto Activate,
04:31because we have made it so that each of these buttons now takes you
04:35automatically to another menu.
04:38Now, for my money, this is the best use of Auto Activate, but you could use Auto
04:43Activate for other purposes.
04:44If somebody selects a button,
04:45you want it to automatically play a Slideshow or Timeline,
04:48you can do that, of course, as well.
04:49But by auto-activating and switching out the menus with another menu, you can do
04:54really crazy, creative, innovative things like this.
Collapse this transcript
14. Advanced Creative Tricks
Creating "Easter eggs"
00:00In this chapter, we are going to be looking at some super sweet creative tricks
00:04to help you spark your creativity and also to help take your projects to the next level.
00:09The first one we are going to look at is the ever-popular Easter Egg.
00:12In Easter, there are these eggs, and usually parents hide them for their kids,
00:17and then kids go running off and trying to find these little Easter Eggs.
00:20So on DVD menus, often times there are these hidden Easter Eggs.
00:25There are these little secret buttons that many people don't know about.
00:29If you could find them, then they often are buttons that will take you to secret content.
00:34If you're unaware of this, I invite you to do a Google search because it's
00:37amazing how many Hollywood DVDs that you probably have in your collection,
00:42you aren't even aware of it, have these Easter Eggs, little secret content all
00:46over the place, everything from The Lord of the Rings movies to Spiderman and
00:50everything in between.
00:51Now, to set this up what I did is I went over into Photoshop, and what I did is
00:56I created a new buttons set.
00:58We will talk about how to do that later on when we talk about creating menus in Photoshop.
01:02I created this text as a Subpicture Highlight.
01:05So essentially, it is a button with nothing visible.
01:08So then when I import this as a menu, you can't see this button.
01:12These are the only three buttons that are here: Play All, Scenes and Set Up.
01:15So if you were on the Setup button, you wouldn't normally think to push to the
01:20right, and yet that's the only way that you can get to my secret button.
01:25So when users are on the Setup button, and they push to the right, then they
01:29find my secret stash.
01:31So I right-click on this menu, choose Preview from Here and so then we could use
01:35these Arrows down here to click right, and right, go to my button, and then if I
01:41know the secret stash, or I am feeling adventurous, I push right again.
01:44There is the secret.
01:46All that we are seeing here is the Subpicture Highlight.
01:50So it doesn't show up.
01:52As we see, as we click over here, and there is nothing to see, but we can click
01:56and get the bounding box, the outline of a button, and we can see that it is, in fact, a button.
02:01Here in the Properties panel we could set a link for it, to link to secret
02:03content, or what have you.
02:05Believe it or not, Easter Eggs are probably the most common of the creative
02:09tricks in the DVD authoring world.
Collapse this transcript
Making games
00:00Another interesting trick you can do with DVDs is to create little games.
00:03You are not going to be able to make like Super Mario Brothers
00:05or something, but you can create some basic, simple word games, and things where
00:10there are puzzles or allow people choices.
00:12So, for example, here I have this menu, What is the airspeed velocity of
00:16an Unladen Swallow?
00:17We have a few answers here, 10 Meters/Second is the correct answer.
00:22And so I actually have separate menus here.
00:24I have a Correct menu, and I have a Wrong menu.
00:27So really this is a function of menus.
00:29Again, we see that menus are the core of what we do in Encore, even if we are
00:33just playing around with DVD games.
00:35So I'm going to select African or European. That is an incorrect answer.
00:40I am going to select the Wrong menu here.
00:42I am going to link this button to that.
00:43B. Really Fast is also a wrong answer, so I am going to link this button to the Wrong Answer.
00:4910 Meters/Second is correct.
00:51So I am going to link this to the Correct menu.
00:54And what is Airspeed is also incorrect, so I am going to link this also to the Wrong menu.
00:59Now, let's go ahead and select the Question menu, right-click on it, and
01:03choose Preview from Here.
01:05So we have our menu, now let's go ahead and choose this incorrect answer,
01:08African or European.
01:10We failed, so now we click Try Again, and we didn't link this up to our original menu.
01:16So what we need to do is go to our Wrong menu, click on Try Again, link this
01:21back to the question here.
01:23Now, I can right-click on Question > Preview from Here, and we will try Really
01:27Fast this time, Fail, click on Try Again, and we get more chances.
01:31When we finally do get the right answer, we go to Correct! Good Job!
01:35And then do Next Question.
01:37So then we could link to a different menu and keep traveling down this path.
01:42So let's say on a DVD you had some trivia.
01:45You could make it so that in order to get the big prize at the end, maybe some
01:49extra bonus footage or something like that,
01:51they have to answer all the questions correctly eventually to get there.
01:55I might recommend that if you did create an elaborate game that use the flow
01:59chart to determine where people are going to go, with what answerers, and what's
02:03going to lead them where.
02:06So again, while this is not a Nintendo game, there is some opportunity here to
02:10create some creative strategy-type games.
Collapse this transcript
Using menu transitions
00:00I have here this simple project with this menu from Encore's Library.
00:04I have this Play Movie button set up to play my Timeline, which is this cool
00:08snowboarding movie here.
00:10You could see a little preview of that in the Project panel.
00:12Now, wouldn't it be cool if when we clicked Play Movie as a user, it didn't
00:17just go from the menu straight to the Timeline, but if there was a cool little animation?
00:22What that little cool animation is called is a menu Transition.
00:26So what I have done is I have created this menu.
00:28I have taken the menu actually and taken it into Adobe After Effects, and I've
00:33applied this cool Shatter Effect.
00:34You could see preview of that here in the Project panel, it kind of explodes.
00:38What we are going to do is we are going to set this up as a transition,
00:40so that when users click on Play Movie, the menu will appear to explode, and
00:46then the Timeline will play.
00:48The way that we set this up is that we click the button, go to the Properties
00:51panel, then we go to the Transition tab.
00:53Transitions are functions of buttons, so each button could have its own unique
00:57transition if you want.
00:58So I am going to go to the pick whip, in Asset here, and drag the pick whip over
01:03to the Texture menu movie that I have created.
01:07Now, let's right-click on the Texture menu and choose Preview from Here.
01:11Now, assuming we set this up right, once we clicked Play Movie, it's going to
01:15play the transition movie of the menu Exploding, and then it's going to play
01:20the Timeline movie.
01:25Isn't that fun, just to have like a little transition?
01:28It doesn't just go straight to the footage, it actually blows up.
01:31By the way, if you are interested in creating that Shatter Effect, you can check
01:34out the Shatter Tutorials on lynda.com.
01:37I've done a lot of the After Effects Training on there, and there is plenty of
01:40training on the Shatter Effect.
01:41It's very easy, basically a drag and drop thing that makes that explode, very
01:45quick and easy to do.
01:46That's really all there is to creating menu transitions.
Collapse this transcript
Using subpictures as art
00:00In this movie, we are going to look a little bit closer at Subpictures.
00:04Specifically, we are going to look at how to maybe use then in creative ways.
00:09I have here this menu, and I have Stars as a button and Lightning as a button.
00:15The Subpicture Highlights for these buttons are very unique.
00:19I am going to go ahead and select this menu, click the Preview button to preview this.
00:24Look at the Subpicture Highlights for Lightning.
00:26There are three colors, including these duotone lightning bolts, and look at the stars.
00:31They are all over the place.
00:33Now, while it is common and standard to have Subpicture Highlights, they are
00:37just kind of like little icon next to your button selection,
00:40it is possible to do whatever you want with those Subpicture Highlights.
00:44As indicated here with the Stars, we could make it, so that when you choose that
00:48option, there's stuff that happens all over the screen.
00:51It doesn't matter where you put the Subpicture Highlights.
00:53It is just something that highlights somewhere on the screen when your users
00:58choose that option, or simply have it selected.
01:01We've also discussed, but never really looked at an example of using the three
01:06Subpicture Highlight colors.
01:07You can have up to three in one Subpicture Highlight.
01:10So sometimes that might look like a circle with little highlight on it, or
01:13something like that.
01:14But here we have three colors.
01:15We have white, yellow, and orange.
01:17So let's look a little closer at what I did here.
01:20I am going to select this menu in the Menu Viewer and go to the Layers panel.
01:26As we talked about, and as we'll talk about much more later when we get into
01:30Photoshop and building stuff from scratch in Photoshop,
01:32buttons in Encore are just made up of layers grouped together in a folder in Photoshop.
01:39So the Stars button contains the Stars text, and then we have the little
01:45Highlight, and then we have many, many, many, many little stars here.
01:50So you could have as many of these highlights as you want.
01:54The little =3 in parentheses tells Encore that this is a Subpicture Highlight.
01:58So there is really no limit there.
02:00Now as far as the Lightning goes, I use a little bit of a different code.
02:03I used =1 for the components that I wanted yellow, and =2 for the components
02:09that I wanted orange, and =3 for the components that I wanted white.
02:13So again, you could have up to three Subpicture Highlights.
02:16These are determined in the Menu menu, going to Edit menu Colors Set, as we talked about.
02:21By default, it's set to Automatic.
02:23So Encore is going to look at the colors of the layer and determine what's the
02:28best Subpicture Color?
02:30It wisely estimated that yellow was my number one, orange is my number two, and
02:35white is my number three.
02:36Of course, if I wanted to change this, I could go to menu Default, and then when
02:40I previewed this, it would look very different.
02:43So I could change any of these colors from this menu here.
02:46I am actually going to take this back to Automatic and click OK.
02:49So basically we have three choices with Subpicture Highlights.
02:53We can do =1, =2 or =3, and that's for each Subpicture Highlight, for one button.
02:59The downside of this is that we do get some jaggies.
03:02It's not perfectly smooth just because of whatever it is in the DVD system that
03:07makes it, so that Subpictures are a little bit blocky.
03:09That's the way they will show up on the user's screen as well.
03:11But you can be more creative and think about what we can do with
03:15Subpicture Highlights.
03:16They can go all over the place.
03:17They could be multi-colors, and so maybe there's some room for creativity there.
Collapse this transcript
Creating a video menu
00:00If you have found anything to be limiting in the way that Encore deals
00:03with menus, or subpicture highlights, or what have you, this video should be very freeing.
00:09Here we're going to take the ultimate liberty, and we're going to remove
00:11everything from the menu and have a video background to play, and before we've
00:17done this, but the buttons were still the same.
00:19Now, we're going to even replace the buttons, and the only thing that we're
00:23going to have remaining from the menu are subpicture highlights.
00:26This, again, is very freeing.
00:28I have here this menu, and this is the NTSC_Scientific menu from the Corporate
00:33set, from the Library panel.
00:35And what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this menu, and let me show
00:39you what I did here.
00:40This is kind of similar to what we saw before, where I took an animated my
00:43background here in After Effects, except this time the buttons are also video
00:49if we play this here.
00:50You see we have the buttons kind of having this little sheen going across
00:54them, and the colors of the buttons are animating over time, and so we
00:58couldn't do this any other way.
01:00We're actually going to completely replace the buttons in the menu with
01:05these fake video buttons.
01:07So let's go ahead an Option+Drag or Alt+Drag the Video as Menu video to the
01:12background of the menu.
01:14Next, we need to do a little bit of repair work here.
01:17We need to go to the Layers panel and select the Menu Viewer, because what's
01:20happening is is that the menu is overlaying the video.
01:25So we're getting two buttons here.
01:27So what I need to do is take off the visibility of volume 1 and the button background.
01:33Open up volume 2, do the same thing.
01:36Open of volume 3 and do the same thing.
01:38And actually, we don't even need the corporatecorp inc.
01:41text because that text is already part of our video.
01:45We can also remove the haze layer here, and now we're back to square one.
01:50Now, you might be asking, if we remove the visibility of everything in
01:54the entire menu except this video Background, then how will users know what to click?
01:59Ah! Here is the magic.
02:01In order for a button to be a button, it really just needs a
02:05subpicture highlight.
02:07That is the basic component of a button.
02:09So as long as it as a subpicture highlight, then users know where to click.
02:12So if our video had these moving blobs, or whatever, as long as there's a
02:17subpicture highlight letting viewers know which one was selected, that's really all that you need.
02:22So now what I can do is click this Preview button, and you can see that our
02:27video is moving, and we still have the subpicture highlights.
02:30And really, the subpicture highlight is the only thing carried over from the original menu.
02:36But that's really all you need, and these are fully functioning buttons.
02:40Everything else is total video.
02:42And so it really frees you.
02:45Maybe you're doing a DVD for an air show or something like that.
02:48You might have a button that's like a propeller that occasionally spins around,
02:51as long as there's a subpicture highlight that maybe could highlight in the
02:54center of the propeller or something like that, that's really all you need.
02:57So this trick, again, is very freeing and gives you a lot of control over
03:03that menu.
Collapse this transcript
15. Using Encore as a Presentation Tool
Why use Encore as a presentation tool?
00:00In this chapter, we're going to look at using Encore as a presentation tool. But why Encore?
00:05Well, what one of the reasons for this is that there is far more interactivity
00:08in a DVD than in just plain video as if with slideshows.
00:12It's also way easier to program than Flash is.
00:17And it has all that same interactivity that you crave.
00:20And because it's on DVD, the presentation medium also allows for
00:24content distribution.
00:26So if you have files that you would like to send home with the members of the
00:28meeting, you can do that as well.
00:31So let's get into talking about using Encore as a means for presentation.
Collapse this transcript
Creating slideshows with manual advance
00:00Let's say you had a presentation to give and you decide to use Encore to burn
00:04a DVD to guide you as you are presenting, to be your teaching tool, and you
00:11have a slideshow here.
00:12And let's say you have these different slides of a model presenting the progress
00:17of certain locales of your company, namely Dallas, London and Denver.
00:22So she is kind of going through the motions here.
00:24And what we might want to do is talk about the first slide and talk about, okay.
00:28Well, this is how London and Dallas are doing.
00:30And now let's move on to talk about these stats, and now let's move on to
00:34talk about those stats.
00:35And you may want to pause for a question.
00:36And so the way we've done things in the past with slideshows probably wouldn't
00:40work too much, because we might have slide duration, but the slide duration is
00:44even like 20 seconds long, people might have questions and so you might not want
00:49to move on just yet.
00:50So what you can do is select a slideshow and when you have the Slideshow
00:54Properties in the Properties panel, you can check this option, which is Manual Advance.
01:00And what this allows you to do is to control when you go to the next slide.
01:05It basically makes slide duration invalid.
01:08So as you are presenting that, the way that you would go from slide to slide is
01:12by using the right arrows or the next button on your DVD remote.
01:17Now, I didn't mention this feature back when we were talking about slideshows,
01:20because most of time you don't want to do that to viewers, because that's kind
01:23of torturous to have to do that for all these different slides.
01:26But if you are presenting something on a DVD, then the ability to control when
01:32you go from slide to slide is very helpful, indeed.
Collapse this transcript
Creating captions on slides
00:00Now it's not instantly clear, initially, how to add captions to slides, but
00:05you absolutely can.
00:06If you go ahead and select the Type tool and try to start typing, you won't be able
00:09to though because it's a little quirky.
00:11I'm going to select this third slide, and I'm going to resize my panels here, so
00:18I could see more options.
00:20And with this slide selected, you can see that we have this option that
00:23says Create Subtitle.
00:25And if we enable that, then it will allow us to create a subtitle, and we can
00:29choose whether the subtitle contains the name and/or the description, which we
00:34could find right here at the top of the Properties panel.
00:37In this case, I'm going to type in the Description field, Sales for March - May,
00:44and click outside of that to accept it.
00:47And then I'm going to uncheck Name and check Description.
00:51And now, as you can see, we have a caption for this slide.
00:54So if we want to add some description here, we definitely can do that.
00:58We can also adjust some color options, such as the Highlight group and the Stroke.
01:03We can also adjust the Alignment.
01:04Right now, it's 100% from top, but we can take this to let's say 10%.
01:11And this now goes to the top of the screen.
01:14Again, it's kind of a weird parameter, but it's basically meaning the
01:17distance from the top.
01:18So 10%, not very far from the top.
01:20100%, very far away from the top.
01:23So if captions on your slides will help your presentation, that is how you do it.
Collapse this transcript
Adding data content to discs
00:00So let's say you've delivered your presentation that you made in Encore.
00:04People are just eating it up, and they want more information.
00:07They want the PDFs that you've made.
00:09They want the research you've done, maybe extra files and videos and assets and
00:13resources that you have, but they won't work on a DVD.
00:16For example, you can't have a PDF displayed on a DVD.
00:19So what you can do is burn this content, whatever extra content you have, you
00:24could burn it on the DVD as data.
00:28This is done by going to the Build panel,
00:31the same panel that we'll be using later on to actually burn our disc.
00:34If you scroll down a little bit, in the Disc Info area, this is where you're
00:39allowed to put on DVD-ROM content, in other words data content.
00:44So what we would do then is click the Browse button.
00:46We would navigate to our folder on our hard drive.
00:49Now, it would have be a folder. We can't just pick and choose individual files.
00:53Encore will not let you do that.
00:55You just select a single folder, and then Encore will use that and burn to the
00:59disc again as data content.
01:02And the way that works is that people can still play your presentation as video,
01:06like in a regular old DVD player,
01:08but then when they put it into your computer, they will be able to play it as
01:11video, and they'll will also be not be able to access the data content,
01:15so whatever's in that folder that you've added, if it's a PDF file or extra
01:18videos or whatever it is.
01:20You might not use DVD-ROM content in all of your projects and maybe very rarely.
01:27Qhen you do need it and you have that ability to pass off data content, as well
01:31as video content, it's very powerful and often very helpful.
Collapse this transcript
16. Creating Menus from Scratch in Photoshop
Making menus in Photoshop
00:00As we've lightly touched on previously in this training series, Encore menus are
00:04really nothing more or less than just Photoshop files.
00:07So in this chapter, we're going to break it down and see how to create menus from
00:12scratch in Photoshop.
00:14Let's go ahead and dissect one of the menus that comes with Encore and see what
00:18it's made of in Photoshop.
00:19I'm using the Entertainment menu, found in the General Set in the Library panel.
00:23I'm going to select this menu and click this handy button that I use very often,
00:28Edit menu in Photoshop.
00:31If you see this warning, it's nothing you can do or change, so don't even worry
00:35about it, just go ahead and click OK.
00:37And here we have our Encore menu in Photoshop.
00:40If Photoshop was not open, Encore will even launch it for you.
00:44Now, here's the way this works.
00:45Let's go over to the Layers panel.
00:46If it's not showing, you go to the Window menu and choose Layers, but this is
00:51where we could really, again, dissect and take apart this menu.
00:55Now a lot of the magic that happens with menus is actually just done in the background.
01:00It's just the design.
01:01So if I took off eye icon for this beautiful background, this is what we're left with.
01:06It's not unbelievable without this beautiful background. That really makes it.
01:09So again, knowing Photoshop, knowing how to design, that really is the one of
01:14the great keys to designing a successful project, or at least a successful menu, in Encore.
01:20Really what's going on here are these folders, and when you see this little Plus,
01:26this is an indication that this is, in fact, a button.
01:29This really is what makes this Photoshop document a menu.
01:34In the next movie, we're going to go from scratch and create a button using all
01:38the codes and the elements just from scratch.
Collapse this transcript
The button set codes
00:00So in this first step, we're going to create the most basic of all Encore
00:04elements, and that is a button set.
00:07So, here we have the Play All button, and the Scenes button, and we have the
00:12elements for the Set Up button, but it's not a button.
00:16We have some set up text, and we have a cloud shape, which is just going to be a
00:20graphic representation of our button, just decoration basically, and then we
00:24have the Sun copy layer here that's going to be our subpicture highlight.
00:27So what we do to make this a button is that we create a folder.
00:32So, I'm going to go down here to the bottom of the Layers panel, click a Folder
00:34icon, our Layer Group icon, and then I'm going to drag these elements, all of
00:39them into the same folder.
00:41Let's go ahead and click this triangle here, close up that group, make sure it's
00:46all nice and contained there, looking good.
00:48Now, just because they are in the folder doesn't mean anything.
00:51We have to name this properly.
00:53So what I'm going to do is double-click on this layer until I get the highlight
00:57field, and I can type in it.
00:58I'm going to create an open parenthesis, and then click the Plus sign and then a close parenthesis.
01:04I'll go ahead and call this button Set Up.
01:07That's not really critical, but what is critical is the little code, that little
01:10Plus sign in parentheses. That is critical.
01:13That is what tells Encore that this is a button.
01:18Now, when I first heard of Encore several years ago, this whole idea of button
01:22codes and all those different little things that you could put in there was a
01:26little confusing to me, but if you did that, if you just made a folder and
01:30drag this junk into the folder and put the Plus sign in parentheses, you just
01:33made your first button. You did it.
01:35So it's not super overwhelming, and again, we're going to keep adding to this
01:38throughout this chapter as we go.
Collapse this transcript
The subpicture highlight codes
00:00Our next step is to create a subpicture highlight.
00:03Now, if we open up the Set Up button that we just made, we have the elements for this.
00:07I have the text here, and I have the cloud shape, but really, what's going to be
00:10the subpicture highlight is this Sun copy.
00:13So what I'm going to do is double- click the name Sun copy. Make sure it's not
00:18this object and make sure it's not this fx icon.
00:20It has to be on that text.
00:22And then again, before the text, everything that we do is going to be in
00:27parentheses, and it has to be before the name of the layer or group.
00:31That's how Encore recognizes it.
00:33So again, before the word Sun, we're going to, in parenthesis, type =1, and
00:37then close parenthesis. That's it.
00:40That tells Encore that this is a subpicture highlight.
00:43And again, as mentioned, there are three different groups, so this could be =1, =2, or =3.
00:50The other buttons in our scene use =1.
00:53So we're going to go ahead and leave that as =1, so that the subpicture
00:56highlight colors all match up.
00:59And folks, as far as buttons go, that is it.
01:02We did everything that we need to.
01:03We have this little Plus in parentheses, and this =1 in parentheses, so we have a subpicture highlight,
01:08and we have a button group.
01:10We have a button, so good job.
01:13Now, it's actually going to get juicier as we look at several more
01:16interesting codes coming up.
Collapse this transcript
The replacement layer code
00:00Now we're going to look at the code for creating a Replacement layer.
00:03Now this layer here is the ship here called Replacement.
00:07I'm going to go ahead and click this arrow to open it up.
00:09We got a few effects here, a few things going on.
00:11Just so we could see this a little bit more clearly, I'm going to hold the
00:14Option key on the Mac, Alt key on the PC and click the eye icon next to
00:18the Replacement layer.
00:19So we could just solo this layer and get rid of all the other pretty junk around it.
00:24And basically, we have this Gradient Overlay Effect.
00:27So if I click the eye icon for the effects here, I can see this is what the
00:30original layer looked like. This original layer had a mask.
00:34And that's the original layer. Shift+ Click again to see with the layer mask.
00:39Click the eye icon or where the eye icon used to be see to see the effects back on.
00:44So we have this gradient coloring.
00:46So it's kind of giving it this like sunset look.
00:49We also have this kind of painterly, sparkly mask around the outside edges.
00:53And this is what we want to carry over into Encore so we can replace this image
00:58of a ferry with something a little bit more attractive later on.
01:02So, I'm going to hold the Option or Alt key and click that eye icon again.
01:06This time let's go ahead and double- click in the name of the layer, go to the
01:09beginning of the name of the layer and in parentheses, just put an exclamation
01:12point, and that is it.
01:15That's all it takes to create a Replacement layer.
01:17Now, let's do Ctrl+Shift+S on the PC or Command+Shift+S on the Mac, and do a
01:23Save As, and I'm going to just type this as Replacement Layer FINAL, and I am
01:29going to save this in the PSD folder, inside the Media files that come with the training.
01:33I'm going to go ahead and click Save there.
01:35Go ahead and click OK on Maximize Compatibility.
01:37Next, I'm going to hop on over to Encore, right-click in the Project panel,
01:41choose Import As > Menu, go to the PSD files here, and find the Replacement
01:47layer FINAL menu here, click on Open, and if we select this menu in the Menu
01:52Viewer, actually I have the Type tool selected, I got to hit Escape here to
01:55cancel out of that.
01:56But if we have the Menu Viewer selected, go to the Layers panel.
02:00We could see that we actually have now a Replacement layer.
02:03We are not seeing the cool icon that we normally see.
02:05We're just seeing the Replacement layer icon here in the Layers panel. It worked.
02:10So now I'm going to take this other image that I have, the beach_houses here,
02:14and you could see the coloration is complete different, the size is fullscreen.
02:18Let's go ahead and drag and drop the beach_houses image onto the ship here, and
02:23once we let go, we could see that our beautiful, painterly, sparkly mask held
02:29over, as well as did our color scheme.
02:32So, mission accomplished.
Collapse this transcript
The video button code
00:00In this movie, we're going to look at the code to create a video button.
00:03So I've created a few layers here.
00:04We have the text, we have the bar underneath the text, and we have the actual
00:08video button itself.
00:10Now the code for the video button is simple.
00:12I'm just going to click in the video button layer here and again, the cursor
00:15needs to be before the text and in parentheses, I'm going to just type the
00:20percent sign, and that's it and click away and just a percent sign before the
00:25name of the layer, and that's all you need.
00:27However, you do need to have this as a layer in a button set.
00:32So, let's go ahead and click on the Folder icon to create a group, and drag
00:36our layers into said folder, and let's go ahead and double-click on the Group
00:42and before the name of the Group, let's go ahead and put Plus sign in parentheses, making this
00:47an official button.
00:48Now we can close up this folder and press Command+Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+S on the
00:53PC to do a Save As in the PSD files and the Media files.
00:57We'll go ahead and save this as Video Button FINAL, Maximize Compatibility, hop
01:03on over to Encore and here in Encore, waiting for us is a timeline with a chapter
01:09marker with the Video Button Code project.
01:12Let's go ahead and right-click in the Project panel and choose Import As > Menu,
01:16and we'll choose the Video Button FINAL file that we just saved from Photoshop.
01:21Now, instantly we can tell that we did this right because the black object that
01:25we created and used as our video button here is automatically gray, indicating
01:31that it is, in fact, a video button. We did it right.
01:33So, drag that number two chapter marker here to the Video Button and bada
01:38bing, there is our video button.
Collapse this transcript
The submenu navigation codes
00:00Now, we're going to take a very brief look at the codes used for submenus.
00:04So I have this Skiing Submenu from the Sports Set of the Library panel.
00:08I'm going to open this up in Photoshop.
00:10Now, you'll notice that there are three buttons here: chapters 1, 2, and 3.
00:13By the way, there's a little Pound sign here, and that Pound sign indicates that
00:17this is a button still because we saw the plus sign.
00:20But it's a certain type of button.
00:21It's a chapter button.
00:22So we have chapter 1, 2 and 3, and that corresponds to chapters 1, 2, and 3 to buttons here.
00:26But we also have three other button sets, and there are actually three more
00:31buttons here, six buttons total.
00:32The other three buttons are one, this menu text,
00:36this is actually a button, and these two little arrows here.
00:39If you click on the menu, it's meant to take you back to the main menu.
00:42And if you click left, it's meant to take you to the Previous chapter selection menu.
00:46Clicking right will take you to the Next chapter selection menu.
00:49And so that is what the function of these three buttons are.
00:53And actually, that navigation is built into these buttons.
00:57So I am putting the up arrow here, which is actually Shift+6 on your keyboard,
01:01will take you up a level.
01:03So that's what the code for the up to the next level menu button here is.
01:07And the button on the left-hand side here, for that we have the Less Than
01:11symbol, and that will automatically take us to the previous menu. There is one.
01:14And if there is a Next submenu,
01:16then this will take us to the next one, and that is the right button here.
01:20Now, all of these codes are not absolutely necessary.
01:23The chapter Pound sign here, that will help when you're creating a chapter index.
01:27That's necessary for that.
01:28But again, for just like the basic core navigation in Encore, that's not
01:32necessary, as well as these other submenu navigation codes, helpful but
01:37not essential.
Collapse this transcript
Using pre-built menus as templates
00:00And now, my dear friends, I realize that in this chapter, I have laid a lot
00:05of jive down upon you.
00:07There have been a lot of little tidbits.
00:09But I want to give you just a little bit of a helpful hint.
00:12One of the things that you can do is actually start with an Encore menu, and
00:17then open it in Photoshop.
00:18And we can simply use this as a template.
00:20If you're new to the button codes, if they are intimidating, if the layout of
00:24the menu is intimidating, we could simply start here, and maybe we could change
00:28the background to one of our liking.
00:29Maybe we could change the button background to something of our liking.
00:32Basically, just use this, again, as a template, as a frame of reference here.
00:36We may want to leave the button codes intact, for example, leave the highlights intact.
00:41If you're feeling a little bit more adventurous, of course, you could just open
00:44up a Blank menu and then edit the Blank menu in Photoshop.
00:49And at least you'll have the dimensions to start with.
00:52So either way, if it helps, you can start with one of the Encore menus, edit
00:58those and use that as the foundation for your own menu.
Collapse this transcript
17. About Blu-ray Discs and HD Video
Introducing Blu-ray discs
00:00In this movie, we're going to look at what a Blu-ray disc is.
00:05For this, we'll be using the New Project dialog box, which you can find by going
00:08to File > New Project.
00:10The Authoring mode we have been using most of the time in this training
00:13series has been DVD.
00:14What I want you to do is click on Blu-ray.
00:17Again, Blu-ray is a high-definition disc format.
00:21And it's great because it's high- definition, and it's really big.
00:24So you can fit way more stuff on there, and the quality is way better.
00:27One of the good things and one of the bad things about Blu-ray is that there
00:31are so many choices.
00:33So what I would like you to do is select Blu-ray as the Authoring mode and then
00:37click on Default Transcode Settings.
00:39Once we do that, then we'll see all of the options available to us when we're
00:44authoring Blu-ray discs.
00:46First of all, we look at the Maximum Audio/Video Bitrate.
00:49The minimum is 15 bits per second, which is a really high-quality video stream,
00:56and this is better than what we typically create with DVDs.
00:59Even the minimum Blu-ray is better than the best DVD.
01:03And it goes all the way up to 40 megabits per second.
01:06If we go over to DVDs, you can see that this only goes up to 9.4 at its highest.
01:11So again, the quality here is unparalleled, and it really needs to be for such a huge output.
01:17Codec, this is interesting.
01:19When you are creating a DVD, you have to use MPEG-2 video.
01:24Well, Blu-ray started out as only having MPEG-2 video, and then about a year
01:28after it was released, decided to include H.264 video in its specs as well.
01:35Now, H.264 video, it's going to make it so it's not quite as compatible with
01:40those people that adopted Blu-ray early on.
01:42It got those Blu-ray players the first year it came out or so.
01:45But H.264 delivers about the same quality as MPEG-2 at about half the size.
01:53That means you could fit about twice as much content with H.264 on a Blu-ray
01:58disc as you can with MPEG-2.
02:01But again, slightly less compatible, so keep that in mind.
02:03Now, the Dimensions are another slightly confusing thing.
02:07We can create a Blu-ray disc that's 720 x 480.
02:10That's SD or standard- definition, just like a DVD is.
02:13But then three is multiple HD sizes, 1280 x 720, 1440 x 1080, and also full HD,
02:19which is 1920 x 1080.
02:22We also have many choices in Frame Rates:
02:2523.976 for film, also 24 for film 29.97 is the standard Frame Rate for
02:31video, and then HD video.
02:33especially if you want a really clear, sharp picture, like good for sporting events
02:37and things like that, 59.94 frames per second.
02:41Another thing that we'll see that's kind of fun with Blu-ray discs is that
02:44there are special features, weird things that Blu-ray discs can do that DVDs cannot do.
02:50The one that we're going to look at in the next movie is called a pop-up menu.
Collapse this transcript
Creating Blu-ray pop-up menus
00:00So let's look at Blu-ray pop-up menus.
00:03A pop-up menu is something that is a menu.
00:07It pops up while you are watching your content.
00:10So let's say while you're watching a movie, you can click the pop-up menu button
00:13on your remote while you're watching your Blu-ray disc, and the menu, like this,
00:17will just pop up over the screen.
00:19It's really convenient, because if you're want to change the language, or change
00:22some aspect of it, or even watch something else, you don't have to stop watching
00:26what you're doing and go back to the main menu to do it.
00:28Another cool aspect of this is that the pop-up menus are semi-transparent.
00:32Now, I've created this really weak, pathetic pop-up menu here.
00:36And it's important to know the background is not significant.
00:40I would love to add some pizzazz here, as is my tendency, but it doesn't
00:45matter because all that's left when you create a pop-up menu and it pops-up is the buttons.
00:50That's all that matters. The background is irrelevant and Encore will just toss it away.
00:54So we have our pop-up menu here.
00:57Let's go back into Encore and see how this works.
00:59I'm going to right-click in the Project panel.
01:01I'm going to import this as a menu, actually.
01:04If we know what we're doing, we've planned ahead, and we can just go ahead and
01:07import it as a pop-up menu and save ourselves some time.
01:11But if you forget to do that, if it's kind of a new process for you, not
01:14figuring out what to do, I'll show you how to convert a regular menu into a pop-up menu.
01:19So I'm going to import this as a menu, go to the PSD Files folder in our Media
01:23files, and I'm going to choose pop-up menu.psd and click Open.
01:28You'll notice if I click on my pop-up menu, I see the dimensions, 1280x780, also
01:34my footage and timeline are 1280 x 720 as well.
01:38With all those sizes going around out there with Blu-ray, you want to make
01:41sure that your pop-up menu and your Timeline are going to be the same pixel dimensions.
01:45Now, to convert this to a pop-up menu, we need to click the menu to select it
01:49in the Project panel.
01:50Go to the Properties panel of the menu, and there is a Pop-up tab.
01:54So click on the Pop-up tab, and we could simply just click Set as Blu-ray Pop-up menu.
01:59And there you go.
02:00And as mentioned, as soon as we do that, the white background is gone, and we
02:04can even see the semi- transparency in these buttons.
02:08The way that this works is that pop-up menus need to be associated with timelines.
02:14So we connect the pop-up menu to the timelines because the menu goes up over the timeline,
02:18so a rather peculiar relationship that we don't have with DVDs.
02:23So I'm going to go ahead and click on the timeline in the Project panel to select it.
02:26And then when we were looking at the Timeline properties in the Properties
02:29panel, we have a Set Popup Menu dropdown.
02:31So I'm going to drop this down and choose Pop Up Menu.
02:34This is not typical.
02:35It's not usually called Pop Up Menu, but I actually called my pop-up menu Pop Up Menu.
02:40So that's what I'm going to choose here: Pop Up Menu.
02:43And then, we have now associated this pop-up menu with this Timeline.
02:49So what's the deal?
02:50Where is the background?
02:52Well, previewing a pop-up menu is a subject in and of itself.
02:57So we'll look at that in the next movie.
Collapse this transcript
Previewing pop-up menus over a timeline
00:00So now it's time to preview how our pop-up menu will look over our footage when it pops up.
00:06This is just weird.
00:06It just doesn't work for some reason.
00:08This is very backwards, but this is just what you have got to do. Don't shoot me.
00:12I am just the messenger.
00:13Go ahead and click on the pop-up menu in the Project panel and over in the menu
00:18Properties, under the Pop-up tab, we can actually associate the Pop-up menu with
00:24multiple timelines, so what we need to do in this dropdown now is choose the
00:29timeline that it's associated with.
00:30So, I am going to choose Clip05-tahoe. There we go!
00:33Now we could see our Pop- up menu over our footage.
00:37Now this is a little confusing as well, though.
00:39Because if I go to the Monitor, the frame that I'm on is 13 seconds and 9 frames
00:43in, where he's kind of flying through the air here, all awesome and stuff.
00:47And when I go to the pop-up menu, it's at the first frame of the timeline.
00:52That's because we have to actually manually type in the background frame but
00:57we want to preview the pop-up menu over.
00:59So we can just play our video and see what it looks like with the pop-up menu.
01:02I have to manually type in a given frame.
01:05So, I would have to go in here and manually type in 13:09 if I want to see that
01:12frame we are just looking at with the pop-up menu.
01:15So, it's a little quirky yet. It seems like there should be a way, in one of these
01:19versions of Encore, to able to just play your video while you're looking at your
01:23pop-up menu and preview it as if you were a user using the pop-up menu over
01:27your footage, but you can't quite do that yet.
01:29But at least for the time being, there is a way to preview your pop-up menu over
01:34the footage by using the pop- up tab in the Menu Properties.
Collapse this transcript
18. Testing and Exporting
Encore's automatic letterbox
00:00Now as we prepare to export our project, there is a very important concept I want
00:04you to be aware of, and that is Frame aspect ratio.
00:08Previous in this training series, we talked about the Pixel aspect ratio,
00:11the aspect ratio of those little tiny squares that make up the image.
00:14But there are two important aspect ratios for the entire frame.
00:19The first is kind of like the old school TV way of doing things.
00:23It's very square, and it's referred to as 4:3.
00:25It's a little bit more wide than it is tall, but essentially, it looks square.
00:31We refer to that as fullscreen.
00:33Now there is also 16:9, so it's almost twice as wide as it is tall, and we refer
00:41to that as widescreen.
00:43Now because of the increasing popularity of HD, and because this is the way that
00:47cinema is, widescreen is quickly gaining popularity.
00:52But what happens when you play a widescreen DVD on a 4:3 TV?
00:59Well, you actually have two options for that. One, you could do something
01:03called pan and scan.
01:05On pan and scan, the DVD player will crop the image to fit, so it'll actually
01:10crop off the stuff that's too wide.
01:13The other option that your DVD player has is that it can letterbox the footage,
01:18and that means that it plays the entire 4:3 image, but it shrinks it down so it
01:24all fits in the 4:3 area, and that creates black bars at the top and at the
01:29bottom, and it maintains the 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio.
01:34Many filmmakers prefer the letterbox way of doing things because the pan and
01:39scan way crops your image. It kind of ruins the footage.
01:42So, I think it's like 45% of the actual shot gets cropped off.
01:47Now with all the work the directors put into accomplishing their shots and
01:50setting these things up and composing them correctly, that really messes with
01:54the art of the piece.
01:56So, Encore then does those directors and arty people a favor by overriding
02:02the set top DVD player setting and forces set top DVDs to letterbox the 16:9
02:09footage.
02:11So, if you're outputting a widescreen project from Encore, you never have to
02:17worry about it being panned and scanned and cropped at the edges because Encore
02:22will force the set top DVD player to play back with letterbox.
Collapse this transcript
Checking your project for errors
00:00So we're just about ready to export our project to DVD, to Blu-ray disc, or to a Flash Web site.
00:08But before we do that in the next movie, we need to check our project to make
00:12sure there aren't any problems, and Encore has this built-in error checking
00:17system that's absolutely amazing.
00:19So I have my a super sexy project, here I've got my buttons and my menu, and
00:24I've got some assets here.
00:26I've got timelines and a slideshow, or whatever.
00:30I am feeling pretty good about myself right about now.
00:32So, I am going to go over to the Build panel and resize this so I could
00:35see everything here.
00:37And before I go and build anything, I am going to go ahead and click Check
00:40Project button, which will bring up the Check Project dialog box here, and I
00:45could choose to check for certain things.
00:47By default, I will just leave this set because, by default, they are all
00:51checked, and I usually never touched that, because if there are any problems
00:54here I want to know about it.
00:55It's also a good idea, in this Check Project dialog box, to look through these
00:59objects, so that way as you become a DVD Author,
01:02you know the type of things that will cause errors in your project.
01:05You will notice, for example, that it's going to check to make sure that all of
01:07our buttons are linked to something.
01:10It's going to check to make sure that we have all of our End Actions set
01:13properly, that we have a First Play object and so on.
01:16So, let's go ahead click Start here, and that took not very long at all.
01:21And so we see that there is a button.
01:22There is the icon for button here.
01:24There is a button called Ocean. That's over here.
01:28And the Link is Not Set.
01:29And there's also another button called Olive Oil here, and the Link is Not Set.
01:33So that is a problem.
01:35We also have a Slideshow, and it has two errors. One, it's in Orphan Timeline.
01:40An orphan means that it's not linked to anything.
01:43So you have an Encore object, like a timeline or a menu or a slideshow, not just
01:48a regular old asset,
01:49but it has to be an Encore object, and it's not connected to anything.
01:52So your viewers will never see it.
01:54It will not be burned to the DVD.
01:56So, it has an Orphan Timeline and also it has an End Action, which actually, as
02:01an Orphan Timeline, is kind of least of its worries, but still good to know that
02:05once we did link it to something, it still doesn't have End Action set.
02:08So now, all we have to do is fix these problems and click Start and do Check
02:13Project again, and just give ourselves the go ahead and make sure everything
02:16is okay.
Collapse this transcript
Outputting to disc
00:00So now we've built our DVD project, and we've checked for problems.
00:04Everything is smooth and ready to go, so let's go ahead and build this disc.
00:07Go to the Build tab here, the Build panel, and we need to choose our format.
00:12We could choose DVD, Blu-ray or Flash.
00:16Since the process of burning DVD discs and Blu-ray discs are pretty much the
00:20same, we are going to talk about those in this movie.
00:22We'll talk about Flash Web sites specifically, on in their own, in the next movie.
00:26So, I am going to leave this set DVD for now.
00:28For our Output, this is kind of interesting. We can choose to output to a Disc,
00:32Folder, Image, Master or a DDP Image.
00:35Now if you choose a Disc, Encore is actually going to burn the disc directly.
00:42If you choose one of these other options, then Encore is going to store stuff on
00:47your computer so that it can be burned later.
00:50Let's say I know I want to burn certain discs like a few every week or
00:54something like that.
00:55I can actually create a folder, or an image, or a master and leave those on my
00:59hard drive and then call them back later.
01:02And actually I misspoke, Master and DDP image are used for replication.
01:06We will talk about what that is a little bit later on in this training series.
01:10So I am going to come down here, and we also have this Auto-Erase Rewritable
01:14Discs and the Write Speed and the Number of Copies.
01:17I should probably point that out.
01:19We also have the Disc Info we've been talking about.
01:21We could name our project here, so as somebody puts the disc in their computer,
01:26this name will pop up.
01:28We can also choose the Size of our DVD.
01:31I am just going to leave set to the consumer standard, 4.7 GB, choose the Sides here.
01:38And we'll talk about Region Codes and some of this other 'bidness' a little bit
01:42later in this training series.
01:44But for now, that's really all we need to know.
01:47I did mention before that if you have a DVD Folder or a DVD Image that will
01:51basically create files on your hard drive to be burned later.
01:55If you need to, you can go to the Source area and by default, it says Create
02:00Using Current Project, so it's going to make a DVD by using this project we
02:03have opened right now.
02:04But we could also choose a DVD Volume or Disc Image that we can load from our
02:11hard drives some where else, maybe one that we have previously created from
02:14Encore, and then burn DVDs using that.
02:17And after getting all the settings the way you want them, all you have to do is
02:20click the Build button. Whether you're burning to a DVD or whether you're burning
02:25to Blu-ray, really not too much difference in terms of the settings here.
02:31The same basic thing.
02:33So, we click on DVD and if we were to click on Build right now, we would burn
02:37a DVD straightaway.
Collapse this transcript
Creating Flash web sites
00:00Now as we've been talking about, Encore gives you the power to create Flash-based
00:06Web sites. These are actually really powerful Web sites.
00:08One of the things we haven't talked about yet is I'm going to go to the menu Final
00:12here I am going to click on the Locations button,
00:15and if we go over the Properties panel, and we're looking at a Button here,
00:19if we go to the bottom we can check Enable WebLink for Flash.
00:23So if we are going to take this project out to Flash, we can actually make it so
00:27this button becomes a Web link and links to an external site, like lynda.com.
00:32That's pretty awesome.
00:33This project, Our Story, links to this timeline here and Products links to
00:40this slideshow here.
00:43So we are all ready and good to go.
00:45So I am going to go over to the Build panel, and I am going to change the
00:48Format from DVD to Flash.
00:50We get a few different options for this, and we need to choose a Destination.
00:54Where on our hard drive is this going to save to?
00:57We also need to the choose the type of video, whether it's could be F4V or FLV.
01:02FLV has long been a standard and is compatible with most people's Internet browsers.
01:08F4V is a more optimal format.
01:10You're going to get better video at lower file sizes, but it's not as compatible.
01:14It came out little bit more recently than FLV did.
01:17We could also choose a Preset for the video.
01:20We could even go to high def and Widescreen.
01:23We have Standard and basically fullscreen, and we have different quality levels
01:27for each of these different pixel dimensions.
01:30Now what's going to happen is Encore is going to take your Flash Web site
01:35and make it a SWF file, and it's going to embed that SWF file inside of an HTML document.
01:41And so you can choose one of these templates one of these HTML templates that
01:45comes with Encore, or you can import a template that you make on your own.
01:50Now the reason I am not able to build it is because I have not chosen a
01:54Destination to save it.
01:56But I've already gone ahead and created this for you because it does take a while.
02:00It has to be transcoded and all of that.
02:02So I am going to go to the Web site, and here is our Encore project in our Web browser.
02:08It is exactly what those on the Web would see.
02:10We have the subpicture highlights with the rollovers.
02:13I can click, and there is my footage.
02:16We have Volume Controls over here on the right-hand side. That particular
02:19video clip does not have any audio, excuse me.
02:21Actually, I'm going to go back there.
02:22I have not done explaining it yet.
02:23I have a Pause button here.
02:25I could jump to the next chapter, to the previous chapter and any time, I can
02:29click this button to go up a level, which is actually the main menu.
02:33Let's see what a slideshow looks like on the Web.
02:35I am going to click on Products.
02:36(Music playing.)
02:48Pretty cool!
02:48So you get the idea, and we could just stop playing there and go up a menu,
02:52and there you have it.
02:54Now I'm going to click on this Locations button, and nothing is going to happen.
02:57This would take us to lynda.com.
02:59This is our Web link button.
03:01However, when you're previewing this locally, sometimes the security features of
03:06your Web browser, and this is the case with me here, will not permit this to
03:11happen, but when you actually use this on a Web site, there are not any problems.
03:15You could also see this really cool little template that Encore made for me
03:20automagically, without me having to do anything.
03:23But this is the power of Encore.
03:26I mean this is really a fully functioning Web site.
03:28We can go to other Web sites.
03:30We can look at video, slides and all kinds of stuff that we would normally
03:34have in Encore on a DVD,
03:36we could now put on the Web because of this great feature.
Collapse this transcript
19. Important Technical Issues
Duplication vs. replication
00:01Now when you are authoring DVDs, it's important to know the difference between
00:03duplication versus replication.
00:06Both are ways of creating DVDs, but here's the long and short of it.
00:11Duplication is basically when you duplicate a disc and you do it at home, like
00:16if you are burning it from your computer, that's referred to as duplication, or
00:19making a duplicate.
00:21The benefit of this, of course, is that it's very low cost, and it's very
00:24convenient. It's right there at your house, typically, and you could just make a bunch
00:28of a short copies, or a short order run.
00:31If you want, you could make one copy or 10, really, no big deal.
00:34Now Replication is typically what we mean when referring to professional disc duplication.
00:41This is typically done at a very professional facility, often called a
00:44replication house or a replication facility, and this is much more expensive
00:49than just duplicating the discs on your own.
00:52However, the benefit of using a replication facility is that you'll have access to
00:56greater features, such as copy protection, which we'll look at in the next
00:59movie, and also reliable region encoding.
01:02Now one of things I should probably point out about exporting for a replication
01:06facility, that's why we create a DVD Masters and the DDP Image that we talked
01:12about when we were talking about building discs.
01:15The DDP Image is something that many replication facilities require, and the DVD
01:20Master is something you have to actually record straight to DLT, or Digital
01:24Linear Tape, from your computer, so that's typically done for Replication.
01:30Another thing that's beneficial here is that if you're going to export on your
01:35own computer, you are going to duplicate DVDs, sometimes there's compatibility
01:38issues with like older DVD players or just quirky DVD players.
01:42Sometimes things will work in my Xbox 360 DVD player that won't work in a couple
01:47of other of my set top boxes, and vice versa.
01:49It's kind of unpredictable, but when you have a professionally replicated disc,
01:54you're almost guaranteed pretty much universal playback on most set top players.
01:58So again, Duplication, amateur, done at home, cheap - Replication much more
02:04expensive and also much more powerful.
Collapse this transcript
About copy protection
00:00If we go over to the Build panel and scroll down with the Format set to DVD,
00:05scroll down, we see that we have Copy Protection.
00:08Now there are different types of Copy Protection, which we'll find in this CGMS,
00:12and we could say that there are No copies allowed, One copy is allowed or
00:18Unlimited copies are allowed.
00:20So by default, it set to Unlimited copies are allowed, and that's no big deal.
00:23But if we say No copies are allowed, then we were basically turning on a
00:27Copy Protection system.
00:29We have CSS, and we also have Macrovision.
00:33Now this is not something that you can do at home.
00:37If you're going to add Copy Protection, this needs to be for replication only.
00:42You can't, again, do this at home.
00:43It needs to be done by a professional facility.
00:46And oftentimes, this adds money, such as, for example, Macrovision.
00:49This prevents your disc from being copied, and it's fairly secure, but
00:53Macrovision charges royalties on every disc that's made with Macrovision Copy Protection.
00:58So be aware of what you're getting into. Talk with your replication facility
01:01about what you are looking for in terms of disc protection.
Collapse this transcript
About region encoding
00:00If you're having your disc professionally replicated, another feature that will
00:04be available to you is Region Encoding.
00:06So if we go over to the Build panel here and you scroll down a bit, we have
00:10this Region Codes area.
00:12Now by default, All Regions are Enabled.
00:15But what happens with professional DVDs is that they like to make it so that
00:20only that certain area could play those DVDs.
00:24So, for example, here in United States, we have Region 1 DVDs.
00:29If we were going to take a DVD from some other country, maybe somewhere in
00:33Europe like Great Britain or something, we would probably not be able to play it
00:38in our DVD players because it was set up that way, and you could only play DVDs
00:43from your given region.
00:44So if you wanted to go the professional route, you could choose Custom and then
00:48uncheck the places that you do not want to play your DVD.
00:52Now this is a pretty professional feature.
00:56So you might want to leave it stuck on All Regions unless you know exactly what you're going.
01:00And remember, again, that for predictable results with Region Encoding, you'll
01:05want to go to a replication facility.
Collapse this transcript
Fixing the audio_TS problem
00:00The AUDIO_TS issue is also one that you should be aware of.
00:05You see, when you create a DVD folder from Encore, or any other DVD program, it
00:11typically creates two folders:
00:13a VIDEO_TS folder and an AUDIO_TS folder.
00:18Now early DVD players needed both folders or else they would not play the DVD.
00:24But after awhile, you only needed the VIDEO_TS folder.
00:28Well, Encore only creates the VIDEO_TS folder and does not create an AUDIO_TS folder.
00:36So when you create discs sometimes in Encore, they will not play back on older DVD
00:41player, because they do not have the AUDIO_TS folder.
00:45So the fix is to burn to, or build to, a DVD folder, and then manually go in
00:52here, create a new folder, call it AUDIO_TS, and then burn the disc with this
00:59additional folder.
01:00Now, this additional folder will be empty, and that's fine.
01:03The DVD player just needs to see that it exists.
01:07So if you are having set top compatibility issues with Encore, this might
01:11be your solution.
Collapse this transcript
20. Integrating with Other Adobe Applications
Importing sequences from Premiere Pro
00:00If you own Encore, then you also own Premiere, and there's a great relationship
00:05between those two applications.
00:06Here I have this Export to Encore project opened up in Premiere where I have
00:11this little snowboarding guy going crazy there.
00:14What I'm going to do is go over to Encore, and I don't even have to compress or
00:19take the time to render or anything.
00:21I could import this Premiere project and still work on it in Premiere, and there
00:26doesn't have to be any compression or rendering, total timesaver and also a
00:30quality saver as well.
00:31I'm going to go to File > Adobe Dynamic Links.
00:34We can't import this in the regular way we import other files, and I'm going to
00:38choose Import Premiere Pro Sequence.
00:40Now in the left side of this dialog box, I'm going to navigate to the Exercise
00:46Files that come with this training, and I'm going to go to the Media folder, and
00:52in Miscellaneous Files folder, choose the Export to Encore.prproj file.
00:58When you select it, on the right-hand side, you will see all of the sequences
01:01that are within that Premiere project.
01:03So we can't import the entire project.
01:05We import the Sequences from a project.
01:08So I'm going to click on the Sequence here, click OK, and now we have the
01:12sequence here in Encore that we can just go ahead, and hit Command+T or Ctrl+T
01:17on the PC to put that into a Timeline.
01:20Now you see that it's magenta here. That indicates that this is
01:23dynamically linked to Premiere.
01:26If we're going to go back to Premiere and change the color, or trim it, or
01:30whatever type of edit we would want to do to it in Premiere, it would show up
01:33here in Encore without having to render, or again, compress it, and take all that
01:38time, really a great relationship between these two applications.
Collapse this transcript
Creating motion menus in After Effects
00:00Now, you've heard me mention a few times throughout this Training Series about how
00:03much using After Effects has helped me as I've been working through Encore, and
00:09there is a great connection there as well between Encore and After Effects.
00:11If I go to the File menu here, I can go to Adobe Dynamic Link, and if I have
00:16Adobe Production Premium installed, then I can create New After Effects
00:19Composition or import an After Effects Composition as well.
00:23Now if you don't have the Adobe Dynamic Link installed, but you do have After
00:27Effects, let me show you what you can do.
00:28Let me go over here to After Effects.
00:30I am going to double-click in this Project panel.
00:32This works very similar to the way it does in Encore to import here.
00:36I'm going to navigate to the PSD Files in the Media folder, and I'm going to
00:40select the Explore California layered menu and click Open.
00:44Then in the Import Kind, I'm going to choose Composition and actually I'm going
00:49to change that to Composition - Retain layer Sizes, actually.
00:52I'll leave these other settings as is and click OK.
00:56This little thing right here is called the Composition.
00:59Go ahead and double-click that to open it up, and here is our Encore menu
01:04with all of our layers.
01:05So we could animate this to create a motion menu.
01:08Now, I could click on Explore, for example.
01:10I will hit P for Position.
01:12I could move this text in.
01:14I could have it animate on if I wanted to.
01:16I could also press T for Opacity.
01:19I could have it fade in, and in After Effects CS5 Essential Training, one of
01:24things I did with this bicyclist here is that we used this really cool tool in
01:27After Effects called the Puppet tool to bend her and make it look like she's is
01:31actually riding this bike, which is really fun too.
01:33So while you can, at a basic level, be really good at Encore and make some really
01:38great projects just with the stuff that comes with Encore,
01:40if you really want to get good at DVD authoring, I highly recommend mastering
01:45After Effects and Photoshop as well.
Collapse this transcript
Making buttons and subpictures in After Effects
00:00Now I should also point out, for those of you that work in After Effects,
00:03you could create buttons and subpictures and actually even video buttons
00:07here in After Effects.
00:09So, for example, I have this Play Text here.
00:12Turn that on and off so you could see that, blinking at you.
00:16Then right above that in the layers stack, I have the star here.
00:20What I want is the Play Text to be a button, and I want this star to be a
00:24subpicture highlight.
00:25No problem whatsoever.
00:26So I'm going to just go ahead and select one of them, Shift+Click the other
00:30one, and with both of these objects selected, I'm going to go to the Layer menu at the top.
00:34I'm going to choose Adobe Encore > Create Button.
00:38Now, we can create the button name here.
00:40I'll just go ahead and call this Play, and then for Subpicture 1, we can choose
00:46which object of our selected objects here do we want to be the Subpicture?
00:50Well, I don't want the Play Text to be the Subpicture.
00:52I want that to be on constantly.
00:54So I'm just going to chose Star, so that star becomes Subpicture 1. Now watch this.
00:59When I click OK, it adds the code for me, the Plus sign in the parentheses, and
01:05if I double-click this to open up and see its layers, you can see that I have
01:08the text and the star with the =1 Subpicture code already added, thanks to After Effects.
01:16So again, there really is this amazing integration between Premiere, Encore,
01:21and After Effects.
Collapse this transcript
Conclusion
Goodbye
00:00Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have had a total blast teaching you Encore, and
00:04I thank you so much for that opportunity to guide you through this application that I love so much.
00:08I have been doing this for a while on lynda.com.
00:11I now have taught dozens of courses on lynda.com and Encore actually was my very first.
00:16So it's been a privilege to share this with you.
00:18Thank you so much for watching.
00:20On behalf of lynda.com, I'm Chad Perkins.
00:22Take care.
Collapse this transcript


Suggested courses to watch next:

Premiere Pro CS5.5 New Features (27m 11s)
David Basulto


Compressor 3.5 Essential Training (2h 21m)
Jeff I. Greenberg


Are you sure you want to delete this bookmark?

cancel

Bookmark this Tutorial

Name

Description

{0} characters left

Tags

Separate tags with a space. Use quotes around multi-word tags. Suggested Tags:
loading
cancel

bookmark this course

{0} characters left Separate tags with a space. Use quotes around multi-word tags. Suggested Tags:
loading

Error:

go to playlists »

Create new playlist

name:
description:
save cancel

You must be a lynda.com member to watch this video.

Every course in the lynda.com library contains free videos that let you assess the quality of our tutorials before you subscribe—just click on the blue links to watch them. Become a member to access all 104,141 instructional videos.

get started learn more

If you are already an active lynda.com member, please log in to access the lynda.com library.

Get access to all lynda.com videos

You are currently signed into your admin account, which doesn't let you view lynda.com videos. For full access to the lynda.com library, log in through iplogin.lynda.com, or sign in through your organization's portal. You may also request a user account by calling 1 1 (888) 335-9632 or emailing us at cs@lynda.com.

Get access to all lynda.com videos

You are currently signed into your admin account, which doesn't let you view lynda.com videos. For full access to the lynda.com library, log in through iplogin.lynda.com, or sign in through your organization's portal. You may also request a user account by calling 1 1 (888) 335-9632 or emailing us at cs@lynda.com.

Access to lynda.com videos

Your organization has a limited access membership to the lynda.com library that allows access to only a specific, limited selection of courses.

You don't have access to this video.

You're logged in as an account administrator, but your membership is not active.

Contact a Training Solutions Advisor at 1 (888) 335-9632.

How to access this video.

If this course is one of your five classes, then your class currently isn't in session.

If you want to watch this video and it is not part of your class, upgrade your membership for unlimited access to the full library of 2,025 courses anytime, anywhere.

learn more upgrade

You can always watch the free content included in every course.

Questions? Call Customer Service at 1 1 (888) 335-9632 or email cs@lynda.com.

You don't have access to this video.

You're logged in as an account administrator, but your membership is no longer active. You can still access reports and account information.

To reactivate your account, contact a Training Solutions Advisor at 1 1 (888) 335-9632.

Need help accessing this video?

You can't access this video from your master administrator account.

Call Customer Service at 1 1 (888) 335-9632 or email cs@lynda.com for help accessing this video.

preview image of new course page

Try our new course pages

Explore our redesigned course pages, and tell us about your experience.

If you want to switch back to the old view, change your site preferences from the my account menu.

Try the new pages No, thanks

site feedback

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.


By signing up, you’ll receive about four emails per month, including

We’ll only use your email address to send you these mailings.

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

By signing up, you’ll receive about four emails per month, including

We’ll only use your email address to send you these mailings.

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

   
submit Lightbox submit clicked