Dvd | Glenn Ward

Introduction to Adobe Encore and authoring a DVD

The best way I found to get a handle on Adobe Encore was to send a project to it from Premiere Pro using Adobe Dynamic link. This sets up the majority of project setting from premiere and allows you to see the Encore interface populated rather than a blank canvas.

In Premiere Pro make sure your projects sequence is selected in the timeline. Then choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Send to Encore. This will send the project to Encore and create a Encore project.

Once in Adobe Encore you will get to grips with the interface far quicker being able to see the disc, the video and some basic instructions. When you check the project you will get some basic error see here,

Title Remote Not Set
End Action Not set

Quick guide to the windows that make up Encore. For the purpose of this demonstration I have flicked all the tabs / windows to those you will mainly use in the first stages of using Adobe Encore.

Here’s some quickfire settings to get something output to video nice and quickly.

Open Encore

New Project Settings

Trans coding Options

Once you have set up your project you will need to select the video you would like to author a DVD with. Open the folder in Finder containing the video, then under the Flow Chart tab drag and drop your video to the disc image, set your end action and title remote as above and you are set to build the disc.

Digitizing your DVD / Film collection, software, settings, exports, codecs, file size etc

The other day a colleague, Ryan Garner! you may have heard him on Simon Mayos drive talking about iPad sales (tech expert) no big deal! said he was thinking about digitizing his DVD collection. It got me thinking, it’s about that time that hard drives are so big and compression routines so efficient that we all should start to think about having our films as files. I have a few DVDs as digital downloads and a few I have converted for my iPhone but with 160gb of ps3 hard drive sitting there doing nothing why haven’t I taken the iPod mentality with my DVDs and got them all on a hard drive. So it’s testing time.

I started by looking at the old iPod exports I had done a few years ago but I was after something that wouldn’t look to degraded on a 40″ TV. I remembered having a download available with my x-men origins DVD I bought recently and so download it to look at the file. It was slightly bigger at 8 x but still what would this look like on a 1080 tv, I was optimistic as it looked pretty good in full screen on the MacBook. So the next step was to play it from the PlayStation. No transfer need, see Media Streaming from an Apple computer to a PS3 using MediaLink…. No worries, here to help!

So, next to look at some software, exports settings and codecs. My preferred DVD ripping software is Handbrake on the mac but have a search on Softpedia or Download.com if you are using a PC for alternatives. Handbrake has a few export presets so I tried a few to compare results. When these exports are played back on laptop there isn’t much in the quality although the files sizes can differ dramatically. I exported another targeting the file size to around 700 mb, this produces a very low bitrate and a noticeable reduction in quality. I next produced an export with a targeted bitrate. Many video files on my laptop had a bitrate of around 1500 so I thought it would be interesting to see what file size this produced. The results were a medium size file, approximate 2 gig and a good quality. The test would be though which files I could play through the TV and still be happy with the quality. My opinion is that if you are after DVD quality videos you need to target the 4 to 5 gig file size with minimum compression. If you are happy to notice slight pixelation in your image and funnily enough this occurs on the flat chunks of colour then go-ahead and start reducing the bitrate.

There Is other software and codecs that do the same sort of job, DIVX has a very good compression routine and produces small file sizes in high quality, just make sure you check what file extensions your devices can playback before you compress your entire collection.

Movies on the move – Convert your DVD’s for viewing on your iPhone, iPod or Mobile Device

I often want to take a few of my favourite movies away with me when I go away. It is possible to convert your DVD’s into a format that will play on your iPod, iPhone or any portable device to save you physically carrying the discs around with you. I am going to talk about a software I use on a Mac but you can download similar software for windows, just look on download.com or softpedia.com.

I use Handbrake to convert my DVD’s it’s really easy to use and now comes with present for most popular portable devices. Open up handbrake and insert you DVD, if you DVD Player software loads up just quit out of this as you don’t want the computer doing two things at once. Choose Source in the top left hand corner and locate your disc, you don’t have to go deep into folder structure, top level is enough for handbrake to assess the disc. Once selected Handbrake will review all the chapter on the disc. Make sure you have selected the first chapter right through to the last chapter to ensure you convert the entire DVD.

Select the preset for the output video using the drawer on the right handside of the interface. Handbrake now has presets for iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch to make things nice and simple but if you are worried about file size then you can fine tune the settings yourself.

Once you are happy and have selected where you would like your file to be saved hit the Start button next to the Source button at the top of the interface.

Open the file in iTunes and it will be copied into your iTunes Media Folder, next time you sync you device the file will be uploaded.

Also see Duplicating DVD’s and CD’s using Mac OSX’s Disk Utility

Using iDVD to quickly output your videos with professional Chaptering and Menus

Often you will not have time to create DVD menus, chaptering, fancy graphics etc but you do need some that looks good, plays like a DVD and serves a purpose.

I personally wouldn’t use iDVD for professional output to client although it can often provide a quick solution.

Open iDVD, choose New Project and you will be faced with the default template of your current version. On the right hand side you will see a panel where you will be able to scroll through all the templates, be sure to switch through the dropdown at the top as this will show more templates from pat versions of iDVD. More templates are available on the Internet.

Choose your template and be sure the aspect ratio still matches that of your original movies. You should of by now exported all the movies you require for each chapters as separate movies (usually full quality DV or HD) and iDVD will encode them as it creates the DVD. iDVD does support chapter markers but more on that in another post.

Once you have all your movies neatly in a folder you are ready to bring them into your project. You can simply drag and drop each movie to the menu frame and a chapter menu button will be automatically created. This button is customisable.

You are almost ready for authoring. Just turn off the Apple branding in the bottom right hand corner of the screen by clicking iDVD > Preferences > Show Apple logo watermark

Hit the burn button. It will become ready and prompt you to put in a blank DVD. Do so and press burn. Your DVD will now be created. For multiple copies keep adding DVDs after each burn, this will reduce the disc creation time as the multiplexing and encoding only needs to be done once at this stage.