Adobe Encore: Is it worth it?

[SaSi]

I was given Adobe Encore as a present and while I happily started to install it, it just spit on my face that my OS is obsolete and it won't run. (Actually, it was slightly more polite than that).

I am using Win2K

My question is: Should I exchange Adobe Encore with something else, or should I re-install everything with XP (which I tried before and mildly hate).

Is Encore worh it for DVD Authoring? Is it fast? Is it reliable?

My main usage will be single angle video with 1~3 audio tracks and 1-3 subtitle streams, set chapter points and make basic (still) menus for navigating around. Also, support for multiple VTS is important.

Any feedback from Encore users will be valued!

[holistic]

Adobe Premiere Pro is Windows XP ONLY

Encore may be the same ........

BeRightBack - off to adobe.com

[holistic]

Tough luck SaSi - Straight from the horses mouth.

System requirements
Windows
Intel® Pentium® III 800MHz or faster processor (Pentium 4 and/or multiprocessor recommended)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition

http://www.adobe.com/products/encore/systemreqs.html

Seems they are alienating the Apple core as well with no OS support.

][

[SaSi]

Thanks holistic,

I already knew I need to go to XP to run it. My question is, is it worth it? If Encore is as good as it appears on paper, then probably it is.

I was asking for some users comments on this.

Rgds

[RabidDog]

why not dual boot xp and 2k. A nice gift. 8)

[holistic]

Duh - my bad
][

[SaSi]

why not dual boot xp and 2k. A nice gift. 8)

I'm afraid life is more complicated than that.

My 200Gb disks are connected to an additional Adaptec IDE/RAID controller using a HighPoint chip.

I had to flash the adaptec bios to make it drive the 200Gb disks. It would originally identify them as 120Gb.

Additionally, the new drivers that come with the new bios, worked like charm under Win2K but didn't work under XP.

That's the main reason I dropped XP and went back to good old 2K.

So, if I go to XP again, I also need a new motherboard or a new RAID/IDE card, which complicates things.

[Machine514]

I also have Encore but have not had a project to use it on. I should get to one sometime this week. I did go through the tutorial and it looks good (and somewhat easy).

Now Premiere Pro, that is a must have. For what I do it is much easier and quicker. Nesting loops is also great. Makes it real easy for complicated effects.

My only problem is exporting DVD files. I want to use TMPGEnc. Got to see if you can frameserve.

-Machine

[lordsmurf]

I recently wiped and changed to XP (the upgrade from 2K failed badly).

Encore installed great, it looks pretty, but it's been a pain for me so far. I'm used to easy stuff. While this IS easier than ReelDVD, it's still not a simple program to operate, and it has it's fair share of errors.

On the upside, the XP Pro system runs better than the 2K did. But then again, I made BIOS and RAM changes too. Plus the clean wipe. Lots of things. It did make my ATI AIW PCI 7200 run better and I can now use MMC 8.6!

The XP upgrade alone is worth it. The Encore toy is worth it too.

I'd say backup the important data then go for it.

I actually swapped HD's when I did mine. Just in case.
Only today erased the unneeded WIN2K from the D:

[SquirrelDip]

Can someone please confirm if Encore can or can not use Half D1 (352x480 NTSC) video. I find that I am using half D1 more often than not for backing up DVD - I get very decent quality putting 3 movies on a single DVDR for road trips.

Thanks in advance.

[lightfoot86]

Try testing the subtitle stuff first.
I tryed to make a single movie with AC3 sound and 1 subtitle stream, I even wrote a program to create subpictures and textscript.
The pure textimport went fine until I wanted to preview the stuff. Well, the preview was ready the next morning so i don't know how long it tok, but the 'puter was unusable during this.
Encore did'nt say anything about what it was doing but it used a huge amount of RAM and the HD ticked all the time.
Tryed the same with prerendered subtitles in Captions format. Did'nt use so much RAM but i stopped it after about 2,5 hours.

If this is normal behavior for Encore, and you plan on 2-3 substreams then, IMO, Encore is'nt worth it.

My setup is:
AMD 1800 XP
512 MB RAM
2 x 80GB HD

[lordsmurf]

Can someone please confirm if Encore can or can not use Half D1 (352x480 NTSC) video. I find that I am using half D1 more often than not for backing up DVD - I get very decent quality putting 3 movies on a single DVDR for road trips.

Thanks in advance.

It rejected my Half-D1. I plan to use Premiere/Encore at 720x480 as it was for different uses. It may be user error though too. Seriously just learning it here.

[FOO]

Send it to me and I will evaluate it for free

[SoupStain]

SquirrelDip,

Encore does NOT support half-D1 files. It's on Adobe's "feature request" list, apparently.

SoupStain.

[SoupStain]

SaSi,

If you want to use 3 subtitle tracks (assuming you are authoring your own disks from scratch), there's not a huge choice of software. I think Pinnacle's software is cheaper, and ReelDVD is about the same price as Encore. All of the other software which supports subtitle authoring is more expensive. If you have to change your hardware configuration to support XP, then that's extra cost on top of Encore.

Having said that, Encore is not a bad piece of software if you are happy to accept its current limitations (see reviews in tools section).

[SoupStain]

Whoops...

Scrub what I said about the costs of the software, as I just realised you had it as a gift.

[alenhard]

Encore is a great tool. I just had to laugh when I read the comments about it in the tools section to the left. Someone obviously never bothered to crack the manual open to learn the answers to all the questions he had gripes about. I found it very intuitive, and the manual provided every answer I couldn't figure out on my own.

Would Photoshop be helpful when using Encore? Absolutely. But what person who is really serious about video editing doesn't have a copy of Photoshop? It seems rather logical. And if you can't spring for the full version, get Photoshop Elements- a fraction of the price for most of the functionality. You'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

I guess I need to add that if you're just in this to "back up" DVDs, stick with DVDlab or some other cheaper tool. It probably won't be the most cost-efficient method of achieving your goal.

[falberni]

For what it's worth, I just noticed there're of couple of guides for using multi audio tracks with DVDLab. You can change audio by using the remore controller only, not through menus. If I remember right, it costs only $75.

[alenhard]

As for Adobe dropping support for the Mac- it makes perfect sense. Final Cut Pro would be the only thing that really competes with Premiere Pro at all (this side of a $30,000 Avid system). It's a great business decision, since the Mac platform has basically been a money loser for a while for them. Now that they have developed a product most feel is superior to FCP, by dropping support for Apple they gain a lot of ground over the competition.

[SaSi]

Thanks all for the comments.

One comment made me particularly worried. It's about sub-pictures.

Is it taking it so long to encode sub-pictures? And, yes, I want to use (normally) more than a single subpicture stream. It can go as high as 3, as sometimes director's comments are added.

The issue is that I need to recommend a solution to a studio for doing work on transfering beta tapes to DVD and doing subpicture translation as well as dialogs translation (using original multi-channel audio material).

Scenarist would be my obvious choice (despite it's a pain in the neck to get used to), as DVDMaestro doesn't exist any more. It's just that Encore costs $500 and Scenarist $32,000 that makes me keen to try and recommend it.

I've also seen some postings about subpicture import problems. Are these serious?

And, finally, lordsmurf, I tried XP some months ago. It only lasted for 20 days. I hated the way XP wanted to offer me an unforgettable experience - which they did but I didn't notice any improvement over W2K (which I've been using since 1999).

Anyhow, I just received my new motherboard, CPU and DRAM, which I will install in the dusty tower that used to house my PIII machine - long decommissioned - in an attempt to try XP once more - and Encore.

Will post comments and findings in the next week or so.

[lightfoot86]

Well, I too, would like to hear if others have the same problems with very long processing time when using (about 1500 subpics) subtitles.

As for the subpicture import you can have mine if you like. Still a bit in the beta but it does work, or you can buy one, i have'nt found any free ones.

greets lightfoot

[SaSi]

An update on my ventures.

I finaly received a new motherboard (to overcome some incompatibilities with the previous configuration and XP) and finished re-installing the whole system - including Encore.

Just did a first authoring with Encore - drop an .m2v + .mpa pair as assets and compile a DVD.

What I can say - and my opinion may change for the worse once I try it more - is that Encore was very fast in learning how to do this. It took me a few hours to find out how to do the same thing with Scenarist and DVD Lab as well - and I dropped the case on Tmpgenc DVD Author.

So, the initial learning curve with Encore is fine. Let's see how it measures up in doing real work - more to follow.

BUT, the most important thing I realized so far with the new PC configuration is increased speed. Not just a bit, but at least 20~30% more speed. I haven't changed anything but the motherboard and the new one allows my two 512Mb DDR sticks to go as dual channel. So, if anyone considers a new motherboard, DO select an Intel 875P chipset and configure RAM as dual channel. (I will give a try to 400MHz DDR and see how it measures against my current 266MHz RAM).

[rallynavvie]

That's what I've been finding playing with it a little with older projects. I also watched the DVD that came with it when you get the video bundle from Adobe. The advanced features show of how to basically write subtitles onto the preview frame and add keyframes for them. That's just as simple as anything else I've seen. I also like the integration with Photoshop, Premiere, and AE. With the video collection, Photoshop, and Illustrator I'm pretty much set to cook up something nice for the few high-paying customers I get. I can't wait to have an excuse to really get into it