"unidentified error" while transcoding in Encore

[abrotherus]

Hello,
this is my first post... The forum seems really nice and relevant.

I´ve installed a trial-version of Adobe´s Encore and I´m trying to make a DVD. After making&burning many succesfully, now I´ve encountered a problem.

What happens is that I make my menus etc., go to "Build" and after transcoding the first .avi file Encore says "unidentified error". Then I can only click "OK" and that´s it, I can´t transcode.

If i go to check links Encore finds 5 pieces of "Links not set" (4 timelines and my mainmenu). My DVD is very simple and I´m sure that all the files used in it are linked correctly.

Do you have any idea what could be the problem here? I found on the net one norwegian and one swede who´d had the same problem, but there were no good replies on those forums.

[jeex]

try uninstall/reinstalling encore first.. and then check the 4 links it was giving you flack about.. if that doesnt work, i'd smack the computer

[abrotherus]

I´ve re-installed it twice and runnig Symantec´s Windoctor to clean everything up and get clean new installs. The same problem is there everytime. Although Encore knows that I install it again and again, the trial-countdown doesn´t start from the beginning when I re-install and some of my own settings in the software stay even if I re-install.

I´m not sure about those links. I´ve burned other DVDs with problems in the links but no problems during the transcoding. The DVD is really simple, 3 videos which have links from the main menu. I´m sure the links are correct because I can preview the DVD in Encone and everything works correctly there.

[rallynavvie]

The transcoding software built in to Encore sucks. Encode your video files to raw MPEG2 files before importing into Encore so that it doesn't have to mess with any encoding. I use TMPGEnc for this. Be sure to encode to raw/elementary streams. That means after encoding you should have seperate video and audio files. Assemble them in Encore after importing them. This usually solves the "Unknown DVD Error -1".

[abrotherus]

Thanks, I´ll try the encoder. It´s just when I started to get in this video editing I was hoping to get around with as few different softwares as possible, making stuff more simple. But I guess if you want to make good quality edits you HAVE to have different softwares.

You said the encoder encodes videos so that after encoding I have separately a video-file and an audio-file? So when I make the menus in encore I have to fit both the audio and video-files behind the menus?

[rallynavvie]

Yes, assemble the video and audio files where they belong from within Encore. You'll have to do this for timelines as well. I got into the habit of authoring from seperate audio and video files back when I was using Maestro so it just kind of carried over to Encore. I'd do this anyway just because it gets you used to using them seperately which will be better if you plan on having multiple audio tracks on a project in the future.

[FilmManchild]

I'm getting this, too.
It allows my old project to author just fine, but this new one (1hr 6min, only 1 audio and visual) always stops at Building Navigation.

[Skynet107]

After extensive use of Encore I an only give you this advise: stop using it. It is the most bugged DVD authoring software there is, period. It rarely works as intended.