Need a new Blu-Ray Authoring package

[dswalen]

First time poster...

For many years I'd been living and relying on Adobe Encore CS6 for my Blu-Ray authoring. It may have had flaws but it gave me what I needed. I could put up menus featuring samples of every separate video that you could access from that menu page screen and I could have multiple menu pages.

I'd been worried that eventually my old Encore CS6 would finally break down after a windows upgrade and it appears to have finally happened when I moved from Windows 10 LTSB 2015 to Windows 10 LTSC 2018. Now Encore doesn't make movie projects correctly. I burn discs that play movies that end prematurely and Encore occasionally likes to throw up an error trying to compile a project complaining about a video buffer underrun or something. You'd think the obvious choice would be to downgrade back to LTSB 2015 however that is an impossiblility thanks to nVidia and its driver installer which, because I changed video cards, will not install the necessary drivers and I spent hours scouring the web for the earliest release of this driver for that card and it seems this card will never work right under LTSB 2015 so I'm stuck with LTSC 2018.

Of course if anyone is still successfully using Encore CS6 with the latest builds of Windows 10 Home or Professional, I want to hear from you. But I'll be surprised if I hear from anyone.

So this means I need a new Blu-Ray authoring tool, one that works with whatever Adobe Encore CS6 or Adobe Encore CC 2020 (or 2019, which I currently have) can output without doing a recompile of the footage.

I thought I found what I needed with Vegas DVD Architect. Vegas doesn't support CS6's AVCHD output without a recompile but if I used TMPGEnc's AVC Plugin for Premiere Pro Creative Cloud, I thought I would have the AVC support that Vegas was craving. Unfortunately I only got halfway there. I spent a day trying various output settings from Premiere Pro CC with this plugin but, while I was able to find a setting that worked for 720p using Vegas, I was unable to find a setting that worked correctly with 1080p. Either Vegas would want to recompile the footage or Vegas would throw a buffer underrun error or a different error regarding the footage itself. As I need both 720p and 1080p without the Blu-Ray authoring tool recompiling and, therefore, degrading the footage, Vegas doesn't seem like it will do. The fact that the Vegas software still lists a 2018 copyright date says that they aren't exactly updating the software on a regular basis anymore which is its own warning flag. Vegas should have been the one but it looks like it's not.

So now I'm back to square one. I need a Blu-Ray authoring tool that allows me to trigger one of up to 8 video streams from a menu and have multiple menus I can nest up to 10 deep. I also need to be able to add chapter points on a single stream. But most importantly I need to be able to take footage directly from Premiere Pro and burn it using the authoring software without a recompile occuring.

I know I'm on the wrong side of the bell curve regarding Blu-Ray authoring being a going concern but I still have a compelling need for a Blu-Ray workflow. Right now I have no workflow. Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

[october262]

try looking in the software section - https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/authoring-bd-hd-dvd

[johns0]

The two best choices i can recommend is TMPGEnc Authoring Works 6 and multiAVCHD 4.1.

[aedipuss]

i use blue-disc studio lite - it's an old free version but does what i need. they have other paid versions up to one that will do UHD discs.

[TreeTops]

Another good one that is on sale today:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-movie-studio/product-comparison/?_ga=2....RoCbm4QAvD_BwE

[Brainiac]

I am still using Encore CS6 on my Windows 10 Pro latest build. I did a quick test Blu-ray test burn to an iso file last night and it played flawlessly.

[dswalen]

I am still using Encore CS6 on my Windows 10 Pro latest build. I did a quick test Blu-ray test burn to an iso file last night and it played flawlessly.

Really? I thought there might be an outside chance that this could be a Windows 10 Enterprise Edition LTSC 2018 related problem but it seemed like a dim hope to me. What is the version number? 1909?

What kind of test disc did you burn? How was it constructed? My setup is a menu with 8 windows I can drop videos on to. So that means I can do 8 different timelines per menu page. And I can have multiple menu pages.

What I'm saying is this isn't a single timeline Blu-Ray burn (though I have done those as well). It's a multiple timeline multiple menu Blu-Ray burn and I suspect this complexity is what's now hosing Encore with LTSC 2018. I turned a dozen Blu-Ray blanks into coasters trying to figure out the parameters of this problem. The problem has two manifestations:

- The first manifestation of the problem is some kind of buffer BS being triggered at project Build time. It always impacts certain specific timelines in the project and never impacts any of the others. I discovered that if I removed the audio tracks for those troubled timelines the Build would go through but with the audio tracks the build won't go through. I tried re-rendering the videos and even tried different audio formats other than WAV (which is the default output when you select the H.264 Blu-Ray option in Premiere Pro's CS6) but no matter what I chose if I included the audio in that timeline the Build throws an error.

- The second manifestation is that after doing a "successful" Build (after T-canning those pesky audio tracks breaking the build process), certain clips play wrong in my Blu-Ray player. It's always the same clips. Some end prematurely...though after playing around with the remote to change the speed of the playback, I figured out that the clip isn't so much ending prematurely as it is getting stuck and freezing for half a second and then the Blu-Ray player quits the video and goes back to the current menu. By playing with the remote buttons I can force my way past that point but the playback is not smooth and may stall out again. Other clips don't play at all...the screen freezes at the first frame and the video stays that way for a prolonged period of time...over 10 seconds...before the screen goes black and the Blu-Ray player kicks out to 1st play menu as if it just rebooted itself...that one feels more like a crash of some sort.

This is a problem on multiple projects and I tried building a new project from scratch using all new menu assets I created and re-importing all my videos and I still got the same result. This isn't some kind of project corruption...it's a problem with Encore...one that never manifested itself until I "upgraded" Win 10 from LTSB 2015 to LTSC 2018 (it wasn't an upgrade install...it was a clean disk format and fresh install).

So if you're telling me it worked for you on a single timeline Blu-Ray build and there were no playback problems, it's potentially good news for me but not a given that I'd have clean sailing if I switched from LTSC 2018 to Win 10 Home 1909 given that our respective Encore projects are fundamentally different in terms of complexity.

I should get off LTSC entirely now that I understand exactly what it is. But I'm looking for a silver bullet to end this and spending $130 for something that may or may not solve my problem is a bit of an ask if it means I have to spend more money anyway to switch to a different package. Plus I'm suffering a bit from rebuild fatigue. Blowing away your system six times in three months will burn anyone out (I had problems with a streaming video ripper hosing my system when I first moved to LTSC 2018 in December and rebuilt three times in three days to finally solve it and then did two more rebuilds a couple weeks ago trying to solve this Encore issue)

[dswalen]

Thanks to everyone for the recommendations. It looks like TMPGEnc Authoring Works might be exactly what I'm looking for. Then again I said the same thing about Vegas and that didn't work out so well.

But I guess I first need to decide if I have the intestinal fortitude to put myself through another system wipe and switch to Win 10 Home to see if Encore CS6 will work correctly there unlike under LTSC 2018. If I had my druthers I'd stick with CS6 until the day I die rather than give Adobe any CC money so a working Win 10 Home solution scenario has definite appeal...at least until I need some kind of file format support that CS6 doesn't provide. And it may be a while before that happens.

[curlyween]

@dswalen: I am running Windows 10 Home 1903 and have not had any problems with any CS6 products.
I use Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Photoshop and Encore.
I have authored multi-menu (single-timeline) projects in Encore CS6 with no problems.
They play back flawlessly.
One thing I have found is that you need to be careful with the file format you import into Encore.
It chokes on h.264 files over about 3GB in size. If I re-mux them to m2ts (with tsMuxer) they import no problems.
Not saying that's your problem, just passing on something I have found .

If I had my druthers I'd stick with CS6 until the day I die rather than give Adobe any CC money

Amen to that.

[babygdav]

Why are we worrying about wiping an entire system?
A. Easeus partition master to create another partition for another os, install 2+ on a drive, even older OSs like win7.
B. Vmware Player/Workstation, install a compatible os, install Adobe, Accelerate 3D option on.
Run dozens of OSs.

2.

[dswalen]

@dswalen: I am running Windows 10 Home 1903 and have not had any problems with any CS6 products.
It chokes on h.264 files over about 3GB in size. If I re-mux them to m2ts (with tsMuxer) they import no problems.
Not saying that's your problem, just passing on something I have found .

Now that's interesting. I have two types of projects that I do...one with lots or menus and timelines and ones with just one timeline. The ones with lots of timelines are rarely over 1G for any .m4v file. But the single timeline ones...they are huge. Like 23G (if not-dual layer) or 40G+ (if dual layer) .m4v files and I've never had a problem with Encore choking on an import. Is this a recent problem with newer versions of Win 10? I had smoothe sailing with Win 2010 LTSB 2015 and never ecnountered the problem you have. Obviously, I haven't burned a giant file under the latest Win 10 LTSC so I don't know if it would blow up or not. Then again I also don't use Encore to burn discs that big. I render to ISO and burn it with Nero.

Looks like I'm giving MS $200 for Win 10 Pro. You've made enough of a case that it's worth taking a shot at this. I would prefer Home but MS doesn't have USB sticks available for sale with Home. In fact nobody seems to. But you can get one with Pro.

[dswalen]

Why are we worrying about wiping an entire system?
A. Easeus partition master to create another partition for another os, install 2+ on a drive, even older OSs like win7.
B. Vmware Player/Workstation, install a compatible os, install Adobe, Accelerate 3D option on.
Run dozens of OSs.2.

If you saw the size of my OS drive you'd immediately understand why I'm not doing this...

For my next computer, whenever that is (and I've had this one for 7 years now) I'll have a new bigger drive for OS stuff and can afford to do something like that. But lordy knows when that'll be...

[babygdav]

Win10 - create a free win10 home / pro installer usb here
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If you're running win 7 or 8, it's usually a free update install over your current system.

...

Anyways, if partitioning isn't any fun, vmware workstation/player to install and try any combination of os + software. You can have win7+cs6 running in a virtual PC under win10 home/pro, all simultaneously.

[dswalen]

Wellp, putting on Win 10 Pro did nothing to alleviate the situation. Encore is still hosed. Must be a universal Windows change that's somehow damaged Encore with the latest Win 10 releases/updates. So, now I'm back to looking for a new workflow that doesn't include Encore.

[babygdav]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/get-started/can-t-install-cs6-on-computer-with-windows-...8431143?page=1

Others can do it.

Else just install win7 inside a vmware virtual pc and then adobe cs6.

[dswalen]

Those errors have mostly to do with installing the program. I've never had an install problem. It's that it doesn't work correctly in all cases when it's running.

VMs are a complete non-starter for me. I can't do that.

[luciofulci]

Blu Disc Studio is by far the best program I've used, although I've never used Scenarist. I have the pro version but there is a lite version that's free. It's a bit intimidating at first but there is a good user guide on their website and once you start using it you get the hang of it. It should handle everything you are looking for.