Rivergate Software has been doing CMF export for Encore for over two years now.

http://www.rivergatesoftware.com

John Smith,

If you don't do Blu-ray, why are you answering posts about it? So far your answers have been off-target and misleading, you could at least read what others have posted about Blu-ray before chiming in.

Regards,

Larry

I highly recommend BluStreak Tracer CMF from rivergate software. It works extremely well at not only creating BDCMF folders, but also diagnosing navigation problems and the ability to fix them.

The software is for the Mac only, but we run it on Windows 7 using a Mac OSX Snow Leopard install under VMware.

Adobe may or may not add CMF support in the future, but until then, Blustreak Tracer CMF is the way to go.

Hey Larry,

have you had time to play around with Encore CS6?

What do you think about it so far? Improvement over CS5?

I'm quite disappointed so far. You said that Adobe doesn't care about Encore and I'm feeling the same way.

Still no BDCMF export, no scripting, no multi-angle, ...

I think about buying a copy of BluStrak Tracer CMF (but might reconsider because it's MAC only).

Does it work well with BDs created with Encore CS6?

Thanks Larry for your detailed reply.

I think Adobe has a lot of work to to until Encore can be a suitable replacement for DVD Studio Pro (at least for me).

I really love the good PSD integration in Encore but when it comes to "serious" productions I always come back to DVD Studio Pro.

There's nothing wrong with acquiring third party technology. Adobe does it all the time (main concept, automatic duck, speedgrade,...), so why not for Encore?

C'mon Adobe, pimp up Encore, at least a little!

I'm in the middle of switching to PC. Are there plans for a PC version of BluStrak Tracer?

i am en encore enthusiast, but i definitely feel they need to do an entirely new app from the coding ground up JUST for blu-ray. leave encore for dvd, strip it of all blu-ray capabilities, and have a new app just for blu-ray authoring no more confusion. and add in java capabilities with it too

why do cross platform? just do it for windows and call it a day.

 

Unfortunately the development realities make this impossible, even if we had unlimited funds and wanted to do it as a hobby.

1. We could not have developed BluStreak on Windows, nor could we have developed DVDAtterEdit before that. The Windows development environment is just too hard and we do our best work with 2 programmers. More than 2 programmers and the number of lines of communication grows exponentially. Windows requires a large team and a complete design spec ahead of time for efficient development. In Cocoa and Cocoa Touch, we can experiment as we go and find the best solution.

I am not exaggerating about the differences in the development environments, and we have done considerable Windows work in the past. We sold our previous company to Adobe and also converted our software to Unix to be part of PostScript. We have worked in everything from embedded microcomputers to minis to scientific computers to mainframes.

2. BluStreak is not a stand-alone product. It is built on top of Encore. We tried to license most of the underlying Blu-ray technology from MainConcept and others so we could develop a competing product, but the costs were prohibitive and the support terrible for small fry like us. And the amount of technology required and the complexity of the Blu-ray spec is staggering. Without the SDK's, the two of us would have to recreate the entire video and audio technology of the past 30 years. And this is all before finally being able to concentrate on the actual application user interface, which is where we excel.

3. Now that BluStreak is finished, we could convert it to Windows. But it would probably take about the same effort as the 5 man-years we already have into it. That would be a minimum of 2 elapsed years to complete, and the market for it would probably be diminished by then, unless Encore became considerably better. Trying to develop cross-plaform these days is much harder than it was several years ago, as the platforms continue to diverge.

4. We have never made enough money from BluStreak and DVDAfterEdit sales to support us at even a minimal lifestyle since the beginning of 2010, when Blu-ray won the format wars. DVDAfterEdit sales are still about 1/3rd of our total, even though DVDAfterEdit has had only one significant update sine 2005. About half of our sales are outside the US. That's in spite of BluStreak being by far the most robust and reliable application we have ever developed.

One conclusion from this is that there will never be a 2nd tier explosion of Blu-ray titles like the hundreds of thousands of titles available today on DVD from Amazon etc. The studios and Sony have done everything in their power to prevent this with their licensing and pricing structures. The vast majority of non-studio releases are being done by larger  production houses with Scenarist and a few with NetBlender DoStudio. The only company that might be capable of sparking such a market is probably Adobe, but they haven't shown the will to do so.

That doesn't mean that Blu-ray or even DVD will disappear in the near future. But it will never be the main method of distribution that DVD once was. That future belongs to HTML5 and IOS, not Java or C++. This is the Post-PC era, except for a small minority of content creators, compared to the vast majority of content consumers with devices they can hold in their hands. And this is only the bare beginning of the mobile device era, perhaps compared to the beginnings of the desktop publishing explosion that began with the release of the first Apple Laserwriter.

Just some of my thoughts.

Regards,

Larry

Andy,

I too was also disappointed at first that BluStreak was Mac only, as I will always be a PC user. I even seriously considered getting a Mac just for BluStreak, but first thought I would give the osx virtual machine a try. After a couple hours of reading tutorials and getting the necessary programs, Snow Leopard (and now Lion) installed without too much difficulty. BluStreak Tracer CMF installed without problems as well, we proceeded to test the tracing and bdcmf export, and all worked perfectly in the virtual machine environment. So if you are a PC user like myself, and don't want to buy a mac just to use BluStreak, you should definitely look into the virtual machine route.

Regarding Encore CS6, Adobe took on a big task this time of upgrading the entire program to 64 bit, which unfortunately meant not a whole lot of any other features were implemented. You will notice some nice speed improvements in CS6, and a few minor features added, but for the most part, it will seem pretty unchanged. Now that the 32bit to 64bit transition has been made, you will see more impressive features in the next version. The Encore team has very limited resources, as Adobe runs the numbers and has determined it's not worth a big investment like After Effects, Photoshop, and Premiere are. Once they realize how much more popular the program will be with HTML5 output and scripting capabilities (and some bug fixes), it will receive more resources from Adobe, you will see more bugs being fixed, more features added, and it becoming an even better program at an exponential rate. They just have to overcome the resource slump it's in now from lacking innovation for a few years. I suppose it's a catch 22: Adobe doesn't spend a lot of money on it because of the lack of users, and it lacks users because the Encore team doesn't have the money to innovate it. That will slowly change over the next year as many FCP users are coming over to Adobe (and Encore), and the Encore team is planning on some really nice feature implementations for the next version. Not all the features I would like, but definitely some ones that will get it lots of attention.

Nobody really knows for sure what features will be implemented into the next version except for the Encore engineers. And even if I did know, I certainly wouldn't be able to tell anyone.

I just went wandering down this garden path:

I've finished authoring a relatively complex Blu-ray project for a client (3 full length movies, 2 shorter films, a making of film, and 6 slideshows.  All with English and Japanese menus.  Client has approved it.

Time for replication.  oops, replicator requires BDCMF file.  They say:

"Encore will not output any type of image that we can use for replication. You will need another tool called BluStreak Tracer CMF to create the CMF we will need if you are going to use Encore."

I have authored this using the PC version.  BluStreak only runs on a Mac.

I am snookered and I am NOT an Adobe fan at the moment.

What a load of ... an authoring program that authors Blu-ray discs that can not be replicated.

I would contact Bluestreak (Larry Applegate).

JamesValis wrote:

 

I just went wandering down this garden path:

 

I've finished authoring a relatively complex Blu-ray project for a client (3 full length movies, 2 shorter films, a making of film, and 6 slideshows.  All with English and Japanese menus.  Client has approved it.

 

Time for replication.  oops, replicator requires BDCMF file.  They say:

 

"Encore will not output any type of image that we can use for replication. You will need another tool called BluStreak Tracer CMF to create the CMF we will need if you are going to use Encore."

 

I have authored this using the PC version.  BluStreak only runs on a Mac.

I am snookered and I am NOT an Adobe fan at the moment.

What a load of ... an authoring program that authors Blu-ray discs that can not be replicated.

 

which is why i have been championing for 2 years for adobe to have a ground up blu-ray authoring app. ah wells.

I ended up purchasing Blu-Streak but an additional problem with Encore then cropped up - it didn't create (even after washing through Blu-Streak) a disc format that would comply with the specs for replication.  Blu-streak wasn't the problem but Encore.  Encore is working on a fix but as of now their AC3 encoding doesn't meet spec for replication.

Another work-around, and one I used to get a Blu-ray compliant encode from Enore, is to use PCM audio instead of ACS (easy to change in Encore prefs but the audio takes more space).

It seems the Blu-ray association is pressuring replicators to check the images they are replicating to ensure they meet the associations specs.  If they do not meet the specs you can't use the Blu-ray logo on the packaging and you have to sign a waiver absolving the replciator of any technical issues that may arise.