16 Replies Latest reply: Mar 22, 2012 8:34 AM by Matt Dubuque RSS

    "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?

    mdubuque Community Member

      Hello good people, does anyone have a link to a reference on how to construct a "director's cut" (with director commentary overdubbed) so that it is a separate file on a DVD that can be read on computers, but also on ordinary DVD players?

       

      Conceptually, it is like Netflix DVD that contains both a regular version and a "Director's Cut" of the same film.

       

      Normally I would research this more thoroughly myself, but it does not seem readily available and I have so many things to do before submitting my film to the Big Sur International Short Film Festival on Monday at noon, that I thought I would ask if some kind soul here could provide me a link to how this is done.

       

      Thanks!

       

      Matt Dubuque, Twitter Time

        • 1. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
          John T Smith CommunityMVP

          >separate file on a DVD that can be read on computers, but also on ordinary DVD players?

           

          Ah... computer content is not part of the DVD specification, so does not work on a regular DVD player

           

          As far as I know, a DC/Regular on one is controlled by creating a play list, with A-B-C for one menu selection, and A-B1-C from a different menu

           

          I've not done that... so check the user guide

           

          The individual CS5 pages also have links to the CS4 user guide pages
          CS5 User Guides - online and PDF (see link in upper right corner at individual pages)
          http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/08/help-documents-for-creative-suite-5-pdf -and-html.html

          • 2. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
            mdubuque Community Member

            Thanks John,

             

            I know this is helpful, but I do not understand the meaning of various terms in your response such as what "DC" stands for in "DC regular".  Is that shorthand for director's cut regular?

             

            Also, I am burning to DVD-R disks, which I was told by a vaguely reliable source can be viewed on both DVD players and computers.  Was that an erroneous statement on their part?

             

            Is there a good video on creating "playlists" in encore?  I'm so slammed with color grading and other last minute issues that I'm trying to increase my baud rate exponentially for comprehending the basics.

             

            Thanks!

             

            Matt

            • 3. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
              Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

              Matt,

               

              Is your Director's Commentary just Audio, or is it also Sub-titles?

               

              For the Audio, that's easy, though you do have a few choices to make.

               

              Encore will allow multiple Audio Tracks per Timeline. These can be different music, different languages, or, as in your case, the Director's Commentary.

               

              One would do a Menu, that comes early on, that allows the user to choose the Audio Track. You will need to set your Links to use Specify Link, and then choose the appropriate Audio Track. On most DVD set-top players' remotes, one can cycle through the available Audio Tracks with the Audio Button. With a computer, there will probably be no toggle of Audio Tracks, but you should still be able to do that via Menu, if the client/user has a good DVD software player.

               

              Note: with multiple Audio Tracks, Encore (and the DVD), will NOT mix them. For instance, if you have a music-only Track, and then two commentary Tracks, the music Track will NOT play behind the vocal. If you want music on the Director's Commentary, do that mix-down with the music in PrPro, or Audition.

               

              I would strongly recommend Exporting all Audio as PCM/WAV 48KHz 16-bit. Do not use muxed Audio & Video here. Do not use MP3's either.

               

              Good luck, and if you have any problems finding Specify Link, just shout. You will NOT be able to make these Links with the normal Pickwhip.

               

              Hunt

              • 4. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                mdubuque Community Member

                Thanks Bill, this is essential stuff and I have bookmarked this thread on my Bookmarks toolbar for referring to over and over again!

                 

                It will be Audio only most likely.

                 

                I have already specified multiple audio tracks.  Glad I did that.

                 

                This looks like an outstanding roadmap above.

                 

                I'm not sure what "mux" means, nor Pickwhip, but I've now got enough to run with the football.

                 

                Thanks!

                 

                Matt

                • 5. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                  John T Smith CommunityMVP

                  You asked about Director's Cut, so my DC/Regular reply was about a Director's Cut + Regular on one disc

                   

                  Muxed is shorthand for Multi-Plexed... where the sound & video are in one exported MPG file

                   

                  You need to export MPG DVD from Premiere Pro, since Encore needs separate sound & video for authoring

                   

                  A DVD-R (or DVD+R if the player will use that type) will, in fact, play in a computer drive or a set top player

                   

                  What you may NOT have is anything that is specific to a computer, since that won't work in a set top player... that would be something like a computer text file, or an EXE or anything else that will ONLY work in a computer (I took the literal words you used, not what it appears you meant)

                   

                  "submitting my film to the Big Sur International Short Film Festival on Monday at noon"

                   

                  Grin... nothing like waiting until the last minute to learn something new, to raise the stress factor!

                  • 6. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                    mdubuque Community Member

                    Thanks John, very helpful.

                     

                    In the last seven weeks, I have had to, inter alia:

                     

                    1.  Change my residence (not as bad as it sounds)

                     

                    2.  Rent a car because my other one is now unuseable.

                     

                    3.  Become competent in Premiere Pro.

                     

                    3.5  Become conversant in various transcoding dilemmas posed by shooting in H.264.

                     

                    4.  Try to become competent in Final Cut Pro (a nightmare, but no professional color grader could help me on an Adobe platform near my home not far from Apple's cupertino headquarters.

                     

                    5.5 Get over the stress caused by that migration to FCP, a pathetic, horrible interface and community compared to Adobe.

                     

                    5.75.  Perform primary color correction upon my film because I refuse to work within FCP.

                     

                    5.  Be without my MacPro for 6 days while they tried to figure out what was wrong with it in Apple HQ in Cupertino.  Bizarre problem.

                     

                    6.  Work another full time job.

                     

                    7.  Change the entire concept of the film from "100 Trees" to "Twitter Time" because we were unable to film the main sequence because my fabulous cinematographer is only available on weekends and we were rained out 3 weekends in a row.

                     

                    8   Help my wife cope with a catastrophic illness to her Mom living in the Caribbean.

                     

                     

                    AND.......drum roll.....

                     

                    Learn Encore.

                     

                    It's been a full plate.

                     

                    Good thing I learned a LONG time ago how to "learn how to learn".

                     

                    I'm doing well.

                     

                    On Cloud 6, hoping to be on Cloud 10 Tuesday.

                     

                    I've got a serious shot at it.

                     

                    Thanks in substantial part to the good and kind people in these Adobe forums.

                     

                    When I finish this, I will be able to thank everyone personally by helping others in these forums.

                     

                    Sincerely,

                     

                     

                    Matt Dubuque,

                    Twitter Time

                    • 7. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                      Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

                      Matt,

                       

                      With that sort of work schedule, glad that you have not discovered The Video Lounge, as you would have wasted valuable time there!!!!

                       

                      Hope that you have all the necessary info, and will have your finished Project for submission to Big Sur. Good luck with the Project, and then the festival.

                       

                      Hunt

                       

                      PS - though you obviously do not have time right now, I strongly suggest that you pick up a copy of Jeff Bellune's great book, The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe EncoreDVD 2.0, Focal Press. About 99% of DVD authoring is based on the DVD-specs. Though the book was written for a previous version on En, the DVD-specs. have not changed, so all of the book applies to later versions of the program. What has changed is that En has added Blu-Ray Disc authoring, though much of the BD-specs. are the same as for DVD. Later versions of En have added some features, like a more robust ADL (Adobe Dynamic Link), that existed in a limited form in En 2.0, and then, only if one had the Production Studio suite version. Jeff takes one on a tour of En, and does not stop there. He has so many useful tricks, that just those justify the cost of the book. It's an easy read, and works as a great reference. Back then, Adobe shipped a manual, offered the Help Files, and also sold Adobe Classroom in a Book EncoreDVD 2.0, Adobe Press. I have them all, and do still refer to them, but refer to Jeff's book weekly. I have basically worn my copy out.

                      • 8. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                        mdubuque Community Member

                        Thanks Bill, they accepted my film in the form of an online submittal today!

                         

                        http://www.youtube.com/user/Plant100Trees?feature=mhum

                         

                        Thanks for the super tip on Jeff's book.  I have about 8 different Focal Press and as a general rule tend to only buy their technical manuals.  Nothing seems to come close!

                         

                        I've got that on the top of my amazon wish list now.

                         

                        My next step is trying to make the director's voiceover for the director's cut in Soundbooth; I've packed a lot into the film and wanted to explain how I thought the few instances of letterboxing and one hard jump cut to clouds should be understood as being in direct support of the narrative about exponentially increasing, but differing types of information overloads (Kurzweil's "Singularity").

                         

                        Matt

                        • 9. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                          Bill Hunt CommunityMVP

                          Good luck, and when you can, do pick up Jeff's book. So very much will be revealed in it.

                           

                          Good luck with the festival too,

                           

                          Hunt

                          • 10. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                            Matt Dubuque Community Member

                            Hi Bill,

                             

                            At very long last, I am ready to make my "Director's Cut" DVD.

                             

                            When I open my project in PrPro I have seven video tracks and five audio tracks.   One of those is the director's commentary.

                             

                            However, when I import this PrPro project as a timeline into Encore, it merges all my assets so that the timeline consists solely of one audio and one video track, as seen below.

                             

                            This sounds and plays just fine on a DVD, but it seems to pose some complexities with respect to using the "Specify Link" function that you recommend in your post.

                             

                            Am I missing something?

                             

                            Thanks!

                             

                            Matt

                             

                             

                            Screen shot 2012-03-20 at 6.47.15 PM.png

                            • 11. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                              Stan Jones CommunityMVP

                              A DVD player must pick one, and only one, audio tracks. For stereo (which I assume it is since you appear to be using dynamic link), you setup one sequence without the director's commentary, then another sequence that adds it (with any volume adjustments needed). The navigation picks between no commentary and with commentary.

                              • 12. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                                Matt Dubuque Community Member

                                Thanks Stan, that helped clarify matters a bit.

                                 

                                I'll keep fiddling with the knobs here.

                                 

                                Matt

                                • 13. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                                  Stan Jones CommunityMVP

                                  Forgot to add this, which you probably found:

                                   

                                  Help:

                                   

                                  http://help.adobe.com/en_US/encore/cs/using/WSbaf9cd7d26a2eabfe807401038582db29-7e8ca.html

                                   

                                  A classic tutorial on this was on the Wrigley site which is no longer on line.

                                  • 14. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                                    Matt Dubuque Community Member

                                    Thanks Stan!

                                     

                                    It seems that this is all possible with the pick whip, as near as I can tell.

                                     

                                    This varies somewhat from Bill's assertion previously that "Specify Link" would be necessary.

                                     

                                    Perhaps I have a slightly newer version of Encore?

                                     

                                    Matt

                                    • 15. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                                      Stan Jones CommunityMVP

                                      Bill has a preference for specify link that he has found minimizes the unpredictable and/or maximizes control. I would not argue against that.

                                       

                                      However, I would start with the simpler method, that relies more on Encore doing the right thing.

                                       

                                      I would, in using the sort of workflow you are creating, heavily test this using burned disks on multiple players.

                                       

                                      Edit: there has been no change in the pickwhip vs specify link options in recent versions.

                                      • 16. Re: "Director's Cut":  How to Make one in Encore?
                                        Matt Dubuque Community Member

                                        Thanks Stan, this is all quite helpful!

                                         

                                        Matt