Several Playlist questions

[Guy Burns]

I'm new to Playlists. Generated my first one last night. No fancy navigation, just a button on an otherwise blank screen, and then straight into the Playlist, which returns to the start button. And I now have several questions that have never popped up when using a single Timeline.

Again – all the below assumes a single Start button. No fancy navigation at this stage.

Ques 1

I generated several Timelines while playing around, and populated them with clips. Then I choose just three of them for my test Playlist. When I Built to Blu-ray, I was warned about orphan timelines and other matters, but since the Preview worked, I went ahead – and was surprised by the size of the Blu-ray folder. Several times bigger than what it should have been.

Timelines that are not used in a Playlist, but which are still in the Project Panel, do they also become a part of the Blu-ray?

I can have Sequences in Premiere that are not rendered; I can have pages in InDesign that are not exported; but, unless I'm mistaken, it seems that every timeline in Encore ends up on the Blu-ray when I build. If that's the case, it seems strange behaviour to this Playlist beginner.

Ques 2

Timelines that are not a part of a Playlist, but which I assume are on the Blu-ray (because of the folder size), can they be accessed by someone who is playing the Blu-ray?

Ques 3

Can I tell Encore not to include certain Timelines in the Build?

Ques 4

As part of testing any Encore project, I like to check the time between certain clips. i.e. there might be a fade to black, and then a certain amount of 'black time' before the next clip appears. That 'black time' has to be well judged. Not too long, not too short. Very easy to do in a single Timeline – you simply jump to the next clip, back track a little, then view the 'black time' to see if it's appropriate. I don't need to sit through every clip in it's entirety, just a few seconds either side of the 'black times'.

When previewing a Playlist, is it possible to jump to the next Timeline, backtrack a little into the end of the previous timeline, then play from that position?

Ques 5

When I built the Playlist to a Blu-ray and played it… well, I wasn't impressed with the navigation. With my single-timeline Blu-ray, I can jump back and forth between chapters manually with my remote, or by typing in the chapter number. When I tried that with my Playlist Blu-ray, I could jump forward, but not backwards. The player barred me from jumping into a previous timeline, even though that timeline was part of the viewing experience.

Imagine a Playlist that features, say, 7 timelines, each of which has 3 clips (what I call 21 chapters in total). Can I set up that Playlist so that when built to Blu-ray I can start playing it with one button, and that I can jump back and forth between all 21 chapters just by clicking on the 'next chapter' or 'previous chapter' buttons on my remote?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Stan Jones]

Generally, regarding putting multiple clips on one timeline: don't! You may be successful, but in most cases, a single video file from Premiere Pro on one timeline is going to be simpler.

The most trouble free DVDs will be produced from timelines with ONE clip. The two main workflows are 1) the full program with chapter markers - one timeline and 2) one video file per chapter/section with the "play all" a playlist with all chapters in it.

Number 1 is Hollywood style - primary benefit is you can previous/next to chapters on the timeline and rewind/fast forward through the movie. You can't do that with method 2.

With method 2, you are more dependent on using a submenu for navigation to sections. Some types of material are easier to edit in Premiere in this form.

Ques 1-3. I do not believe that unused timelines are put on the disk. With multiple clips on a timeline, Encore is going to transcode your material, and your bitrate and program length will determine the size. You can confirm this by looking in a folder build and playing the files.

Ques 4. No, you can't jump between playlist elements.

Ques 5. See information above.

[Guy Burns]

Thanks for the info, Stan. So that matters are clearer for me, when replying to my posts it might be best to use the term Blu-ray, not DVD. I never build DVDs, and I'm never completely sure when you say 'DVD' whether it means only DVD, or Blu-ray, or both.

Unrequired Timelines

I did two tests of an Encore project:

1. one had only a single timeline which reported no problems when built to Blu-ray (120MB)
2. then I added a new timeline with a video on it, and built to Blu-ray (600MB). The new timeline reported two problems before the build: it was an orphan with no end action. It was not shown in the Flowchart.

The Blu-ray which came from 2 (above) had an additional m2ts file (480MB) in the Stream folder, corresponding to the new timeline. Even though the additional m2ts file was on the disk, I could not access it.

Seems a funny thing to me that Encore includes all timelines in a build, even though they are not in the Flowchart and not accessible from the disk. Encore assumes wrongly (in my opinion) that if you put something on a timeline, then you want it on the disk.

Other matters

Let me sum up other matters to see if my understanding is correct. Please correct any statements that are wrong.

Free movement and Single Timelines

1. For a sequence of clips that are to be treated as one from start to finish (such as a movie), if you want free movement – the ability to jump to the next section or a previous section, or be able to fast forward or rewind through the entire show – then you must have all clips on a single timeline.

2. Corollary: it is not possible either in Encore or when using a Blu-ray disk, to have free moment with multiple timelines, Playlists, or chapter playlists.

3. If you want the ability to preview a build in Encore with complete freedom of movement – jump forward or back as described in (1) – the only way is to use a single timeline.

Movies are best built as single files

4. Even though you can have multiple clips on a single timeline – say a movie broken into scenes – it is preferable to have the movie as a single file, with chapter points added in suitable places.

But there are exceptions to movies as single files

I've just had a look at one of my Star Trek Blu-rays. Four episodes per disk, and each episode is offered either:

• in the original form, or

• with certain sections featuring enhanced visual effects (computer generated images of planets and so on), instead of the original poor quality effects.

The Stream folder has 120 items in it, meaning that each episode had about 30 clips associated with it.

Questions

• For each Star Trek episode, would the Blu-ray have been authored with two timelines (original and enhanced)?

• How did the authors of the Blu-ray avoid pause problems between clips?

[Stan Jones]

Out for the day. I'll respond tonight or tomorrow. Generally  your conclusions are correct, with a few exceptions.

[Stan Jones · Accepted solution]

BD vs DVD. I try to always use the correct term. There are important differences in the specifications for each, and there are Encore bugs that only apply to one or the other. In addition, it is important to remember that not all Blu-rays are the same. "Burned" BDs are BDMV, and that is all that Encore makes. There are features and functions that are not available, that are common in Hollywood BDs.

Orphan timelines in BD project. I was wrong and have confirmed your finding. The orphan timeline is included on the BD disk. There can be odd results if you allow unlinked elements, so it is best to avoid them. But yes, surprising.

Your #1 and #2, I agree. I'm not sure about #3, but I think it is correct. Encore preview is but an approximation.

#4. If that is what you want, and true for "movies." For many of the event disks I produced, I wanted to convenience of submenus and did not care if a user could not back up to the previous group's performance. They could access it from the submenu.

Exceptions section: Some enhancements will force a separate movie file for every variation. But, just as in DVD, others will just affect overlay functions. I do not know enough about how BD functions to understand this. Many of the enhancements are not available in BDMV authoring.

[Guy Burns]

Thanks Stan. You've been very helpful. Now I have a much better idea of what I should be doing with EN and what I shouldn't.

I might start a new thread about the Star Trek episodes – kind of reverse engineer it to find out what the producers did with their fancy software, that EN can't do.