21 Replies Latest reply: Feb 20, 2007 9:10 AM by Neil Wilkes RSS

    Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?

    DawnTreader777 Community Member
      Hello

      I have a few things that I would like to wish for in the next patch / version.

      1. The ability to import power point slide shows into encore as a slide show. This would make it really handy to import some ones previously created slide show and turn it into a DVD slide show. It doesn't have to do all the fancy animations or transitions, just import the slide shows. Yes I know I can export from power point to jpgs. Have you really looked at the results? Crap is all I have to say. Of course I could recreate them in Photoshop or some other program that lets picture and titling be created. You know how much extra time that step costs?

      2. Could you please put a tab in the project pane for a list of slide shows, play lists and assets? I actually like the tabs better than organizing by folders.

      3. Could you make a project manager for encore that is similar to the one in premier? I would like to be able to trim the project and remove "temporary files". I especially hate the number of temporary menus that accumulate in the menus folder. I want to be able to back up the necessary files only, not all the junk. it would also be nice if it would grab the video(I) that make up the project and compile them in to the folder that I designate as the new project folder, just like premier does.

      4. Can you make a key that would allow me to select multiple files when using the pick whip? Or could we just drag and drop files to a play list or to the box where the end action and such are? The pick whip looks cool, but it is so slow to get things done with it.

      5. its not really to hard to now, but it would be nice if there was some method for telling encore that you are creating an Easter egg. Currently there are a few steps to doing it and it is all manual. It would be nice if you could designate a button as being an Easter egg and then tell encore which choice of ways you want it to handle it. For instance is it just a simple Easter egg where you go on the right direction on a button and viola, you found it. Or is it a button that you go to and it goes to a duplicate menu and then you need to hit the right button a couple of times and then viola, you found it. Any thing to make my DVD creation to have a few less steps.

      6. Another thing that I think encore needs has to do with the flowchart. Give me some zoom on that baby. I like it, but it would be nice if I could zoom out to look at the overall structure.

      7. The ability to normalize the audio across the entire DVD. My wife made a disc and some parts were loud and others were so quiet. It would be nice to not have to do this for each clip before in premier, but leave it till the final stage of DVD production so that it only has to be done once.

      As time goes on and I think of more I will add to this list. If you have an idea put it here, maybe it will end up in the next patch / version.
        • 2. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
          Joe Bowden Adobe Employee
          In answer to request 4, a pickwhip by design is for selecting a single object- how could it do otherwise, if you are dragging and dropping?

          It seems like you are looking for a faster way to fill a playlist. There is a way- in the Project panel, select all timelines/slideshows, etc. that you want, and then create a new playlist. Voila, they will be added to the playlist in the order in which they were sorted.
          • 3. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
            Joe Bowden Adobe Employee
            Oh, and in answer to request 2- have you looked at the filters at the bottom left corner of the Project panel?
            • 4. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
              DawnTreader777 Community Member
              well there ya go. i guess this shows my newbiness. thanks JB. :)
              • 5. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                tryptych Community Member
                My wish is they get the bloody software to work properly in the first place. There are many inadequacies in the software that I would like to see added, but frankly, this is the WORST product I have ever seen Adobe relese. I cannot produce a single DVD project without it crashing, bugging out, and generally being a pain in the butt. If you see the forums on here, and across the net, you will see I am not the only person voicing this, and I have used $20 software that fares way better than this.

                I use Adobe products due to their interoperability, and I use both Photoshop and After Effects a lot, (and they are trully outstanding), and I expected this to slot right in where I needed it, but it is hopeless. Adobe needs to pull their fingers out and address the core coding problems in this application from the ground up, or discontinue it. This software should not have ever been released in this condition at 1.0, let alone 2.0.

                I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!
                • 6. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                  Harm Millaard CommunityMVP
                  > I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!

                  No sense in trying here. I can't see any visitor here lining up to pay you, maybe you should contact Adobe.

                  In my experience, people complaining about software not functioning as they want or expect, are most of the time forgetting that their hardware is not up to the task, is improperly configured, infected with all kinds of software that causes conflicts, or have insufficient knowledge to properly use the software they complain about.

                  If you are in that category, contact Adobe to try to get your money back. In that case I would emphasize your lack of understanding the software and your badly configured hardware/software. They may feel for you. Good luck.
                  • 7. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                    tryptych Community Member
                    My complaint was figurative. I would much prefer to see a fixed V3 or a software patch to cure all these problems.

                    My concern is that software companies should not release faulty software. With regard to my hardware, I am a professional graphic and video designer with two high end, quad core workstations that I rebuild with operating systems and upgrade new hardware regularly. They are not used for anything else besides professional software. All files are saved across to a server.

                    I am not some wet-behind-the-ears kid that doesn't know what he is doing. I have been using applications such as Photoshop since v2.5
                    I am well aware a lot of people on here dabble and do not fully understand the principles, but I am not one of them.

                    I repeat as I mentioned before, look at the tirade of bad reports on both professional and amateur forums, or Google "Adobe Encore Crash".

                    I work almost exclusively with Adobe products and generally have nothing but the highest praise for their work, but from what I can tell, Encore was a "bought in" product that they absorbed when taking over another company. It seems that maybe it wasn't such a good move after all.
                    • 8. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                      Ruud Blauw Community Member
                      >...Encore was a "bought in" product that they absorbed when taking over another company.

                      Encore uses the AuthorScript engine which Adobe bought/licensed from Sonic Solutions. Adobe didn't take over Sonic though and Encore is different from Sonic's own DVD authoring applications.
                      • 9. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                        Jeff Bellune CommunityMVP
                        >My concern is that software companies should not release faulty software.

                        As everyone knows, once you exceed about 10 lines of code, all software is faulty to some degree. Bug-free apps don't exist.

                        And since many of us author on Encore every day without these issues, it is hard (for me at least) to label the software "faulty" in the way that I think you mean it.
                        • 10. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                          Joe Bowden Adobe Employee
                          >I repeat as I mentioned before, look at the tirade of bad reports on both professional and amateur forums, or Google "Adobe Encore Crash".

                          And while you're at it, do the same search for any other product, whether it is a DVD authoring tool or not.

                          Surprising... :)
                          • 11. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                            tryptych Community Member
                            I'm sure there were plenty of Ford Pinto owners that had a lifetime of trouble-free driving. That doesnt mean the cars weren't dangerous.

                            I am well aware that people use hardware and situations that the developers never envisaged, but that is what Beta testing is all about.
                            Every application has it's niggles and bugs, and I have had them on most Adobe products from time to time, but neve to a point where the application has become unusable, or the project you have just spent two days building now becomes unloadable.
                            • 12. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                              Neil Wilkes CommunityMVP
                              > My wish is they get the bloody software to work properly in the first place. There are many inadequacies in the software that I would like to see added, but frankly, this is the WORST product I have ever seen Adobe relese. I cannot produce a single DVD project without it crashing, bugging out, and generally being a pain in the butt. If you see the forums on here, and across the net, you will see I am not the only person voicing this, and I have used $20 software that fares way better than this.

                              Hmmm.
                              I think I will probably be wasting my time here, but things are not as bad as you are making out by a long, long way.
                              I have personally created many hundred successful DVD projects with Encore, and whilst I have indeed experienced difficulties from time to time, I can assure you the first - and only - time I went across to the Dark Side and used DVDSP, things were considerably worse. Never has Encore taken my Audio files, and muxed them almost to the end & then replaced the audio with complete digital silence! So before you seriously go elsewhere, I would take a long hard look at all the complaints in the Apple forums as well.
                              As I have pointed out far too many times, the grass may look greener.....but in my experience it seldom - if ever - is. There ois no such thing as bug free software, it's impossible to achieve.

                              >but from what I can tell, Encore was a "bought in" product that they absorbed when taking over another company. It seems that maybe it wasn't such a good move after all.

                              It wasn't a move at all - EncoreDVD is
                              i licensed
                              from Sonic Solutions, and Adobe have not bought Sonic Solutions.

                              >My concern is that software companies should not release faulty software. With regard to my hardware, I am a professional graphic and video designer with two high end, quad core workstations that I rebuild with operating systems and upgrade new hardware regularly. They are not used for anything else besides professional software. All files are saved across to a server.

                              I can see one of the possible problems right away.
                              Quad core? AFAIK, these systems simply did not exist when Encore was coded. It's quite possible you have a hardware setup that is completely untested. I may be off the mark here though.

                              >I am well aware that people use hardware and situations that the developers never envisaged, but that is what Beta testing is all about.

                              Twaddle.
                              Beta testers simply have no chance of being able to test on every possible software/hardware combination. It's not reasonable to try & achieve this - the Beta cycles are (usually) all about making sure the software works properly on the largest number of systems that can be assembled. This is not going to stop people constantly attempting to install & run it on untested combinations though - and to be brutally blunt with you, no professional company would even consider being right on the bleeding edge of current technology without having an older system set up that actually conforms to the system requirements as laid out in the product documentation. For EncoreDVD 2, this is as follows:
                              Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHz for DV
                              Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz or Dual Intel Xeon 2.8GHz for HDV
                              AMD must have SSE2 instruction sets.
                              There is no mention at all of Dual Core, or Quad Core CPU here - therefore this has to be considered as untested, and whilst it may work, it will not be guaranteed to work.
                              There is also NO mention of guaranteed functionality to a server. The specs actually say:
                              i Dedicated 7200 rpm drive for DV and HDV editing. Striped array (RAID 0) for HD

                              (This is my personal opinion, not official word from Adobe, I have to add. I do not work for Adobe in any way)
                              • 13. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                tryptych Community Member
                                "As I have pointed out far too many times, the grass may look greener.....but in my experience it seldom - if ever - is. There ois no such thing as bug free software, it's impossible to achieve. "

                                Just beacuse all the other products out there in the marketplace are crap does not have to justify why yours is too.

                                "Twaddle. Beta testers simply have no chance of being able to test on every possible software/hardware combination."

                                I am currently Beta testing Photoshop CS3. I do not work for Adobe, nor have any affiliations with them, but as an expert user in that application, I felt it almost my duty to make sure it did what it said it could do. The whole point is you give it to as many people in as many different scenarios as possible, so we can try to break it. It generally eliminates 90% of the problems before it hits the general marketplace.

                                With regard to my hardware setup, the dual and quad core architectures are essentially the same as before, you just have more of them, they are not diffesrent processors per se, and still work to the same instruction sets. (Intel guarantees this). As for my server, that is for offline storage and I run an onboard 500Gb SATA drive dedicated to Premiere/Afters Effects/Encore.

                                At the end of the day, DVD authoring is a basic little function that doesn't take either great design nor computational effort, unlike AE or Premiere, and I really can't see why they can't get this right.

                                Regards,
                                Rob
                                • 14. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                  Neil Wilkes CommunityMVP
                                  >At the end of the day, DVD authoring is a basic little function that doesn't take either great design nor computational effort, unlike AE or Premiere, and I really can't see why they can't get this right.

                                  Rob, come on!
                                  DVD Authoring is far from a basic function, and computer wise is probably one of the most intensive processes you can imagine.

                                  >Just beacuse all the other products out there in the marketplace are crap does not have to justify why yours is too.

                                  If nobody can get an abstraction layer authoring application to be bug free, doesn't this tell you something about the process?

                                  FWIW, I am still uncertain what your issues have been - we have created literally hundreds of titles using Encore with no problems whatsoever. The more complex the title, the more chance you have inadvertently created a problem. Removing, swapping out assets, deleting files, re-importing menus, changing menus etc - all these can create problems. A day or two in planning saves a week of troubleshooting in 99% of cases. There is no good reason to constantly swap out assets, and this really should be avoided with the author having a complete map of the final disc agreed upon & signed off by the client before the first asset is even imported. But I am rambling on now to no good use.

                                  Finally, as these are user to user forums, I seriously doubt you get a proper picture of how good Encore really is. After all, most people here will only post with a problem. It's very rare to see a post along the lines of "I just did a disc last week & everything went perfectly okay with no trouble", yet this is exactly the case for the great majority of Encore users.
                                  • 15. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                    Ruud Blauw Community Member
                                    >Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?

                                    Here: Encore DVD Enhancement Requests
                                    • 16. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                      tryptych Community Member
                                      DVD Authoring is far from a basic function, and computer wise is probably one of the most intensive processes you can imagine.

                                      I use 3DSMAX and Maya rendering massive models, HDRI lighting, volumetrics and particle systems, and they WORK, so please dont tell me making up a disc using ten year old MPEG2 technology is intensive.

                                      I had a few test projects I tried some time back, They failed to render and I gave up. Since then I have upgraded and rebuilt both my workstations and I can get these projects to load. It shows that Encore is temperamental at best about its environment.

                                      My current project is a basic TV episodic thing with 3 movies, each with 8 chapters, 4 sets of subtitles and custom PSD menus. The first two attempts crashed miserably and eventually wouldnt even load so I was forced to rebuild the whole thing a third time. By this point I new the layout so well I could have done it blindfolded.

                                      I stopped and tested twice halfway through and everything checked out. I rendered the whole thing to a folder, and behold, it worked. However, I have added the final movie and now it stops halfway through the resource check and refuses to even load the output menu. I have a lump on my head the size of an egg from banging it on the desk so many times. This software is infuriating.

                                      regards,
                                      Rob
                                      • 17. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                        Jeff Bellune CommunityMVP
                                        >My current project is a basic TV episodic thing with 3 movies, each with 8 chapters, 4 sets of subtitles and custom PSD menus. The first two attempts crashed miserably and eventually wouldnt even load so I was forced to rebuild the whole thing a third time. By this point I new the layout so well I could have done it blindfolded. I stopped and tested twice halfway through and everything checked out. I rendered the whole thing to a folder, and behold, it worked. However, I have added the final movie and now it stops halfway through the resource check and refuses to even load the output menu.

                                        This is far from the norm, and indicates setup issues, OS issues, hardware issues or software interoperability issues.

                                        You can choose to believe me or not. Your experience is unusual, and you can fix it by referring to the "usual suspects" that Neil has already pointed out.
                                        • 18. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                          tryptych Community Member
                                          Well, in which case, tell me about all these TV series DVD box sets and what they use to produce them, because I will go and buy whtever it is they use. It doesnt sound particularly "far from the norm" to me.
                                          • 19. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                            Joe Bowden Adobe Employee
                                            Your problems with Encore are far from the norm, not your goal of producing a set of discs.
                                            • 20. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                              Jeff Bellune CommunityMVP
                                              Now you're being deliberately obtuse. Good luck with whatever software package you choose.
                                              • 21. Re: Where is the Wish list for Encore 2?
                                                Neil Wilkes CommunityMVP
                                                >tell me about all these TV series DVD box sets and what they use to produce them, because I will go and buy whtever it is they use.

                                                Almost certainly Sonic Scenarist (Yours for around $21,000) or else Spruce Maestro (No longer available).

                                                However, it should be perfectly possible to make episodic discs with Encore. I wonder if the problem is in the source files or the layout?

                                                >My current project is a basic TV episodic thing with 3 movies, each with 8 chapters, 4 sets of subtitles and custom PSD menus. The first two attempts crashed miserably and eventually wouldnt even load so I was forced to rebuild the whole thing a third time.

                                                What do you mean,
                                                i exactly,
                                                by "crashed miserably"? What was the error message? What were you doing at the time? The more detail the better.

                                                NB. The best way to get help here - and please bear in mind these are not official Adobe support forums, but
                                                i user to user
                                                forums, is to be as detailed & specific as you possibly can including as much information as possible.
                                                What we are looking for is the cause of these abnormal incidents, and these are nearly always one of the following:
                                                A - Pilot Error (And please do not jump down my neck, this is the case in probably 95% of problems)
                                                B - Software conflicts
                                                C - Bad assets
                                                D - Bad planning. It is better by far to spend an entire day in planning than a week in fixing troubles.