4 Replies Latest reply: Oct 13, 2008 2:42 AM by Neil Wilkes RSS

    Animated Buttons and PGC

    Stan Jones CommunityMVP
    Stan Jones Oct 11, 2008 9:29 AM
      CS3, 3 submenus with 8 thumbnail buttons and main menu link, 1 submenu with 2 thumbnail buttons and main menu link; built fine until set the thumbnails to animated. pgc error 2 frames from end of loop (15 seconds or 10 seconds). The button videos are created by Encore; I'm designating the poster frame.

      Main timeline video assets are from PPro/WME VBR 1.5/4/7 with one exception that is mpeg (from ppro/wme).

      Some assets were changed using edit original; the ones related to the menus that show the pgc error were never replaced.

      Do I have any control over bitrate, etc., in these files? Encore creates them from the linked movies. (I can find them in the menu assets on disk, but they play fine.)

      The pgc error that I think has been addressed before have been motion backgrounds.

      I have cleaned the cache; turned the animate off on the offending menu (showed up on another one); have deleted the cache. Recreated the whole project.

      any suggestions?

      One oddity: the motion menus rendered during the build, even if I rendered them before. When I just did a new project/test using one of the submenus, the motion menu did not render during the successful build.

      When I add more submenus back as animated buttons, the error returns.

      I cannot discern a pattern as to which menu will create the error.
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        • 1. Re: Animated Buttons and PGC
          Stan Jones CommunityMVP
          Stan Jones Oct 12, 2008 5:15 AM (in response to Stan Jones)
          Let me add that a 3 submenu version built okay. I think the poster frames were in their default positions. I found that I placed many of the poster frames on non-GOP boundaries, but correcting this did not fix the pgc error.
          • 2. Re: Animated Buttons and PGC
            Bill Hunt CommunityMVP
            Bill Hunt Oct 12, 2008 9:49 AM (in response to Stan Jones)
            Dang Stanley,

            You are
            b REALLY
            "taking one for the team." I appreciate your reports, but my heart goes out to you with the blasted errors.

            Thanks for keeping us updated. I just wish I had some ideas, or could offer some sort of help and support. When you do get it nailed down, and I trust that you will, please post, so we can put this puppy to rest, once and for all.

            Good luck,

            Hunt
            • 3. Re: Animated Buttons and PGC
              Stan Jones CommunityMVP
              Stan Jones Oct 12, 2008 12:11 PM (in response to Stan Jones)
              Hunt, thanks for the encouragement.

              I'll say that a) I am simply happy that I am not getting the "regular" pgc error (i.e. for main assets in the project); b) this was a complicated project with multiple menus and in which I made multiple menu edits in photoshop and edited originals in PPro with no pgc errors (I did it "correctly" - I also later recreated the project using new directory, deleted the cache for good measure, etc., the animated button issue did not go away); and c) I look for any comments on this particular instance of the error (menus with animated buttons), because most of what I have seen in previous posts are problems with "motion menus" (from the discussions, I have taken the posters to be referring to moving backgrounds).

              I found Neil's recent comments about multiples of the GOP length and the datarate of interest, because I found a workaround for my "bad test clip" by simply changing the max autotranscode setting. For the current instance (animated buttons), Encore does these with no choice on my part other than poster frame, so I wonder what workaround there may be. Can I control the datarate of animated thumbnails? Can I specify another way for encore to get the videos for thumbnails (so I can make them outside the Encore generated method)? Etc.

              By later today I will have committed to a "no motion" version of this project (the clients were not promised motion and, I think, will be thrilled with the flexibility of access to their favorite clips). But I'm not sure when I can upgrade to CS4 (which may do nothing for this error) and/or upgrade my hardware (which may or may not be at issue - but probably is), so I keep looking for workarounds and/or workflow improvements.

              I have certainly benefitted from the careful workflows encouraged by Neil and Jeff, particularly in the context of Neil's knowledgeable comments on the Sonic platform.
              • 4. Re: Animated Buttons and PGC
                Neil Wilkes CommunityMVP
                Neil Wilkes Oct 13, 2008 2:42 AM (in response to Stan Jones)
                >I found Neil's recent comments about multiples of the GOP length and the datarate of interest, because I found a workaround for my "bad test clip" by simply changing the max autotranscode setting. For the current instance (animated buttons), Encore does these with no choice on my part other than poster frame, so I wonder what workaround there may be. Can I control the datarate of animated thumbnails? Can I specify another way for encore to get the videos for thumbnails (so I can make them outside the Encore generated method)? Etc.

                Stanley.
                A couple of possibilities come to mind here, although I have not tried either of these myself as yet.
                1 - You can create a full motion menu outside of Encore, and not use Poster Frames in a Motion Menu at all, but a series of Video Clips in mattes instead - this would require After Effects though.
                2 - Another possibility is to try transcoding your main video file before compiling the disc. This would give you a bitrate for the film, so you could be sure that was okay.**
                3 - Try reducing the loop time by a second at a time until you find a setting that compiles.

                ** = I cannot be certain how Encore actually does this under the hood - it could well be that it is trying to take extracts from the actual movies & retranscode them into a motion menu. If this is the case then getting the frame count right may be awkward. This would seem to be one of those niggling Sonic "random bugs" that exist. If Encore is fiddling like this in the background then Option 1 above is the only answer to the problem, as if you compiled this with After Effects (This is how we do these types of menus anyway) you get a lot more control over each aspect & clip in the menu - you can make them do whatever you want. It's harder to learn - expect to take a long time doing these type of menus - but it is well worthwhile.