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1. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
raj2ashok Jan 24, 2011 10:57 PM (in response to SupersoulVP)It's not necessary to have pre-encoded video in order to build a disc with motion menus in Encore. You can generate animated backgrounds in AE and can import them via Dynamiclink without any compression or you use any other uncompressed formats (such as .mov or .avi) as your motion backgrounds.
If you have a motion menu with highlights only (no button layers) then you can bring the pre-encoded video and Encore won't retranscode the motion menus.
So it's always better to have pre-encoded video for highlights only menu. And If you'll add any button layer on top of your background video then it's better use the uncompressed video.
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2. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
Stan Jones Jan 25, 2011 4:40 AM (in response to raj2ashok)I find this an interesting question. Can anyone explain the actual process?
I assume he is asking more about the process of creating the vob - lets make up a word and call it the vobulation (from the vobulator! ha, ha). All content on the disk, is first transcoded by Encore (or ame) if not already DVD ready, but is then muxed with audio. It must keep the original transcoded stream intact or it is all reencoded.
But how do the menus work? When is a stream left intact and when will it be reencoded into the video stream? And how do those menu buttons and highlights work? Inquiring minds want to know. I know I've read some stuff about that....
If you have a motion menu with highlights only (no button layers) then you can bring the pre-encoded video and Encore won't retranscode the motion menus.
I assume you do not mean "highlights only" - highlights appear and disappear and are part of the button layers, but mean something like "background only"? But that's not a motion menu.
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3. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
Jon Geddes Jan 26, 2011 3:50 PM (in response to Stan Jones)Here is more information that might be helpful:
- If you import a pre-transcoded m2v file as the motion menu background asset, and only have button highlights in the Encore menu (this means no text layers or other graphics in the menu PSD), then Encore will not re-transcode that background asset.
- If you import a pre-transcoded motion background asset and apply any kind of text, images, or anything at all in the menu besides highlight layers prefixed with (=1), (=2), or (=3), then Encore will have to render those graphics into the background and re-transcode (double compression = very bad).
- Encore does not have the ability to specify separate audio and video assets for menu transitions, so if you have separate m2v and ac3 files (elementary streams) for the transitions, you will have to combine them into a single file that Encore will then transcode. (program streams may not have to be transcoded)
- If you have a 3rd party encoder do some of the menus, and Encore's encoder do other parts of the menu (such as transitions), you may see a difference in colors between the encodes. Procoder's default colorspace settings will shift the colors compared to Encore's settings. It is best to have one program encode all the motion menu assets.
- When creating motion menus in After Effects, I have found the Quicktime Animation codec to be an excellent intermediate format. There are many glitches with Dynamic Link.
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4. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
Stan Jones Jan 26, 2011 4:21 PM (in response to Jon Geddes)Jon, thanks for the info.
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5. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
SupersoulVP Jan 26, 2011 10:43 PM (in response to Jon Geddes)Thanks for responding, Jon. Great info.
I had read in another post that the initial project settings affect how Encore will encode the motion menus during the build; choosing the default encode settings as either MPEG-2 or H.264. I did all my video encoding in Compressor and now have .264 files that do not need encoding. I would prefer to have the whole blu-ray be in H.264 codec, but have read that it is best to have Encore encode motion menus as MPEG-2.
Do you know if this is true, and do you know how to for sure make Encore encode the menu backgrounds the way you want it to?
It so rarely does what I want it to (or expect it to do)...
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6. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
Jon Geddes Jan 27, 2011 7:19 AM (in response to SupersoulVP)Encore will always encode motion menus in MPEG2, regardless of what you specify in the project settings. However, in CS4, if you set the project settings to h.264, this would usually result in an error message during the build process. I have not tested to see if that particular error was fixed in CS5, but CS5 will still encode menus to mpeg2 regardless.
It doesn't matter which version, just set your project settings to MPEG2, then you can set the individual transcode settings of your main videos to h264. If your videos are already transcoded to Blu-ray compliant h264, you do not need to do anything to them after importing. Simply configure your project settings for MPEG2, and import the h264 files. They will not be re-transcoded, as the project settings only determine the default transcode settings for assets that are not transcoded yet.
You can mix and match all kinds of different codecs, framerates, and resolutions on a single Blu-ray disc without problems.
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7. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
SupersoulVP Feb 1, 2011 3:38 PM (in response to Jon Geddes)Hey Jon.
Out of curiousity, do you know why the STREAM folder (inside the BDMV folder) is full of .m2ts files, even when all the video elements are .264 blu-ray compliant files, and only the motion menus should really be MPEG-2?
I was concerned when I saw this, but when I QC'd my disc with the player's display on, the titles were all AVC, and the menus came up as MPEG.
Thanks.
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8. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
Jon Geddes Feb 1, 2011 6:20 PM (in response to SupersoulVP)M2TS is just a container format, and is not the actual codec of the video encoded inside of it.
M2TS does not mean the file is MPEG2, there is a difference.
M2TS is the equivalent of an AVI or MOV file, and MPEG2, H.264, etc. are the codecs of the content contained inside the file.
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9. Re: Should menu backgrounds be encoded first?
SupersoulVP Feb 3, 2011 10:07 AM (in response to Jon Geddes)That makes sense.
Thanks again for all your help.



