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Integrate Review — Adobe Encore DVD 1.0

Oct 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Frank McMahon

Authoring software meshes accessibility with professional-level features.

Adobe Encore DVD is a polished program for a first version, but there's a slight learning curve to many of the in-depth features.

There were numerous high-and low-end DVD authoring offerings available for several months before Adobe Encore DVD debuted, but the product does not seem to be playing catch-up as a shaky first version. Rather, Encore is a polished solution accessible to beginners but deep enough for pros. In version 1.0, Adobe Encore allows the creation of professional DVD products and suffers only a few drawbacks.

The interface does not exactly have the feel of say Photoshop or Premiere. Rather, it's a little more like LiveMotion or ImageStyler (remember ImageStyler?), meaning it's got a sparse interface with some basic tools that run deep as opposed to lots of different up-front options and buttons.

To get cranking on producing a DVD, simply choose New Project and then load your main interface screen. This screen can be an image file, such as a Photoshop PSD file, or you can actually choose from numerous templates available with the package, all of which are really sharp and professionally designed. Most templates have buttons that come with them, and you can easily change the text on each button to reflect the content you want to appear once the button is activated. You grab templates, backgrounds, and buttons from Encore's Library, which has a handy sort toggle. This allows you to view, for example, only templates or only buttons. Once the interface screen is up, just load movies or drag movies from the desktop (this works great, actually) and drop them right on a button. Once you have clips dropped onto buttons, right-click and choose Preview From Here, and Encore loads up its internal DVD preview mode. You then test it as if it were an actual DVD, hitting the buttons and seeing if everything works as it should. Finally, just click Make DVD, and you are done!

Sound simple? It really is. Because of the great templates (I can't wait to see third-party templates that will hopefully appear for Encore) and the drag-and-drop ease, combined with the ability to change text on buttons in a snap, it really is easy to do quick DVD projects.

But we pros want to dig deep, so here we go. Lots of features bubble under the surface, so let's look at them in detail.

First, I cannot overstate the power of using a Photoshop PSD file as a menu screen. I was able to load a template and with one click have Encore launch Adobe Photoshop CS and see every element of my DVD screen come up in Photoshop as a separate layer. You then have the power of Photoshop's filters and channels and effects to whip your DVD screen into an artistic frenzy.

Having said that, there is a slightly cryptic way that Encore conveys to Photoshop some of the information about buttons and selections. For example, you know how when you tool around on a DVD menu, it is highlighted by a single color, typically a box around the button? Well, you'll want a way to control that color. Encore actually creates some new commands in Photoshop to do just that, in addition to creating a new Photoshop Layer mode called Pass-Through. The interface incorporates Photoshop text cues, such as “=1,” that you type into the Layers name dialog box. If it sounds a little techy, it is. Hopefully this element will be streamlined a bit in the next version. Currently there is a slight learning curve to using the symbols. Other than that, it is fantastic to be able to jump back and forth between both programs and tweak your menus easily.

As for the video you are dragging in, you can pull in just about any type, from a standard DV AVI you have captured to an already-encoded MPEG-2 file.

How does Encore know what to transcode (convert to DVD format) and what to leave alone? It's smart. In fact, this element might be taken for granted because it allows you to use any clip. That way you can focus on the creation of your DVD as opposed to getting bogged down by rendering choices and housekeeping. Encore allows you to transcode at any time, but it usually saves that for the final render. And once you transcode a clip, you never need to re-transcode it if you end up changing the interface or reassembling the project.

Now, how do you know if all your clips will fit on a DVD? Encore intelligently keeps track of space and not only shows a DVD disc graphic with a representation of how full it is, but at the final render Encore also decides at what bit rate the video would be best encoded. Now this is great for casual users and beginners, but I don't want the software deciding at what rate my clips should be encoded (higher compression means more artifacts, for example), so there are ways to bypass this intelligent handling. Setting the encoding manually for each clip is a little cumbersome but doable. Obviously Adobe's focus was on worry-free rendering (and perhaps I should just relax and let Encore take the wheel with final rendering?), so the automatic mode is the default.

Another difficult thing to get your head around is that every clip has its own timeline. The timeline can be accessed by double-clicking the clip's icon in the main Project window. This allows you to work individually on each clip and add chapter stops, additional audio tracks (like commentary), and subtitle tracks. The program supports several industry subtitle options, such as text, FAB Images, and Captions Inc. You can also set the subtitle language (French, Italian, etc.). Having many clips with many timelines was overwhelming at first, but I quickly came to like the power and the concept of working on each clip individually. I was even able to create a slideshow by dragging stills to the timeline. As always, some users will never even launch any timelines, but it is great to know that the options are there.

Adobe Encore DVD features floatable docking palettes so you can customize the interface. Below is the timeline for clips, which allows you to add chapter stops and subtitles. The Character options for text are on the lower right, and the Library palette on the upper right houses many buttons and menu screen templates.

Once it comes time to burn, you've got some additional options before you hit the button. Set your disc size if you are not using a standard 4.7GB DVD recorder. For example, you could create a double-sided or dual-layer disc or even scale it down to CD-R size. In fact, you can set the final disc size to anything you want. You can enable (and disable) region codes and toggle on and off different types of copy protection. (These are just settings; actual copy protection is done during replication.) The program checks all your links to make sure everything clicks to where it should.

When it comes time to burn, you can burn directly to your DVD (bypassing temp hard drive files) for a faster burn. You can also create a DVD image if you choose to create to your hard drive or DTL drive instead of direct to a DVD drive. Other notable features are Dolby Digital audio output, customizable project views, DVD-ROM content options, motion menus, drag-and-drop audio on menus, and the ability to set on-the-fly chapter stops while clips play.

Adobe Encore is a perfect DVD authoring program because it's simple enough for beginners yet deep and powerful enough to grow into. Although Photoshop integration is drum tight, I'd like to see a little more serendipity with other Adobe programs. As it stands now, you can convert markers in Adobe Premiere Pro to chapter stops in Encore, and you can Edit Original motion menus and have them load into After Effects, but I'd love to see these three programs, especially Premiere, get cozier as updates advance. I would highly suggest running through the starter tutorials with the program, you could easily get lost because it's not immediately apparent where everything is. A few tutorials will give you everything you need to really start dishing out the DVD one-offs. Finally, while Dolby Digital import/export is nice, internal mixing of 5.1 audio has to happen soon, but I have no doubt that feature request is on the front burner. Audio mixing options would be welcome down the line, but audio format support is strong. I enjoyed dragging MP3s into the project and adding quick background music.

Adobe Encore is a strong first effort. It does look simplistic at first, but there is enough power under the hood to create high-end professional DVD discs. Adobe offers a 30-day tryout version of Encore on its website. I suggest taking it for a spin.

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BOTTOM LINE

Company: Adobe Systems San Jose, Calif.; (408) 536-6000 www.adobe.com

Product: Encore DVD 1.0

Assets: Easy to use for beginners with a feature set deep enough to please pros; smart transcoding.

Caveat: No 5.1 audio mixing.

Demographics: DVD authors who need tight integration with Photoshop.

Price: $549

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.