Encore CS5 motion menu and transition problems (with a menu I made in After Effects)

[Dustin27630886m8a5]

Below is a conversation that I've been having with one user in the community. If anyone else has a solution to this problem, a response to this would be appreciated. Thanks. - Dustin

Thanks you, Stan. The guide on Imgburn.com helped. However, there is still a problem, but I'm getting close. So the Blu-ray folder created successfully. Then I used Imgburn to burn it. It burnt just fine, but when it was verifying it, I got an error message. Something about an unreadable format, along those lines. So I put it in my Blu-ray player, and it reads it as a Blu-ray movie. So that worked. But the main menu is messed up. It's a motion menu that I made in After Effects that I imported into Encore using Dynamic Link. So it's an unrendered AE composition. It's basically just a still image with a 3 minute video playing in the background. I want the video to play with its sound in the menu. The issue I run into is having the video actaully play in the menu since I could only export one frame as a Photohop layers and then import it into Encore as a menu. It's just a still frame of the video. I found a tutorial on YouTube that said to hide all the layers of the menu in Encore, that way when I link the motion video and audio to the menu, it would show the motion menu layered underneath the buttons. Basically without the motion menu and the layers hidden, it's just a black screen with the highlighted buttons. And that's how it burnt the Blu-ray main menu (black screen with hightlighted buttons). There is the audio though, just not the video. I noticed though when I would close the project in Encore, then reopen it later, and try to preview the project, it would show just the black screen for the main menu. Then if I would mess with it and deselect and reselect the layers of the menu and go preview it again, then it would show the motion menu in the preview. So somethng is wrong in the program to not render the motion menu correctly. The video in the motion menu is a rendered MPEG2 standard SD NTSC file that I imported into After Effects. I was thinking maybe that has something to do with it. Or should I just try to render the entire motion menu out as an H.264 MP4 file or something else, and then link it to the menu in Encore (instead of using Dynamic Link)? I've attached a picture on the main motion menu so you can see what I'm talking about. The video that I want to play is in the upper right part of the frame. Thanks.

fftv disc 1 (main menu).jpg

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Stan Jones

Community Expert , 

4 hours ago

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Dustin,

Congrats on the success so far!

It is tempting to get the AE menu to work, but I think I would just go to a regular Encore or Photoshop menu and export the motion background ONLY from AE as a file. If the file comes in to Encore as Untrnascoded, just let Encore transcode it.

Do a Save As to create a test project. I would start with an Encore Library menu with video background only - I used the Crib Menu HD for testing. Set that menu as first play. Preview. You'll need to render the menu. If that works, replace the Baby Room...m2v background with your export from AE.

See if you can get that to work. Then add the background audio as a separate file.

Stan

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Dustin27630886m8a5 AUTHOR

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3 hours ago

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Ok, so I watched another tutorial on YouTube, and it showed when you link the motion video for the menu, it should pop up behind the buttons in the menu window. I hasn't been doing that the whole time that I tried burning the discs. So I did what you said and opened a menu in the Encore Library and linked the motion video to that menu, and sure enough it popped up. So the issue has to be with the menu I made in AE. I don't know to make the background transparent to show the motion video. Like I said when I link the motion, it doesn't pop up. Just a black screen. Any possible solution? It's gotta be a setting somewhere. Thanks again.

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Dustin27630886m8a5 AUTHOR

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4m ago

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Ok so here's an update. I went ahead and used a menu in the Encore Library and deleted all the buttons and other assets on it. Then I linked the motion video and audio to it and added my own custom buttons. From there, I rendered the motion menu and previewed it. It worked fine, HOWEVER I have a 4 second transition that goes from the main menu (the motion menu) to the first page of chapters. Well, with the menu I created in AE, the transition worked fine in the preview window. But with the Encore Library menu, it doesn't. It just plays the beginning of the motion video without audio for those 4 seconds of the transtion and then jumps to the first page of chapters. Any insight on how to fix either the menu I made in AE or the fix the transition problem would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Mylenium]

Have you actually adjusted the subpicture durations? It also seems you might want to use an inert "interstitial" menu (no buttons, just set auto-activate to jump to the next menu) rather than actually baking your transition into the main menu. There simply are/ were limitations in what the DVD spec supported and how things worked in Encore. It might help if you actually showed us some screenshots of your flow graph, the menu wiring and all that. It's been ages since I created a DVD in Encore, but I think we can figure things out.

Mylenium

[Dustin27630886m8a5]

Thanks for the response. I've attached some screenshots of the project so you can see what I'm talking about.

Picture 1 is just the main menu in Photoshop with its layers. What's supposed to happen when you click "Chapters" is the whole image (including the text) shifts to the left and brings in the first page of chapters (which is Picture 2). 

Picture 3 is the main menu from Photoshop with the button subpictures highlighted. As you can see in the top right that I have the motion video and audio selected. Now when I hide all the layers of the menu as it said in one of the YouTube tutorials that I watched, I get what's in Picture 4. And as you can see, the motion video and audio is still linked, but it doesn't pop up in the menu window with the buttons. Just a black screen. And that's how it's been burning to the BD-Rs that I have. However as you can see in Picture 7 when I preview the project, the linked motion video and audio appear in the previewed project, and it works fine. It's just not burning to the BD-Rs like that. Just the black screen with the highlighted subpictures of the buttons. And transition video from main motion menu to the first page of chapters works too.

In Picture 5, I used a menu in the Encore Library (Rose Menu HD 2) and as you can see when I linked the motion video and audio, it pops up in the menu window as it's supposed to. I just deleted all the assets and buttons of the Rose Menu and made PNG files of the buttons "Play" and "Chapters", converted them into buttons and place them over the same text in the video. In Picture 6, you'll see that I selected the Chapters button and have the transition video linked. The video is the entire collage of pictures shifts from left to right and brings in the first page of chapters (i.e. Picture 1 & 2). This is where the transition doesn't work properly in the preview window. When I click "Chapters", it just starts the main menu motion video over and plays with no audio for the 4 seconds that the transition video is supposed to play, and then just jumps to the first page of chapters (i.e Picture 2).

So whichever one of the these issues I can fix, then I think it should burn to the BD-R correctly.

[Dustin27630886m8a5]

Oh yeah, and I never adjusted subpicture durations. Don't really know what that is.

[Dustin27630886m8a5]

I just tested something out with the Encore Library menu that I mentioned (Rose Menu HD 2, i.e. Picture 5). When I preview the project WITHOUT rendering the motion menu, the transition video that I explained (from main motion menu to the first page of chapters) works fine. It's only when I rendered the motion menu in the preview window is when it didn't work (started motion video over and played with no audio for the duration of the transition video that's supposed to play and then just jumped to the first page of chapters). Sorry, I know my explanations are kind of confusing. Trying to explain it the best I can.

[Dustin27630886m8a5]

After more messing around with the menus, I found out that in the original menu I made with AE that was exported to Photoshop and then into Encore, when I have all the layers hidden (i.e. Picture 4), Encore doesn't read it as a motion menu (if with the motion video and audio selected). But if I make just one of the layers visible, then it does. So I made all the layers visible (i.e. Picture 3) and tried to render the motion menu, but still didn't work. It just showed the still image of the menu and not the video. Plus, whenever I tried to go to the first page of chapters, the aduio cut out for those 4 seconds and then just jumped to the first chapter page. So I'm competely stumped. Don't know what to do.

[Mylenium]

Encore never fully supported motion menus for BD. Rendering your menu may actually just generates DVD assets and those can't be used for BD, obviously. You have to hack it by just referencing the pre-encoded MP4 files. That said, I'm still not clear what you are actually doing. You have provided a ton of screenshots, but not the ones requested and your endless stream of TL;DR comments makes it hard to follow and adds more confusion than clarification. I'm not even clear if you have actually pre-rendered your sideway push transition or if you expect Encore to do it for you, which again won't work, because Encore cannot render it nor create it as an interactive BD layer. Either way, I think you are making this too complicated by trying to do everything in the menus and the limitations are working against you. As already advised it would probably be best you focus on a "clean" structure and create your transitions as dummy menus or auto-play timelines that jump to the next menu/ timeline.

Mylenium