Blu-ray video menus

[Walkertx]

I'm trying to create my menu system for my Blu-ray disk using 3, 1 min clips from the actual video.  The actual video turns out crisp and clear, but the menus when burnt to the blu_ray are fuzzy.  The faces and Text are fuzzy.  Look really bad, but when you play the video the video is crisp and clear.  Anyone have this problem before?  I use the same codec H.264 blu_ray for both the menu clips and video when exporting them to encore.  In Encore I have project settings set to maximum audio/video bitrate 40.0 Mbps, codec H.264. The menus look very pixelated.  If any one has any suggestion I'm all ears. I know it got to be a simple fix, something I'm not setting correct.

[John T Smith]

Are you starting with a BD menu or a DVD menu?

[Walkertx]

I created the menu system using BD format.  Video was imported from Pr CC using codec H.264 Blu_ray at highest bitrate because it is only 1 min long.  The buttons and text were added per Encore.  I did not use photo shop. 

[Stan Jones]

I created the menu system using BD format.

You haven't quite answered John's question. Did you add a menu from the Encore library? Which one? DVD or BD quality?

[Walkertx]

The encore Build format I used Blu_ray and out put to ISO file because Encore will not create Blu-ray disk straight from project.  I have always had to create an blu_ray iso file.  

[neil wilkes]

Stan's question is absolutely valid.

I would also like to add one of my own - what font did you utilize, and exactly how was the text added? Also, what resolution did you use (ie was it 1920x1080, what was the frame rate etc?) - okay,. more than one question.

Encore's text handling is pretty poor at the best of times and as such I think you should avoid using it at all costs. Remember that in Blu-ray, no matter what you think is happening, all menus are in fact movies as there is no such thing as a DVD style menu in Blu-ray.

I would recommend the following:

1 - Build everything you can in Premiere Pro, not Encore. The newer versions of Premiere & Photoshop are far better at handling text than they used to be in the days when Encore CS6 was a new product & these days I would not even consider using any version of Photoshop prior to the CC2015.4 release as not only is the general text handling superior it knocks Encore into a cocked hat so try this:

2 - Build your layers using Photoshop at the correct resolution, and save the screens out as TIF files bringing these into Premiere.

For text layers make sure you preserve the transparency saving the TIF. Drop the layers.

3 - treat yourself to a new H264 encoder, as the stock Main Concept one in Premiere is not that great & the one in Encore is older.

From experience making commercial discs I highly recommend either X264 Pro or the TMPGEnc H264 encoder (both utilize the same engine but in somewhat different interpretations so where one fails the other will succeed.

Both have full trial versions and both plug in to Premiere Pro.

For me, x264 Pro has the edge simply because it is more tweakable plus it will also allow you to set the flags for a 264 MP4 that will play in Quicktime, whereas the TMPG one will not work if you make an MP4 in Quicktime playback.

As has been said so many times, use Encore as an assembly tool, not an editor.