Button Transitions create black flashes

[Byron Nash]

I'm trying to create button transition animations to animate from menu to menu. I have everything setup correctly in After Effects and rendered out. However, when I preview it, I'm getting a few frames of black between the animation and the menu. The menu is a still photoshop file and the transition doesn't  have any black frames in it. Any ideas on how to get these to be seamless?

[Stan Jones]

Such transitions may not appear correctly until you are playing from a disk (or finished, built project). So first, build to an image and see what you have.

Of more concern, Encore never resolved a problem that produced a pause at a menu loop point, and I don't recall if this also applied to transitions.

See this link. The "precomposed" website if closed, but you can see the text be hind the banner. In the end, Jon discovered that the "fix" did not actually fix the problem.

Encore Blu-ray Loop Point Fix! | Precomposed | Blu-Ray and DVD Authoring and Packaging Solutions

[neil wilkes]

You are making a Blu-ray, yes?

The only way I know of to eliminate this is to use BD-J authoring, which is not supported by Encore.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

I will be making a Blu-Ray and a DVD. I did make a disc to test and the black frames do not seem to appear. I've always just accepted that loop point pause.

[Averdahl]

Byron Nash, have you burned the disc?

Previewing in Encore will indeed give you black frames while the burned DVD/Blu-ray will work as expected if you have done it right. Today i only burn Blu-ray and all of them have motion menues with transitions between menues and button transitions and everything is seamless.

Sometimes it´s better to have the transitions between menues as separate assets: Menu A > Transition from Menu A to Menu B > Menu B. No need to use the loop point feature in Encore. It has it´s pros and it has it´s cons.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

In my tests I was able to get a DVD to transition smoothly. However my most recent and first successful BD from this job has black frames at every transition, front and back. I do have separate files for each transition made.

[Averdahl]

I made a short test BD disc that you can download and burn to view. It is a simple project with two menues, button transitions to every movie and button transitions before either one of the two movies and button transitions between the two separate menues.

On a softwareplayer, PowerDVD 17 i see no black frames between transition and i dont see any black frames between transitions on my BD Player, OPPO BDP-93, connected to my television. For me this disc is 100% seamless.

1. Download this zip file: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

2. Un-zip the file.
3. Burn the file to a BD disc.

4. View the disc.

Please report back your findings.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

That works smoothly on my BD player Averdahl. I had a disc working smoothly on a DVD, but when I moved the project to a BD it all failed. I'm also having an issue with the motion menu. It animates in like yours, but I can't get the buttons to respond when  they pop on or if I do get them to respond, they are up the whole time. I've made many motion menus in the past so I'm not sure what's happening.

[Averdahl]

How did you create each project in Encore, as separate projects or as one (1) project and then just used the Project Settings to switch between DVD and Blu-ray (or vice versa)?

Always create two projects, one for DVD and one for BD. For DVD, use SD assets and for BD use HD assets.

And, i had similar issues once and it was actually a black frame in one of the transitions. So import the menu assets into Premiere Pro and place them butt to butt on a matching timeline and playback and see if they playback without black frames to rule out the assets.

Also note when having issues with Encore the best and most time efficient way to solve the issue is to start a new project in Encore and re-build everything from scratch and never use Overrides.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

I have two separate projects with the correctly sized media for each one. However, I believe I did start with the DVD project and systematically replaced assets and timelines to get to the BD.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

The DVD version is behaving. The only issue I'm having on that one is the one I mentioned where the looping and buttons aren't cooperating.

[Averdahl]

However, I believe I did start with the DVD project and systematically replaced assets and timelines to get to the BD.

That´s the issue. Create a new project from scratch.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

Tried that to no avail. Arrgggh.

[Averdahl]

I never use Loop Points in Encore. I use separate assets, iow one asset for the fade in, one asset for the menu. By doing this i never have to use loop points. I found that this elliminate the black frame issue to 100%.

The drawback is that it takes some planning and it takes longer time and it is more assets to keep track of, to know what they do or don´t do. You can download the project i used to create the BD disc here: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

Unzip the file and open Averdahl_BD.ncor in Encore and locate the files located in the Menues folder. I use prefixes on my assets, 00 for intro/fade up, 01 for main menu, 02 for chapter menu, 99 for button transitions. This has helped me to keep track of the assets.

Open up the project and maybe you will find something that will help you with the issue.

[cre12002789d10u16954438]

Two differences in how my project is setup compared to yours. I had a timeline going from the intro animation to the main menu. You had a menu doing the same thing.  The second difference was I'm using PSD static images for the menus instead of 10 second encoded movies. I'll try replicating your process and see if it helps.

One question, why do you have #20 loops and not "Forever" on the menus?

[Averdahl]

One question, why do you have #20 loops and not "Forever" on the menus?

Old habit actually.

Regarding the 10 second encoded videos: I normally use 30 second or 60 second assets for my menues but did this as 10 seconds to keep the size of the project down.