replacement for Encore

[leond26637011]

  Since adobe Quinn quit encore I have been looking four a replacement for our DVD menu editing and building. Can someone suggest a replacement, I really need it ASAP

[Title edited for question clarity and future forum search... Mod]

[Nancy OShea]

I use PowerDirector from Cyberlink.

https://www.cyberlink.com/learning/powerdirector-video-editing-software/70/dvd-menu---disc-authoring...

[rsutter9950]

Nancy,

I personally use Premiere and BlackMagic Resolve for all my video editing. You say you use PowerDirector for DVD authoring? I really miss Encore and got to really dig deep with that app but now that it is gone I am at a loss! Does PowerDirector provide tools that I can create custom menus similar to Encore? I really can't see myself using or wanting to learn a new video editing suite since I have used Premiere/AE since version 1

[Nancy OShea]

@rsutter9950,

Use whichever video editing software you wish.

I rarely if ever burn DVDs anymore.  Digital downloads and streaming media have rendered them almost obsolete.  Wondershare can make menus and burn DVDs & Blu-rays.

https://dvdcreator.wondershare.com/

[DustyakaDusty]

Wondershare DVD Creator is nowhere near Encore as far as customization. You cannot build custom menus with it, you can only modify existing templates. The organization I work for unfortunately still distributes lots of DVDs, so I'm looking for something with Encore-like capabilities for actual custom menu building as well. PowerDirector looks promising, although I haven't spent much time with it. Is anyone familiar with Power2Go, also from CyberLink?

[rsutter9950]

Dusty - I agree. I actually got my CS6 Encore to load so whenever I need a DVD or BD I am happy!

[Andy 1968]

It would be nice if Adobe would just make a Blu-ray/DVD creation program for us. 

[Peru Bob]

It would be nice if Adobe would just make a Blu-ray/DVD creation program for us. 

By @Andy 1968

I'd like that too (note my avatar), but don't hold your breath.  It won't happen.  The demand and potential income revenue needed to justify the effort and expense by Adobe is just not there.

[John T Smith]

Both do author Blu-rays but DVD Architect has problems with H.264 so using MPEG2 is a must
Encore alternative http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/taw6.html
Also https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/dvd-architect/

[neil wilkes]

What to recommend all depends on exactly what you are needing to do - is the intended output for Blu-ray or DVD-Video?

All menu editing & creation should ideally be done in PhotoShop (this is how we do it, anyway) and authoring tools should ideally be treated as just that - assembly tools and not editors, otherwise you will (sooner or later) run into serious problems with "ghost assets" due to the abstraction layer nature of all the cheaper authoring tools.

So if you could let me know what you need to do, I will be happy to recommend.

For regular DVD, you will have to go a long, long way to beat Media Chance Labs DVD-Lab Pro 2. This does carry it's own built-in menu creation & layout tools as well as importing a layered PSD as well as separate TIF and BMP files and it really does work seriously well, with remarkably few issues as well as being seriously stable.

There is also a fully functional trial version available as well, and for straight DVD-V I cannot say enough good things about it.

[Colin_Steed]

Hi Neil

Does DVD-Lab Pro2 work on a Mac?

[R Neil Haugen]

Check with the website for that app, they will tell there.

(the other Neil ... )

[neil wilkes]

Hi Colin.

No, it doesn't - but it will run on any Windows system from XP onwards, specifically Windows 7, Vista or XP (32 or 64 bit editions) but I have heard of it running on W10 as well. You could create a very small Windows partition on your mac to run this (my BD-J code writer has a Windows partition on his Mac Book to test his code as well as to actually create in Scenarist BD (which also does not run on mac OS) and this causes no issue for the Mac side of the system. If you used exFAT as the external HDD file format (or else a copy of another lifesaver of a PC tool 'Mac Drive' which allows me to read a mac HFS+ system as easily as an NTFS one and work from both) then you would be covered 

Another (again, Windows only) invaluable DVD authoring tool that is absolutely invaluable is PGCEdit. This is the tool I use the most, and it gets use on literally every Video_TS authored now and it allows you to trace and rewrite (if necessary) every instruction on the authored title set as well as adding extra should it be needed and all without having to go through the hassle of recompiling.

[Colin_Steed]

Many thanks for your very helpful reply Neil. It's a shame there are no decent Mac solutions - which is surprising as most creative pros I know use Macs as first choice. Anyway, I'll weigh up whether to go through the learning curve of installing a Windows partition on my Mac or buying a cheap Windows laptop. I'll also have a look at PGCEdit - that sounds good.

[neil wilkes]

[quote]Many thanks for your very helpful reply Neil. It's a shame there are no decent Mac solutions - which is surprising as most creative pros I know use Macs as first choice. Anyway, I'll weigh up whether to go through the learning curve of installing a Windows partition on my Mac or buying a cheap Windows laptop. I'll also have a look at PGCEdit - that sounds good.[/quote]

There is always (assuming you can find it and assuming it will run, as it has been officially dropped) DVD Studio Pro on the Mac. This was Spruce Maestro back in the early days, annd at the time a serious contender to Daikin's 'Scenarist'. One was swallowed up by Apple & became DVDSP and the other licensed out to Sonic, who were swallowed in ther turn by Rovi in a hostile takeover & shut down as fast as possible. But I am letting my prejudices show and I apologise. DVDSP worked well once you got used to it's way of doing things and if memory serves it was also full specification, alongside Scenarist - few were full spec. When DVD Lab first came along it was good, but when they went to version 2 it was superb considering it was literally a fraction of the cost of Scenarist - but Scenarist was a full toolkit, including Mastering (which is not in DVD Lab Pro and if DDP is required, a 3rd party tool would be needed), as was DVDSP and the benefit of having this built right in cannot be overstated.

PGCEdit is a true 'swiss army knife' problem solving tool. It's not an authoring tool (even though you can effectively re-author a disc once ripped to it's original file structure as compiled by adding, removing or editing any of the command system (menu buttons) or the hidden functionality under the hood to say anything you choose) but a fault-fixing one, and because it sees what is truly there, rather than what the authoring tool says it is doing - there may always be a bug in the code that was never fixed as these are all considered to be obsolette, with the sole exception of Scenarist SD and BD these days, both of which are not only fully supported but in active development as well as bugfixes.

[Dale - TC]

I use VEGAS DVD Architect for $99.  It's okay, gets the job done, but I really miss Encore's more intuitive/more polished interface and its tight integration with Photoshop for designing custom menus.

[Andy 1968]

Adobe should make an update to Encore to create 4K Blu-ray discs. I would welcome that. Blu-ray disks are still needed from time to time. I want to be able create 4K Blu-ray disks for clients.

[Peru Bob · Accepted solution]

Encore is dead because of third party legal issues and will never be revived.

[neil wilkes]

Which is not strictly speaking correct.

At the time it was dropped, the previous owners of the Sonic AuthorCore had indeed discontinued not only the Encore AuthorCore (originally in Sonic's 'DVD Producer' tool) but also Scenarist SD & Scenarist BD whilst claiming they had done this because "nobody is making discs any more".

Since then, the situation has changed massively and Adobe could almost certainly - if they wanted to (and this is, I believe, the key point to remember) - redo a deal, as not only has there been a buyback of all the rights and a new company called Scenarist LLC been formed but the SD and BD systems are not only fully supported again but also in active development again!!!

This means that Scenarist LLC would almost certainly be open to relicensing the Encore AuthorCore back to Adobe - from their perspective income is income, and I would wager that Adobe have not even tried to talk to the new company. It iis now being run by the people who used to work for Sonic so they know their stuff and I can attest to the fact that Scenarist SD is under active development again, as well as Scenarist BD.

One more problem does still exist. In order to be legally allowed to sell Blu-ray as Blu-ray and to use any Blu-ray trademarks or logos requires the discs to be factory replicas - it is not allowed to create a BD-R and sell it as Blu-ray because Sony (who own the name, trademarks & specifications) consider all BD-R to be 'non compliant' and selling BD-R as 'Blu-ray' is liable to get you not only a 'cease & desist' order if Sony find out about it, but a stock destruction order if the wording 'Blu-ray' or 'Blu-ray disc' or 4K Blu-ray' or if any of the official logos are used in packaging, advertising or on the actual discs themselves is used.

So the current situation is entirely of Adobe's conscious decisions to drop optical disc support altogether - that is unless they have tried to re-license in the last 2 years and been turned down.

I suspect that they have never even bothered to try.

[R Neil Haugen]

What we suspect is worth about zilch. Still, we will all have our suspicions and thoughts, won't we?

The upper Adobe managers live and decide by metrics. One thing many app users don't realize is about half of Adobe are the apps we users work with ... Photoshop through Illustrator, the video apps, that group. The other half of Adobe is software for large organizations to do management and collaboration based on formative design principles followed up by aggressive, market-segmented AI and real-world integration of user experiences and causalities.

And if you can parse phrases like that, you too could be an upper Adobe manager!

For that crowd, if they see metrics telling them something, they jump at it. If not, they don't. They produce metrics by the Imperial ton somewhere, somehow ... and they don't share with us "normal" folk.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

And looking at my preceding post, I think I've spent too much time asking Adobe upper managers about things at NAB and MAX ... sigh. And reading the explanatory posts they tell me to go look at ...

Neil

[Andy 1968]

I like Encore but if there are to many licensing issues Adobe could create a new software program that works a lot like Encore. I would like to be able create 4K Blu-ray discs for clients.

[R Neil Haugen]

Their upper managers don't see the metrics indicating a 'need'. A lot of us disagree, but then ... most of the editors and colorists I know say they don't even have any optical drives on their massive rigs anymore.

Neil

[Ann Bens]

A lot of us disagree,

Who is us? there is still a demand for dvd dont underestimate that.

I would like to make 4K bluray unfortunately there is but one consumer level 4K UDH authoring software but its not compatible with Premieres output files and it does not make menus. So end of story.

[R Neil Haugen]

Ann,

You should know that I would love if they had a B-R/DVD authoring program. I've certainly said so around here a lot!. Which is why I said a lot of us disagree with the management.

Neil