The worst decision Adobe ever made [Encore is discontinued]

[Rely9]

After numerous attempts to speak to someone at Adobe I have been reduced to airing my grievance in this forum. The problem is that Adobe in all their arrogance stopped production of Encore and remaining versions of Encore have become dysfunctional with updated Mac OS's Every attempt to discuss this with someone at Adobe who actually matters has been futile. I am sent to tech support in India, which cannot address this issue, or here to the forum. There is no e-mail address to complain about this issue. The one non-scripted response I got was that DVD's and Blu-rays are obsolete. This couldn't possibly be more inaccurate. A large part of my business and that of my colleagues is DVD and Blu-ray authoring for clients. Why some corporate imbecile decided that Encore was the one program to discontinue is beyond belief. There is no rational justification for this and the fact that Adobe management has shielded themselves from their customers is corporate arrogance at it's worst. Adobe expects me to pay monthly for their production suite yet they have removed one of the most important production apps. They have not replaced the app and they recommend searching the internet for another authoring program. This is not acceptable as Adobe apps are made to work with each other and are preferable to other apps.. God forbid one of the high and mighty out in La La Land on the West Coast would actually speak to one of their customers. I guess they are too busy driving all the working people out of the cities.

[Nancy OShea]

There's nothing to discuss.  Adobe discontinued Encore in 2012. That decision is final. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Encore

Quite frankly there are much better DVD /Blu-Ray authoring alternatives available from competing companies. Encore was never that great to begin with.   Have you looked at Apple DVD Studio Pro or Roxio?

[Rely9]

I have been looking into other programs. I tried a few free trials which I didn't like. Some of the very high rated programs are only available for PC. Would you know of an authoring program that has seperate video and audio tracks like Encore? Thanks

[Rely9]

I have looked at Toast bit I don't know anyone who uses it that I can ask about it. Lke everything it has mixed reviews but generally they are positive. 

[John T Smith]

Adobe did not make the decision to stop developing Encore... the owner of the key internal program modules withdrew the license

An alternative forum https://forums.creativecow.net/adobeencoredvd
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/

[Rely9]

Thanks, I did look at some of these but they are only available for PC. At ths point I am goingto set up an older Mac with Snow Leopard as that is the last Mac OS which Encore works well with.  Toast has good reviews so I may try that next. I'm also trying to find someone in my area I can pay to author for me. 

[Michael Grenadier]

welcome to the real world.  Years ago, I spent weeks authoring my website on apple's iweb.  Apple shut it down without a replacement.  I spent years honing my finalcutpro 1 - 7 skills.  Apple shut it down.   welcome to capitlism at it's finest.  come the revolution, it'll probably just get worse....  

But the fact is from a hard-nosed business perspective, dvd and blu-ray distribution is becoming less and less important and adobe is far from the only corporation making these kind of decisions.  Have you noticed apple no longer includes a dvd burner on the computers?  

[Rely9]

Thanks for your response. It's crazy when something works and gets discontinued. I need DVDs and Blu-rays as I film a lot of events that include DVD sales. One thing I really like about encore is that the DVDs look better than other programs I've tried. I'm not really a big tech person and this has been difficult vfor me. Like I told the last guy, at this point I'd rather just pay someone in my area to author for me. I did look at some other highly rated programs but they are only for PC Do you know why this is?

[John T Smith]

>only for PC Do you know why this is?

Market share... aka number of computers sold for Windows -vs- Mac and the potential for software sales

[Jeff Bugbee]

How is it arrogrance that Adobe stopped supporting a product that was used by maybe 1% of their userbase? And that's probably a high estimate. The old version still works. Use that if you want to use Encore.

Sorry, optical media is obsolete. Just becase you continue to use it doesn't make it any less so. My VHS player still works. It is also obsolete.

[Media Editor]

Cyberlink Power2Go 13 can import H.264 video files.  If you select the format AVCHD you can burn the video(s) on a DVD.  The quality is as good Blu-ray.  You can put 25-30 minutes on a DVD.  This program does not reincode the videos.  Cyberlink has a free trial.

[Rely9]

Thank you, I will check that out.

[Rely9]

I'm more frustrated with Adobe for their customer support and lack of human beings to speak with. I've never dealt with a business that pawns all issues off on to a public forum even though some of the responses I've gotten have been helpful. It's easy to throw out an unsubstantiated figure, but in my little corner of the world so called obsolete media is still well in demand. I do have Encore but I have to have a designated computer with an older OS in order for it to work properly. It wouldn't have  be a big deal for Adobe to have kept the program and updated it. As far as VHS, I have stacks of them I'm converting for clients to DVD. I have to mention also the value of DVD and Blu-ray for archival storage. 

[John T Smith]

>It wouldn't have  be a big deal for Adobe to have kept the program and updated it

As I posted earlier, Adobe lost the license to the program modules that made Encore work (everything related to the actual content authoring and writing to disc was licensed, all Adobe did was add a user interface to tell those modules what to do)

Creating an entirely new program, without infringing on the license for the withdrawn program modules, was very evidently a decision that Adobe was not prepared to make... so, for Adobe, it WAS a big deal... ie, more cost than a new program was worth in potential sales

[Michael Grenadier]

just be aware that although you can burn the files on a dvd, it will not play on a settop dvd player...  settop dvd's will only play standard def dvd's that meet the dvd specs.

[Stan Jones]

Rely9,

> I do have Encore but I have to have a designated computer with an older OS in order for it to work properly. 

Just FYI, I use Encore CS6 with Win10.

I agree that disk authoring is still relevant even as I also believe that on line/streaming/file based delivery is increasingly required.

Stan

[Rely9]

Thanks, I don't have a PC though I may have to look into getting one just to author with, as some of the apps for PC are well reviewed.

[R Neil Haugen]

I understand your frustrations. I too used to do a fair number of exported DVDs ... well, fair number for a small one-person shop where they were for individual clients, so I'd make maybe 2-6 per client. But still, I needed to.

I haven't had a client want one in a couple years now ... so I've gone from lamenting the loss of updated Encore to not even using the optical drive on my computer for about anything. My clients all want files on flashdrives.

Stan is right about the decision being out of Adobe's hands. It was kind of an interesting situation, as the company that bought the company Adobe licensed the authoring software from ... bought that company not to sell and use the licenses from it, but ... to shut it down. They owned a competing setup, and were also heavily investing in "post-optical processes" as it was described, and clearly felt their future was better if that authoring licensing went buh-bye. Thereby forcing ... no, excuse me, allowing! ... people to purchase their new better solution. Ahem. (We must have our verbiage aligned with modern forward-thinking and broad-spectrum industry-wide movement, and always recognize the need for generating new and significant value for our prized clientele.)

Adobe was able to get one concession from them ... instead of immediately shutting it down, if Adobe promised to 1) never update Encore and 2) only include it with the CS6 version of Premiere, they could for at least some time make it available. Yea. And that was quite a few years ago now.

Apple doesn't want to support ancient tech either. Such stupid things as audio jacks in phones, how LAST CENTURY is that! Ah well.

And for me, the biggest 'dumb' decision wasn't shutting down Encore, it was shutting down SpeedGrade ... !

Neil

[Rely9]

Thanks. I sorta get it but it will never fully make sense to me. I don't understand why Adobe just didn't develop and own Encore outright especially as they promote the integration of all their creative apps. If authoring is so irrelevant then why shut it down? I feel that they could have tried to work something out. (Right now some techno-nerd reading this is like "The app has become even more obsolete since he started this thread) I really don't like the tech side of this business, essential as it is. At least I know I'm not the only one who feels frustrated with it.

[R Neil Haugen]

I know enough from talking with a few of the staffers at NAB and MAX ... the decision to "deprecate" Encore was not one they liked. It was the only possibility of moving forward with Encore as it was that they had available.

And from talking with other folks about this type of process ...  doing anything else would have required licensing authoring from another company, and completely rebuilding the code that was Encore to the new licensed process. Which would have been a significant cost, and their data showed a rather low number of users still using the app, and projected that to fall quickly over the next couple years. So the upper management types didn't see a payback for cost incurred.

A guy at NAB also pointed out that the company Adobe had been licensing authoring from would have studied the code of any newly licensed app intensely, and any sign that perhaps two characters of "their" code were included would have been an immediate lawsuit situation. Oh joy.

Gotta love business in the modern world, eh?

Subsequently, there have been two other factors ... several of the other companies that Adobe has licensed code/processes from have gotten rather testy about continuing the process. Including a lot of people in blue power suits with briefcases. Anytime they get involved, sanity and multiple options flee the room. Sadly.

And they've also needed to drastically update and trim the operating code for current products. So continuing support for older gear has had to go.

And therefore ... they've dropped support and the ability to still download the earlier products ... I understand the technical and legal issues involved, but like you and most users ... wish it weren't so.

Neil

[Rely9]

Thanks, I don't quite understand the whole modules and codes but you gave the best explaination. I didn't realize that Adobe farmed out work like that. Usuallly when you create something for a company, the company retains the rights to the content. Every company from pharmaceutical to publishing practices this. It's sad that they had to make a little program so complicated. What did the other company have to gain by not working something out with Adobe? I admit that I am not the most tech savvy person, but a lot of people aren't. Thanks for not responding like I'm some geezer who the world has passed by. I get the same thing from younger people about music, then I play a record for them and they're blown away by the obsolete sound of vinyl.

[R Neil Haugen]

A lot of people don't realize computer processes and code are as subject to copyright and patents as any physical object or written work. So when someone creates something very specific like DVD authoring software, they immediately set out to copyright/patent their work so it is sellable. That's how they make their living, selling their work.

The vast majority of programs that authored DVDs used something like one of four or so different licensed codes. By the time you have four/five different licensed methods for doing something so specific, it gets very difficult to find a way to code it differently enough from one or more of the current protected processes that could withstand an infringement suit.

And that suit will happen. So you both would spend a ton of cash to recreate something already out there usable ... and another ton protecting your work from the other companies owning protected processes.

At that point, the rational method is to simply license someone else's code.

You mention pharmaceuticals ... really? Pharmaceutical companies are among the most aggressive in the world at protecting the licenses to their creations. Anyone producing a medicine that is still under patent protection is doing so under a license from the holder of the patent. Period.

Which is exactly what Adobe did to acquire authoring code for Encore.

Neil