Encore Import Chapter List

wilian_iralzabal wrote: I know that Encore has been dropped like a hot potato. However, producing BD disks from my taping of events to customers is my only way of making an income. I can't sell a .Mov file to a person. They want "Something I can stick into my BD player and see the video. With menus and chapters". And, I use Mac OS X exclusively, that leaves Adobe Encore as the only solution out there. All I want is the ability to import chapters , the position and name, from ANY type of editable file, be it CSV, HTML, XML, flat file, Excell, SQLite database, or what ever. I DO NOT use Premier Pro, I use FCPX, I have a lot of time and money in FCPX. FCPX will produce an export in XML. I can convert FCPX to what ever format you need Adobe!, just please update Encore so that I can save me a lot of time with importing chapter information. I will even pay for this. Please note that you can not import ANY FCPX (or any other video application) project into Pr, all transitions, fonts and effects have to be IDENTICAL in both Pr and FCPX or the import will completely change you project ! And we know that this is not possible. PLEASE Adobe, listen to us PS Why is the project file encrypted??? PR isn't

Hi Willian.

Can FCPX not output a simple chapter list as markers, like Premiere Pro can (in addition to being able to import FCPX XML files, for what it's worth) in a CSV form or a text file? I freely admit that it really should be possible to simply import a list but this is often more difficult than you might think for a variety of reasons (and I do not know if this helps but in Scenarist we can import from a correctly specified CSV file but if anything is even slightly off it will cause havoc) - I find it far simpler to do this manually by copy/paste each point's timecode & check in the reference monitor that it is going in the right place - but there are gotchas lurking in this approach in the form of I-Frames.

I-Frames are automatically created at designated Chapter Points out of a Premiere Pro export and unless you have an I-Frame at that exact point then you cannot add a chapter marker, and with all things NTSC the correct timecode is a must - depending on the application being used to make the MPEG-2 file I have seen marker lists using 29.97 Drop Frame, 29.97 non-drop & even 30fps and this makes a huge difference in placement. I know you only use FCPX. That is up to you, but what do you use to make the final Blu-ray compliant files? Compressor is not the best out there you know.........

I would recommend outputting your edited file from FCPX to a ProRes or a Lagarith AVI (gotta watch those gamma shifts with MOV files) and then bring this into Premiere Pro CC latest (I am using CC 2015.4 as I cannot yet update as am mid-project on a few jobs) and create your final Blu-ray compliant files from there using either the TMPGEnc 264 plugin (a snip at $75) or the more expensive x264 Pro plugin (If Quicktime compatibility with MP4 is important you need the latter). Set the generic markers where you need them in Premiere, and once all are correct turn these into Chapter Markers and then you will get an I-Frame at exactly each point it is needed once the output is imported into Encore.

This really is the easiest way as there will not be any updates to Encore no matter how much any of us want this to be so. Never gonna happen. Also, if you are serious about Blu-ray creation I really do recommend a good PC built by someone who knows what they are doing - not an office thing from PC World or the like, but a properly specified NLE system - as you will have much, much more in the way of flexibility. Right tools for the job, etc.

Hope this helps - and awaiting your input

Adobe licensed the authorcore for Encore from Sonic. That is the main reason Encore's file structure is not accessible. Also, Adobe lost the licensing for future/modified versions when Rovio bought Sonic/Roxio. Adobe would have to create a new Encore from scratch, and it is just not going to happen.

I would have loved an import chapters option!

Does FCPX export a chapters file?

Switching to Premiere Pro is the only easy way to get chapters from the editing timeline into Encore. (And yes, I understand that is not acceptable for  you.)

One option is to manually add chapters in Encore. It sounds bad, but it is possible, and I had to do this in an older version that prevented import of chapters markers from Premiere. Use the list exported from FCPX or, if it does not do such an export, write down the timecodes in the editing app and add in Encore.

Or find another BD authoring app that will allow you to import chapters. There are some options out there, but I do not which ones may do this.