DVD authoring software to replace Encore?

mainstreetprod

mainstreetprod

Veteran
I'm moving from FCP 7 to Premiere via the cloud. All I really need is Premiere and Encore so rather than the whole package, I'm just getting Premiere for $19 a month. Don't want to pay $30 more just for Encore and it seems they have phased it out anyway- can't find it in the list of available apps. What is an alternative? Need to be able to author Blu Rays also. Can't install DVD studio pro on my new iMac as the initial installation disk is Power PC and that's no longer supported.
 
Encore comes included with Premiere Pro, as does Adobe Media Encoder. But, as there is no Encore CC, you will need to install Premiere Pro CS6 to get it, which also comes included with your subscription.
 
Amadou, how much CC subscription do you get until it adds up to the price Adobe used to charge for their CS6 Master Suite? By my tally, almost 3 years.

BTW, when paired with Media Encoder, Encore has been fantastic for me. Jim is right, if you already have a CC subscription, you get access to Encore CS6, so you should just download that.
 
Finn, you are making a double mistake.

(1) You assume Media Ecode actually does a good job at encoding. It does not. The DVD output is mediocre at best, and the encoding speed is poor.

(2) You assume I need the Master Suite. I don't. I just need Premiere and AE. You assume I plan on upgrading every 2-3 years. I don't. I only upgrade when there is a major benefit. I skipped CS4, I skipped CS6 and CC. I have had no need to upgrade since CS5. Finally, you assume Adobe will maintain this pricing. If histoy teaches us one thing it is that companies can be bought out, new management can change the rules.

CC is for suckers.
 
I have no problem with Encore. It's both detailed and easy to use. If you subscribe to CC, you get the CS6 suite which will allow you to use Encore. It's a pain to install with CC but it will work.
 
Rayden said:
I have no problem with Encore. It's both detailed and easy to use. If you subscribe to CC, you get the CS6 suite which will allow you to use Encore. It's a pain to install with CC but it will work.
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I've been doing DVD and BluRay authoring, replication, and consulting since the 90's so I've looked at and used quite a few of these programs. There are a lot of problems with Encore. One of the biggest is that in trying to be a BluRay, DVD, and Flash app it's not able to do any of the three completely because they're three different things with three different feature sets! BluRays don't work the same as DVDs. Encore doesn't let you build your BD main menu using the type of always on popup structure that most commercial BluRays use. You have to make it just like it was a DVD, but since BluRays aren't really supposed to work like that you wind up with all sorts of issues, like no transitions, blackouts, routing problems, etc.
Then there's the little things that just make no sense like how Encore needs a few frames in between subtitles. Huh? Blinking subtitles? What's that about?
Try taking an Encore BluRay to replication…oh right, can't do that without other software or some major fees at the factory. Are the AME created video streams even replication compliant? I hope they've fixed that by now.
Try doing spec level programming on a DVD using the GPRMs…oh right that's not really there either.

The worst part of all this? Considering what's out there for the little guys who just need to make a BluRay and DVD copy here and there Encore is still one of the better options. That's just sad that your best option isn't even that good and the company making it has all but disowned it years ago. It's not like they couldn't have just fixed it back when everyone needed to make discs. On the plus side, Encore CS6 is at least somewhat stable.
 
I hear you Andrius. But...what software for the little guy can do all those things?

I haven't found it yet. (Believe me, I really would like to.)
 
The site looks cheesy but the software is incredible. It is fast and provides the best DVD image I've seen within this type of software. I have not looked back since I started using it.
 
Amadou said:
Encore is a piece of crap
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I disagree. Encore is a very complete and powerful software, when you know how to use it.
Finn Yarbrough said:
when paired with Media Encoder, Encore has been fantastic for me.
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I've had some issue with Media Encoder. I've encoded the same videos with another one (HCencoder) and it gave better results for Mpeg2. Same for h.264, which was better encoded with VidCoder or MeGui. Not as convenient, but quality was better.
Rayden said:
I have no problem with Encore. It's both detailed and easy to use.
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It's detailed and complete. I really like it.
Amadou said:
The site looks cheesy but the software is incredible. It is fast and provides the best DVD image I've seen within this type of software. I have not looked back since I started using it.
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I remember to have used it once, to try. Not bad, from what I remember. The encoder was pretty good, as I was using DV videos at the time.
 
Tmpgenc for encoding and DVDlab Pro for authoring is the best economical and quality solution I have found for producing DVDs.
 
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Sony's DVD Architect Pro can be bought stand-alone (or with Vegas Pro). It does DVD's and Blu-ray and includes the Dolby AC3 encoder for a 5.1 sound track. There is also a cheaper Studio version which might be enough for some projects, though I'm not exactly sure what the differences are. It's Windows only, but so is Tmpgenc.
 
drapeama said:
I disagree. Encore is a very complete and powerful software, when you know how to use it.
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I wouldn't go so far as to call Encore a piece of crap like Amadou did, but it's not complete and doesn't have the power that is needed to get everything out of a DVD or BluRay. It lacks access to a lot of the features of both the DVD and BluRay specs and imposes a lot of arbitrary limitations. If you've ever worked on authoring DVDs with a spec level authoring tool you'd see how limiting Encore is. Of course, Encore is a consumer level product but it just pains me to see it so limited as you'd think that a company like Adobe could have easily fixed those issues. In their defense, at least Adobe squashed a lot of really frustrating bugs that were prevalent in the versions before CS6.
 
Encore may not be a piece of crap as far as menu construction is concened but it is a piece of crap as far as generating a quality DVD is concerned. The image quality is on an amateur level. The generating of the DVD is incredibly slow. It is even surprising that a company like Adobe which provides professional software does not provide a professional DVD generating software.

All kiddng aside, given the prestige and the price of Adobe products... Encore totally undermines the level of quality professionals work in. It is therefore, by those professional standards, a piece of crap. :)
 
Amadou said:
Encore may not be a piece of crap as far as menu construction is concened but it is a piece of crap as far as generating a quality DVD is concerned.
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The Menu navigation can be designed in a quite complex way. I've done it once, with the playlist option: same timeline, three playlist, three layers of button routing to those three different playlists. Each one with a specific introduction video at the beginning.
It was nice to see the final result.
Amadou said:
The image quality is on an amateur level.
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Like the whole Media Encoder imho. The Main Concept thing isn't the best available. In fact, I've got better results using free tools, like HCencoder for Mpeg2 and VidCoder for h.264.
I prefer to "master" my streams in a separate software. Once I got the quality I want, bitrate calculated with the audio to get the maximum coverage within the allowed muxed bitrate of the timeline, then I simply import those tracks and design the navigation. Once it's done, it takes less than 5 minutes to compile the DVD folder structure and render either as .ISO or folders. Burning discs is a littler longer though.
Amadou said:
The generating of the DVD is incredibly slow.
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As I said, if you feed Encore with pre-compressed streams, as long as they remain within the legal range of the allowed muxed bitrate of a timeline, then it takes a couples minutes to compile the whole thing. Very easy.
That's usually what I do, I compress the "MASTER" using a third-party software, let it encode during the night. Then I simply feed Encore with those streams and it's a lot easier that way imho. But this is only my workflow, which works for me in this case.
 
Amadou said:
The image quality is on an amateur level.
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Ideally you should be creating your assets outside of your authoring tool, in no small part because there are better encoders out there than the MainConcept encoders Adobe licenses.

Working in this way, using Encore solely an an authoring tool, it's a pretty good piece of software. Probably the best out there in it's class. But like Andrius said, it's lacking the full set of features available to both DVD and BD disks. That is it's real failing.

And the only tools I can find that do offer the missing features start around $3,000. That's 10x the original price of Encore!
 
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Jim Simon said:
Ideally you should be creating your assets outside of your authoring tool, in no small part because there are better encoders out there than the MainConcept encoders Adobe licenses.
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For what I need, which isn't professional needs, Encore is plenty enough.
I mean, if you need something professional for your discs, have them pressed in a facility, no?
 
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