Another problem - Encore this time

A forum to share ideas and opinions on the equipment and technical aspects of film, video and AV making.
Post Reply
User avatar
Peter Stedman
Posts: 275
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:06 am
Location: Wiltshire

Another problem - Encore this time

Post by Peter Stedman »

Using Prem CS6 I occasionally make a DVD going direct into Adobe Encore, usually quite short programmes perhaps 30 minutes. This time I have a project edited down to 1hr 20 mins so in Encore I firstly set the DVD space required to 5.5GB and visually Encore shows plenty of space. This failed and would not completely write. I next set Encore to 6.50 GB and Encore visually showed apparently ample space, but this recording also failed at about approx 1hr 12 minutes.

Any suggestions or advice on this one please? I not really clued up on Encore at all and don’t use any of their menu items at all.

Cheers. Pete.
User avatar
TimStannard
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by TimStannard »

I'm afraid I can't be as helpful as I was with my pedantry as I don't use Encore, but shouldn't you be aiming at something less than 4.7GB (the maximum that a single layer DVD can hold)?
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
User avatar
John Roberts
Posts: 320
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:42 am
Contact:

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Peter,

I'm sorry I'm not at all familiar with Encore - I use Sony's DVD Architect - and this has a 'Fit To Disc' option. Basically this means that if selected, the program will compress large projects so that they will fit on the disc, without you having to set the size yourself. There might be a similar option on Encore.

Also, as far as I am aware a standard DVD only has a capacity of 4.7GB so I'm not sure how you can write 5.5GB or 6.5GB of data to the disc? Or am I missing something?

Hope this helps?

John
User avatar
John Roberts
Posts: 320
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:42 am
Contact:

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by John Roberts »

Dammit! Tim writes faster and far less than I do! :lol:
User avatar
Peter Stedman
Posts: 275
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:06 am
Location: Wiltshire

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by Peter Stedman »

Thanks Friends. Far be it for me to think I know better than you :D My stand alone Sony DVD recorder has various setting to put more than the standard amount onto a DVD. I can set it to 1hr/1.5hrs/2hrs/2.5hrs and 3hrs. Naturally the quality drops as the size of the file increases. Encore has the setting to do likewise and a visual blue bar to show what is being put onto a disc.

If I have to abandon making the DVD this way, what do I export the file from Premiere as to save and then put it onto another DVD burner programme? I used to have version of Nero that I used to do this with.
Thanks again. Pete.
User avatar
TimStannard
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by TimStannard »

John Roberts wrote:Dammit! Tim writes faster and far less than I do! :lol:
I am going to frame this. It's the first time ever anyone has accused me of being concise :lol:
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
User avatar
TimStannard
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:20 pm
Location: Surrey

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by TimStannard »

Peter Stedman wrote:Thanks Friends. Far be it for me to think I know better than you :D My stand alone Sony DVD recorder has various setting to put more than the standard amount onto a DVD. I can set it to 1hr/1.5hrs/2hrs/2.5hrs and 3hrs. Naturally the quality drops as the size of the file increases. Encore has the setting to do likewise and a visual blue bar to show what is being put onto a disc.
Peter, I think that says it all. Your DVD recorder is attempting o squeeze more visual and audio information into the space available (4.7GB) hence the drop in quality. Technically I guess you could squeeze more and more "time" into the same 4.7GB and the quality would drop to a point where it wasn't even vaguely watchable.

What you appear to be trying to specify is to squeeze 5GB or 6GB information into a "pot" that will only take 4.7GB. A bit is a bit. A byte is a byte. An hour of video can be 3GB of high quality video or 200MB of very poor quality video.

5GB of information will always take up 5GB.

1 and a half hour's worth of video cam take up very few GB or lots of GB depending on how much compression (roughtly = loss of quality) is applied.

I'm not sure I've really explained that clearly.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Michael Slowe
Posts: 807
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 4:24 pm

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by Michael Slowe »

I'm not an Encore user either but I see this as a compression problem. Everyone has correctly pointed out the reason for the non acceptance of the file, the limit for a DVD is under 5Gb's. Instead of letting the Sony recorder do a compression it would be far better to use something like the H264 codec to compress the larger file. This seems to do a fantastic job when sending something to Vimeo, for example. I often compress a 50GB file to 2Gb and I'm amazed at how little quality appears to be lost. Obviously a one and a half hour production would have to be compressed even more but one of the recognised codecs using something like Compressor would be the way to go.
Roy1
Posts: 466
Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 4:04 pm

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by Roy1 »

Hi. I'm not sure if this is going to help or not, so I apologise in advance if it doesn't. I use encore to make a disc image from the timeline of premiere pro 5 and then burn this image to a DVD or Blu-ray disc using IMGburn. I find that a disc image really uses much less GB's and loses very little if any
quality. I've never had a failure yet. Perhaps I'm lucky.
User avatar
Peter Stedman
Posts: 275
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:06 am
Location: Wiltshire

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by Peter Stedman »

Thanks for further replies. Problem is explained by my own ignorance of course. I will try to briefly explain but know that writer’s explanations are often difficult to understand.

I have a stand-alone Sony DVD recorder that can be set to record 1hr/1.5hrs/2hrs/2.5hrs/3hrs etc. on a standard DVD. I use this regularly to copy from old long VHS tapes. (Never mind the quality!) It’s not connected in any way to my PC.

As mentioned, I use Premiere CS6 with Encore and have noticed that in Encore it’s possible to increase the amount of GB that can be exported to disc and assumed, quite wrongly, that the DVD recorder in the PC would behave as does the stand-alone Sony recorder. What a silly boy I am. Of course it wont. It would be OK if I had dual layer discs of course but I have never used those. Well, we continue to live and learn I hope. End of subject and thanks for your suggestions.

Thanks Roy for your suggestion. I use encore to make a disc image from the timeline of premiere pro 5 and then burn this image to a DVD or Blu-ray disc using IMGburn. I find that a disc image really uses much less GB's and loses very little if any quality. I've never had a failure yet. Perhaps I'm lucky.

I might give this a go, although I haven’t had any previous problems using Premiere direct to Encore and a disc.

Thanks again. Pete.
User avatar
John Roberts
Posts: 320
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:42 am
Contact:

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Peter - I've just written a lengthy reply, but you've beaten me to it!

As you know, and as Michael stated, we are talking about a compression problem. You simply need to compress your project down to a size that will fit onto a standard DVD, obviously if there is too much compression the image quality will suffer, in which case you might have to consider other alternatives to a DVD. But see how you get on first :-)

Roy's method is not wrong, it's just a different way of achieving the same result. Creating a disc image and burning this to a DVD should create exactly the same result as if you burn directly to a DVD, i.e. The disc image should be the same. However, this option can be useful because you are in fact 'telling' your software the maximum size and format of your required end result (DVD standard, 4.7GB maximum) and the software will compress the project sufficiently and create the file for you.

Good luck, Peter.

John :)
col lamb
Posts: 680
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 9:51 pm
Location: Preston, Lancashire

Re: Another problem - Encore this time

Post by col lamb »

Your hard drive in the PC may be say 500Gb but once formatted it will be less, the same with a DVD.

So compress more and produce an IMG file then, use the freeware IMGBURN to write the file to the DVD.

I have been suggesting this method for years as Encore is a bit flaky at times burning to Disc.
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
Find me on Facebook, Colin Lamb
Post Reply