Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Authoring BluRay in Adobe Encore CS4

For nearly a month I couldn’t create a BluRay in Adobe Encore CS4.  I tried all kinds of different export options for my media (H.264 vs. MPEG-2, different audio formats, different file sizes, different bit rates, VBR 2 pass vs. VBR single pass, etc.).  I tried changing the location of the files used in the project and the location to where the .iso was being written.  I tried shortening the name and removing spaces from all files involved.  I even sacrificed a live rooster under the full moon while chanting preset options.

None of it worked.

The answer to the problem is so simple it’s embarrassing… for Adobe.  If the thing that ABSOLUTELY prevents Encore from creating a disc/image is this simple to fix, why wouldn’t Adobe release a patch to fix it?

Here it is: the name of the disc, in other words, the name you give the disc in your project (not the .iso file, or the name of the project file, or the name of any of the other files involved), cannot be more than 15 letters, or the disc cannot be created.  You will get this error:

Blu-Ray error: “fatal error”, code: “6”, Note:”

I did come across this solution in my previous searches, but I didn’t understand that when people were referring to “disc name,” they didn’t mean the name of the file you were creating (the .iso image) or the name of the project.  Because it seemed like something as simple as the actual “name” couldn’t possibly have anything to do with an entire BluRay authoring session failing, I didn’t realize they meant the name you type in in this field:

DiscName

If you make sure that the name in the “name” field above (where it says “Disc Name”) is short, your BluRay will burn.

Really?  FIX THIS (or at least document it), Adobe.

 

For what it’s worth, these are the settings I use when exporting my media from Premiere via Adobe Media Encoder:

MPEG-2 BluRay, 1920x1080, 23.976, VBR 2 pass, bit rate min: 25 – target: 30 – max: 35, Dolby AC3 audio at 320Kbps, “maximum render quality” ticked.

When creating a new Adobe Encore project, I select NTSC, 1920x1080, 23.976 (but oddly the Encore timeline still always shows 30 frames… can’t figure this out).

If you alter the length of the audio or video on the timeline, you are apt to receive other error messages that will prevent the project from rendering.  I advise making sure the audio/video are exactly as you want them in your Encore project before exporting them from Premiere.  I also am a fan of setting the Encore Chapter markers in Premiere.

5 comments:

John said...

Thanks had the same problem under Vista, I'll try your settings.

Anonymous said...

I can understand this problem because 15 is such a big number, it's hard to imagine anything bigger.
(1) This issue is incredibly embarrassing!
(2) You saved me an a lot of time, thanks a million!

(I'm using Encore CS4 4.0.1.048 doing an h.264 build. This little name change fixed the error so I could build my already transcoded file)

Joe Michelli said...

Dear invisible blog, Thanks for this posting, it was very helpful and it worked to a degree I was able to burn a BD-RE test disc with one chapter. I have not been able to get my motion menu to work however, sound yes, no picture. All my menus are built in PhotoShop to spec just like for DVDs, when they're brought into Encore CS4 I make sure chapter links etc. are all set up correctly and the check project window shows all is good. I guess my question is can you actually make a motion menu for a blu ray disc just like a DVD? Is there a special trick? I can get more specific if it would help.

The Invisible said...

Hi, Joe.

I actually haven't created any BluRay's with motion menus, but from I can tell, they should work the same as with a regular DVD (with the added option of pop-up capability).

I did recently create some DVD projects with motion menus, and created a post with some issues I ran into there.

My question is this... does the motion not work on the actual burned BluRay, or are you not seeing it in the project preview window? You may need to click the render button (farthest button in the upper left corner in the preview window) in the Project Preview window to get your video to show.

Unknown said...

This is a great blog post..I am glad that while i was browsing i saw your blog and it gives me a lot of ideas..thanks