Originally posted by: zion
Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects are the programs I use for making DVD menus. You will find that After Effects has better quality transitions than Premiere, and the more technical things you want to do with your video can be done easier and more efficient with it. Master all three programs and you will have a very powerful package in your arsenal.

I have not yet compared sega's SC ROTJ to my US discs, but I should be doing some caps on my player tonight and have something to show you tomarrow.

Also, look for our newest article to be up within the next hour.

Yes Zion... the Adobe package is quite nice! I don't use Premiere (that's primarily for capturing, right?). The project I've done so far has consisted of this:

1) Laserdisc connected to Sony RDR-GX7 set top recorder. Once video is captured to dvd, I rip the entire contents to the computer. I have several commercial apps that I use for editing and joining videos. This allows for totally seamless attaching of the multiple sides of the discs. Once I have a single video file perfectly edited I create timelines within Encore. Separate timelines for the actual movie, and other timelines for each supplemental file (bonus features, etc.).

2) Once I have the footage in Encore, I proceed to create custom menu's. This is where you can get really creative since Encore allows you to edit within the other Adobe apps (Photoshop is used quite a bit for the menus). I've created very nice motion menu's, including full chapter search menus with animated icons, sounds, etc. Also allows creating Easter eggs, multiple audio stream, subtitles, and lots more. ****When I wrote my last post and was corrected for my statement about it being BETTER than DVDLab, this is what I was talking about. DVDLab is a decent app, but it's not even in the same league as Adobe Encore and the other Adobe apps! DVD Lab is more user friendly, but once you know Encore in-and-out it is a great program!!

My last set of SW dvd's were decent: I was working with a Definitive LD set and a lower-end Pioneer player. I just bought a brand new Definitive set (still shrinkwrapped) and tonight I just purchased a Pioneer Elite CDL-79 player (it is in MINT condition and was purchased from a film producer's estate in West Hollywood). This is supposedly one of the best Pioneer players (with the exception of the CLD-99 and the infamous Japanese players: S9, X9, and X0) I'm also now going to be working completely with Dual layer discs to allow for better picture quality (Ritek Dual Layer Printable dvd's).

So... that's my project that I'm working on. I plan on sharing updates with OT.COM when I have something to post. I'd like to one day have my name added to the list of projects out there. Obviously mine won't compare to the X0 project, but I plan on putting out some great quality stuff.

And yes, the 1st version of Encore was buggy, but 1.5 fixed sooo many issues and is a very stable program. I had the first version as well.

--RickWJ324