Adobe Encore DVD: In the Studio

Building Projects

Once you have transcoded all of your media, you are all set to finally build your DVD. As described in the previous chapter, you should save your project before building, and use the Check Project function to search for problems (Encore also helpfully will prompt you to do these before a build).

Encore provides several different options for building a DVD, under both the Disc tab, and under the File → Build DVD menu. Typically, I use the following routine.

1. Create a DVD folder. This option collects and builds the DVD data into a folder on hard disk. This is the same data that is burned to a DVD disc (under a VIDEO_TS folder), but can be played locally using DVD player software. This is a good way to test your project before burning to disc, and you can also share your productions in this format over a network.

2. Make a DVD image. Next, I create a single data file (.img) containing the “image” of the entire contents of a DVD disc. This saves a snapshot of the disc, and I can quickly and efficiently burn multiple copies of the disc from the Image file, using Encore or another burning application.

3. Burn one or more DVD discs. Alternatively, I will burn a recordable DVD disc (R or RW) on a DVD writer drive. I can then play the DVD disc on a computer, set-top player, or other DVD player device. I can also use Encore to burn DVD content to a recordable CD disc. This is a great way to distribute shorter productions at full DVD quality. (However, the resulting CD typically ...