Adobe Encore DVD 2.0 review

Adobe's Encore DVD is a DVD-authoring program that gives extensive control over menu design and disc navigation.

Adobe was a late arrival in this field when the program launched in 2003, but version 1 had the sophistication and stability required for serious work. This goes some way to explaining why Encore DVD 2.0 is a subtle improvement over its predecessor: the only new authoring function is a slideshow editor. However, it offers a good collection of workflow improvements to tempt existing users to upgrade.

Slideshow Editor strings sets of photos together. You can adjust the length of each one, insert transitions between them and add incidental music. A tickbox enables you to add pan and zoom effects to the entire slideshow. Pictures are scaled to fit the frame with a black background, scaled to fill the frame, cropping the edges as necessary, or left at their original size. None of these options is ideal for portrait-shaped photos, though, and it's a shame there's not a custom option for scaling and placing photos. For precise control, you're better off using a video-editing application. Still, Slideshow Editor is quicker to use and its results are perfectly acceptable in most situations.

You can now add multiple video clips to a single timeline, which avoids unnecessary re-rendering of footage. Adding chapters is easier, too, with markers appearing automatically when you add clips and options to set them at recurring intervals. Marking chapters manually isn't difficult, though, thanks in part to the new audio scrub facility taken from Premiere Pro.

Encore now supports soundtracks in DTS format although, as with 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtracks, you'll need to encode them elsewhere. It can also encode stereo audio in Dolby Digital, MPEG and PCM (uncompressed) formats. Adobe Bridge, the media management program that comes with most other Adobe programs, makes an appearance too. DVD productions are particularly likely to benefit from its excellent built-in search and purchasing facility for online photo libraries. High-resolution images start at around £69 each, but lower-resolution versions are free and are often good enough to include in a DVD menu.

Encore DVD's menu design tools are reasonably sophisticated, with comprehensive text formatting, a range of style presets such as Drop Shadow and Chrome and plenty of attractive stock designs. As always, menu design is best performed in a dedicated image editor or video-compositing program, and it's here that Encore DVD's tight integration with other Adobe software pays off. Menus adhere to Photoshop's native .PSD format, so opening them in Photoshop (CS or later) with a right-click makes it easy to create and append sophisticated designs. It also makes managing highlight masks far easier than it is with other DVD-authoring programs. Dynamic Link allows you to import After Effects compositions without rendering first, which keeps them fully editable up until the final disc-encoding process. However, you'll need to stick to simple animations or have an extremely fast computer for this to save time in practice.

let's go round again

The first version of Encore DVD had comprehensive disc navigation options, but it didn't make the process easy, particularly for those who were getting to grips with the nuts and bolts of DVD authoring. The new Flowchart panel helps, making it possible to drag cords between thumbnail images of menus and timelines to create links. But beginners still need to spend plenty of time with the manual and video tutorials.