Adobe Encore Blu-ray menu buttons selection/highlight not visible

 Another troubleshooting of Encore this time with BD. Preview works great, everything is just fine. Build the project, open with BD player and... NO BUTTONS visible. No selection, no highlight...

The bug is in the Menu Color Setting. Anything that's not Automatic or 100% opacity does not work. Here is an Adobe forum page about it.

Now, another thing that might turn off the highlight color is "Export Highlights in Rich Color." If that's turned on, turn it off. Make sure each menu page has this option turned off. Encore will preview it correctly but the option sometimes is sticky and hard to get off of it. Select all Menus and turn it on and off a few times, then do it one Menu at a time.

Also, forget using an app the likes of Leawo for playing/checking Blu-ray packages on your Mac. It's not accurate and will make you doubt your build is correct.

For example: at the end of a menu the app stops everything. Not the case with a burned disc played in a set top Blu-ray player.

The app just becomes irresponsive and does not show any buttons with a looped menu that has background music. It will be fine on a burned disc played back in a regular Blu-ray player.

The buttons are not positioned properly. Not to worry, it will be fine again when played back from a disc on a set top player. 

Adobe Encore Error Message: "frame values not permitted by indicated format"

 Another cryptic message by Encore CS6.

"frame values not permitted by indicated format".

As it happens the culprit in my case is the caption file.

The film asset is 23.98, Encore conforms the timeline to the asset.

The caption file (.scc) works fine with a 29.97 Timeline and asset, but it generates the error on a 23.98 Timeline/asset.

Fix: I imported the .scc into Annotation Edit set to 23.98 and exported it to .scc. The roundtrip worke, the exported file did not generate the error.

Photoshop Power User Tips - Layer, Smart Object, Replace Content and Relink to File

 When you have an image embedded into a Photoshop project as Smart Object and you have resized it and done some work on it. How to swap for another image all the while keeping the work you've done?

Easy: Select the smart object/layer, in the Menu, go to Layer, Smart Object, Replace Contents and Select the new image.

That's it! And it's powerful. That's particularly handy when doing BD or DVD chapter menu pages with thumbnails.

In addition, Relink to File will create a link as oppose to embed the image into your project.

Adobe Encore - Internal Software Error Message On Build

 I was ready to build my project when Encore flashed the following error:

" adobe encore internal software error: /Volumes/Builds/Amawat/Main/XcodeProjects/AuthorCore/../../Sonic/DVDCreator/FormatLib/Vobulator/TitlePlanner/CVOBUPlanner.cpp, line 332"

What a mouthful! I Google the whole thing and it looks like there are a few different things that can generate the error. This eehelp forum posts from god knows when was helpful in putting me on the right track.

As it happened the culprit was an end marker too close to the end of the movie/file.

This last marker is too close to the end.

Moving the marker back one notch and the build flew right through.

This is good.

Buyer Beware: Crappy (and expensive) SMR Hard Drives On the Rise

I noticed some sneaky behavior on the part of Western Digital while shopping fr a 4TB bare drive. I've used WD Red NAS 4TB for a white for archiving and I like them overall with a OK price/performance ratio.

I was surprise to see on the comparison table between regular Red NAS and Red Plus NAS that the former was SMR and the later CMR. Really?

CMR is the Conventional tech, SMR is the Shingle tech that's not as good, with slower performance and not as reliable.

The old regular WD Red was CMR, but now it is SMR, and is sold at the same price, for a lesser tech, even though SMR is less costly to produce.

If you still want CMR (you should) you have to upgrade to WD Red Plus for $10 more. Nowhere does it say which is what. Hello WD? The giveaway is the large cache on the SMR drive for identical capacity.

So no more WD Red regular SMR for me. I haven't bought the Plus version either, I switched instead to Seagate Ironwolf for the time being.

Price is identical to the WD Red Plus but it's often on sale for $99.99. Performance is fine, it also runs quieter and cooler than the old WD Red.

Seagate clearly states the tech in the description, WD please do the same, lack of transparency is eroding consumer's trust in your brand.

For more info on SMR and CMR tech, read this excellent article by ArsTechnica.

For more info on WD Drives, see this blog page:

For more info on Seagate Drives, see this webpage:

Final Cut Pro 10.4.10 Refuses to Update

Tried everything with the App Store today. It shows Updates available for FCP (10.4.10), but the Update button does not work, not for FCP, not for Motion, not for Compressor. Nothing happens. What a pain Apple.

Had to delete FCP (10.4.9) and install from the App Store (Cloud icon.) That installs the whole app to the current version, it just takes much longer.

But why? Why?

Adobe Encore CS6 asking for a Serial Number at launch

 Encore CS6 is asking for a serial number at launch even though I am a CC sub. That's new.

Adobe offers this help:

https://helpx.adobe.com/encore/kb/cant-write-image-fie-larger1.html

Basically sign off and sign in again to "sync" the apps.

I tried to sign off and back in a few times and nothing worked. I tried to sign in with Premiere CS6 instead of Premiere CC and it started in trial mode.

But then that didn't help Encore.

At that point I contacted Adobe and spent a minutes with a rep, no help.

" We do not support encore anymore , so please visit http://community.forum/ Please contact  1800-833-6687.  If you want me to connect you with our subject expert the please share your contactable number, preferred timing to call and your time zone."

I left my phone number and timing info, and I tried one more time to sign off and back in.

I launched Premiere CS6, it asked if I wanted to start in trial mode or sign in. I did sign in and then I launched Encore and this time IT WORKED!

I cancelled my phone support request.

All right, back to normal now!

Encore CS6 on macOS 10.14.6 Mojave.