Adobe Encore DVD Classroom in a Book

Rating:
Summary: Ok, but don't make my mistakes
Review: I tried making a DVD from scratch using Encore by reading a few online tutorials but when I burned the DVD half the buttons didn't work on my DVD player, so I figured I'd get this book and learn how to do things right. I'm running a fancy Dell Workstation so I didn't anticipate many problems.

Rule #1. Get the Encore 1.01 update from Adobe's site. I didn't and I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why certain features didn't work.

Rule #2. The files on the accompanying DVD must be copied to your hard drive to work! Don't waste your time scratching your head wondering why they won't open off the DVD drive.

Conclusion: Afte getting through these lessons I was able to fix all my mistakes and produce a pretty impressive DVD for my client. Of key interest to me was creating my own menus from scratch in Photoshop and these lessons made it clear enough so that I could do that.

This, like all the 'classroom in a book' series are somewhat confusing to follow, but you can muddle through and figure out what they are trying to convey, even if it means you skip a few steps.

Tip: Use hungarian naming i.e. mnu_Main, btn_Start (instead of Main, Start) so you can tell what items are menus and what are buttons, it gets confusing when you have a lot of items in your project folder.

Rating:
Summary: ADOBE ENCORE CLASSROOM IN A BOOK
Review: well........... i must say..........i have used adobe's classroom in a book series to learn several software applications. This one, by far, had to be the easiest to follow. UN-like the after effects (classroom in a book) it does NOT assume you know to much!

it starts off with baby steps. we have to learn to crawl before we can walk. the book is much shorter then most of Adobe's books. i managed to finish the lessons that come on DVD rom with the book in 3 days.

at 1st when you open adobe ENCORE one might say "this layout makes NO sense"

once you complete even the 1st 2 chapters you will begin to see the layout makes perfect sense! the program works extremely well when using it with after effects, premiere, and especially photoshop.

keep in mind this is the FIRST edition of encore.always room for improvement and im sure we will see steady improvements on future releases. i found a few of the lessons to be a tad childish, (EX: using a gorrila and giraffe to make menu buttons) thus 4 out of 5 rating the book. However.....i guess the whole point of the book is to teach you the software, despite a few laim examples in the lessons the book DOES teach you well!

if your itchin to learn ENCORE then you can't go wrong here!
hope you enjoy the book.once you learn how to create your own DVD's with the software the posibilities are endless