These columns, which take up the lower two-thirds of the Project tab, identify the name of any project assets and elements, and provide additional information that is useful when creating DVDs. Note the headers at the top of the listing (e.g., “Name,” “Type,” “Duration,” etc.). As your project gets more complex, you can rearrange and sort the columns of information in the Project window to help review the contents and status of all the assets and elements in your project. You can do this by:

The information columns, as well as the purpose of each, are given in more detail in Table 3-9.

Each asset or element in the Project tab contains an icon just to the left of its name. The most common icons that you’re likely to find in the Project tab are shown in Figure 3-10.

Figure 3-10. Common icons in the Encore Project tab.

You can select each item in the Project tab to make various modifications on it. If appropriate, you can select more than one item by either Shift-clicking, which will select everything between the last selection and the current selection, or Ctrl-clicking, which will add or remove the current item from the selected group. You can also drag a rectangle around the items you wish to select; this is often called rubberbanding.

If only one item is selected, you can use the asset preview thumbnail at the top left corner of the Project tab to preview the asset. Click the Play/Pause button to play or pause the asset inside the thumbnail. You can also click or drag the slider to instantly skip forward or backward to various points in the media. If you want to hide the thumbnail viewer, click the small, blue disclosure triangle at the extreme upper left to hide the thumbnail; click it again to show the thumbnail viewer. Note that the text just to the right lists the asset’s filename and type, as well as other useful information such as the dimensions, duration, frame rate, and if it is a first-play element. Unfortunately, the asset preview thumbnail does not show the current timecode while the asset is playing, only the total length of the asset. The asset preview thumbnail is shown in Figure 3-11.

Figure 3-11. The asset preview thumbnail in the Project tab.

Four buttons along the bottom of the window can be used to show or hide various assets inside of the Project window, as shown earlier in Figure 3-9. Unlike the list inside the Project tab itself, selecting one of the buttons will not deactivate the others (i.e., they are not mutually exclusive), so you do not have to Shift-click or Ctrl-click to select more than one.

Note that no matter which toggles are set, you will always be able to view folders in the Project tab. These cannot be hidden.

Five additional buttons, located just to the right of the toggle controls, also assist in creating or deleting assets or elements inside of the Project window.

Table 3-10 summarizes some of the more common tasks that you can do with the Project tab. Note that there is often more than one way to reach the same end.

As you work on your project, you can use the Project window to organize assets and elements by grouping them in folders. Folders are useful as your DVD projects become larger and the number of assets and elements in the project becomes more difficult to manage. See Figure 3-12.

Figure 3-12. Use folders to organize your project assets and elements in the Encore Project tab.

To create a folder, click the Create Folder button at the bottom of the Project tab. Each folder can contain any number of assets and elements inside of it, the listing of which can be collapsed or expanded as necessary by clicking the small triangle next to the folder name. You can delete a folder by selecting it and choosing the Trash button at the bottom of the project tab. Note that if you remove a folder from a project, Encore will also remove all the nested contents from the project as well.

Here are two possible ways to organize your project assets in Adobe Encore DVD. The first is a relatively simple organization by asset and element category, useful for smaller projects. So, for example, if you were to create a DVD of video and photographs from a wedding, you might use a folder structure like this:

	Still Images
		Images
			Wedding Pictures
			Church and Reception
			DVD Credits
		Backgrounds
	Video and Audio
		Pre-Wedding Monday
		Tuesday Ceremony
		Honeymoon
	Timelines
		First Play Animation
		Content
			Pre-Wedding Monday
			Tuesday Ceremony
			Honeymoon
		Menu Transitions
			Initial Play
			Menu1 to Menu2
			Menu2 to Menu1
		Slide shows
			Reception Pictures
		Credits
	Playlists
		Wedding and Honeymoon
	Menus
		Menu1
		Menu2

Another way to organize your elements is to organize by menus and timelines and work down from there, leaving separate folders for your timelines, video, audio, and images. So, for example, if you were creating a DVD for a feature film, you might use a directory structure like this:

	Timelines
		Introductions
			Copyright Warning
			Opinions Warning
		Content
			Feature
			Trailers
			Behind the Scenes
			Outtakes
			Deleted Scenes
		Menu Transitions
			Initial Play
			Menu1 to Menu2
			Menu1 to Menu3
			Menu2 to Menu3
			Menu2 to Menu1
			Menu3 to Menu2
			Menu3 to Menu1
		Slide shows
			Storyboards
	Playlists
		Legal Warnings
		Movie
		Documentary and Credits
		Outtakes
	Menus
		Menu1
			Images
			Backgrounds
		Menu2
			Images
			Backgrounds
		Menu3
			Images
			Backgrounds
	Video Folder
		Feature Film
		Menu Animations
		Outtakes
		Deleted Scenes
	Audio Folder
		Dolby Digital
		Stereo
		Director Commentary
	Still Images Folder
		Storyboard Images
		Legal Warnings
		DVD Credits
		Documentary Credits

Organizing your assets is largely a matter of two items: preference, and ease of use (or reuse) in a group environment. As your DVD authoring projects grow in complexity, you’ll quickly find that using the Library palette to reuse comments elements such as buttons, still images, layer sets, and shapes can become a life-saver.

Encore is tightly integrated with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects to allow you to easily re-edit video clips that you have imported into Encore. From the Encore Project window, select the video clip and choose Edit → Edit Original. Encore will open the asset in the original application used to create it—Premiere Pro or After Effects—and, even better, open up the actual project used to export the asset.

In this way, you can jump directly from Encore back into the original project used to create the video clip, edit it further, and then save it again. When you switch back to Encore, it picks up the changed file and updates your Encore project accordingly.

This Edit Original integration does require that you save the project information with the video file when you export it. In Premiere Pro, you can export video in MPEG-2 format, which includes a project link, or export as AVI and then, under Settings → General, set Embedding Options to Project. In After Effects, export at AVI, and in the Render Queue under Output Module set Embed to Project Link.

Assets listed in the Project window are linked to the physical file on the disk from which they were imported. If you delete the asset in the Project window, the original file is not affected. However, if the disk file is moved, deleted, or suddenly becomes inaccessible, Encore can no longer access it.

In this case, Encore still keeps track of the asset in the Project window, but marks it as offline, and no longer accessible. The asset is listed in italic, with missing information in the Project window and the Properties palette. In addition, the asset preview thumbnail window displays the icon shown in Figure 3-13.

Figure 3-13. Offline assets are marked in italicized text and display a special icon inside the asset preview thumbnail.

When you preview a timeline with an offline asset, however, it does not appear. If the asset has moved to a known location, you can select the italicized asset in the Project tab and use the File → Locate Asset option to designate its new location. If you want to designate a replacement for that asset (i.e., one with a new size or duration), use the File → Replace Asset option instead.

Table 3-11 summarizes the Encore functionality for managing project assets and their associated files on disk.