DVD Menu Creation

[rashy]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but anyway here I go. I've noticed that on some hollywood studio dvds they have a video menu with an overlayed picture, also they have custom highlights of different shapes and colours, How do i go about making something like that for my dvds and what software would i need to use to do this?

[DVDragon]

See if this is what you are looking for...
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=27176

[Arky]

Most Non-Linear Editing ('NLE') programs now have built-in Picture-In-Picture ('PIP') creation. Avid Liquid or Adobe Premiere are 2 such examples. You can also use a dedicated video compositing program such as Combustion or After Effects.

Basically, you overlay one or more video layers onto another layer (or subtle variations thereof). Within the NLE program, doing this would mean that the NLE timeline would appear to have several video streams running in parallel, one stacked above the other, although you will only output one composited video stream at the end of the process.

There is theoretically no limit on the number of layers you can include in a composition, and each layer can be either video or still image content. When you have finished re-sizing and arranging all your layers to look the way you want them to, you then render the entire composition to one (single-layer) video file.

It sounds complex but once you grasp the basic principles, it's actually very simple. These days, it doesn't really matter which program you choose for the purpose, because they've all improved dramatically in the past 10 years or so (Adobe Premiere, for example, used to do a rubbish job of compositing, with jerky motion and poor handling of video fields, but this improved when they completely re-coded it to create 'Premiere Pro').

If you are a novice with video compositing, you might consider obtaining Avid Liquid (or Pinnacle Edition 5.x upwards), you will find this has one of the easiest methods of creating motion menus because the program includes some templates to automate the process of basic DVD authoring. Otherwise, don't be afraid to dive in with any modern NLE and learn to do PIP effects manually. Even After Effects does it very easily.

Good luck!


Arky ;o)



Incidentally, someone may be able to help you further if you tell us what NLE program you own.

[PhillipWyllie]

If you're really, really brave you could try Avisynth with it's overlay() function for a free(but not stress-free) alternative. In fact I use Avisynth for basic motion-menus.