Adding options to menus...

[Areku]

Hi!

Say I have a DVDR with a burned project in it, consisting of 2 movies with their resective menus.

Say one of the menus does NOT include the options to play Extras like a movie trailer and an actor interview, but the files DO exist in the DVDR.

So I want, if possible, to EDIT the already present menus somehow and add the missing, not linked movies (interview+trailer) OR rebuild the menus but using all of the movies of the DVD (2 big movies+interview+trailer).

Is this possible?

How? With which software?


Thanks SO much!!

[MickeyNBK]

You would need to recreate the menus. I usually do this by opening PowerDVD XP. Open the dvd who's menus you want to clone. Since at least one button is highlighted I normally capture the same menu frame twice but with a different button highted (click the camera icon) so I can then open both in photoshop and cut one picture in half and superempose it over the 2nd pic so you have a background with no menu highlights. Also on the first picture that still shows the menu highlight I do a wand selection of the button that is highlighted and copy it (so you have the original shape of the button). Then you need to go back to PowerDVD XP and see were you want to place the buttons on your new bitmap. Ok first things first, make sure you flatten the image of your clean background. Then create a new layer in photoshop (you can use paintshop pro also). Now paste in a button (to line these up I add horizontal and or verticle guides so I can line them up exactly, guides (rule lines) are availabel under the View option in photoshop). Place all of the buttons (each one will go on it's own layer). Then hide the layer of the background image. Select the option to merge visable. Then I normally will copy the button layer and paste it into it's own image. The buttons need their own seperate image file. This takes a bit of time a practice and if you don't know photoshop very well it can be time consuming but worth it in the end.

You then pull both images into your authoring software set one as the background picture and one as the sub picture (buttons). Select each individual button, assign the commands to them, play with the colors to get the desired effect...

So far I have only authored one DVD and I used Maestro. It's really not that bad, it will take you awhile until you get used to it but if you click around you can kind of muddle your way through it. I unfortunally picked a dvd project that involved SEVERAL menus to do for my first project. I got through it but I certainly couldn't teach a course on it from that one time lol.

Hope this helps. All of the stuff involved should be covered in most Photoshop How too books or you might be able to find tutorials on the web for using Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. I only used the multilayer option just so I can see where the buttons need to go. Also if you want to just have the text highlight when you move through the menu (instead of buttons) you could do your background, make a new layer, put your text on it, duplicate the layer (so you have 2 copies of the text). Merge one with the background and paste the other into a new image and pull it in as your subpicture.

[Areku]

I'm used to Photoshop so I can virtually do anything, but i'm TOTALLY new to Maestro. However you seem to have learned how to get menus and stuff somehow ;)

Do you have an online/offline tutorial may be? ;)

I basically don't get how to create a "clickable" button once I import a background...

Any stepbystep please?

PLEASE? ;)

Thanks!

[MickeyNBK]

I don't have a turtorial I was sick all weekend and stuck in the house so I started playing around with Maestro. Took a few hours but I figured out how to author a dvd.

Download the attached Zip file before trying to make sense of this.


After you have pulled in your Background and your button overlay (subpicture) in then you need to click and draw a box around each button. Each button will have a number, then you can right click on the box (the one you just made) and select where this button should point to (movie chapter, another menu...). Once you do that you want to move the colors on the subpicture to 0 (all 4) and adjust the Button Selection color to the desired color. I don't know how to pick which one it uses but from what I have found 2 colors get used, one over your subpicutre shape and one to fill in the rest of the box. If you look at my pictures you will see that in the 2nd pic I the first color box set to 15 and the other 3 set to 0. This sets the tranparency level (1 being invisable, 15 being solid). Then you want to set the Button Action Color in pretty much the same way. The Color Maps that are assigned to your button are the same color map number (1-4) for the 3 groups (subpicture, Button selection, Button Action). You can set the actually colors by number so I usually cheat and have photoshop open and find the color settings in there and set them as the same in Maestro.

Once you have the buttons made you then need to set how they go when you press the arrow keys on your remote. Click a button then select the Buttons tab and set which button you want it to go to when you press each arrow. Button 2 is selected (see Picture 3) in the example and when I press my up arrow on the remote it will go to Button 1 but if I press the down arrow it goes to button 3. Thats about all I have done with buttons. Maybe some day when I know more about Maestro I will make a guide but for now I still have alot to learn about it. Hope this helps you out a bit.

[Areku]

Thanks for the explanation, I think I'll be able to figure this out with it.

However, I'd like to get the attachment you mention; it didn't show up in the post.

Can you retry please?

Thanks!

[mikeathome]

Hi,

- get yourself VobRator (and / or Vstrip) both on the doom9 download pages
- rip the Vts_xx_0.vob (the menu).
- open with Vobrator and demux.
- open the .m2v with Maestro (import to asset bin + put it onto the timeline)
- do a chapter.
- navigate your chapter point to the places you want to get the background for menu from
- do a edit chapter and export the .bmp
- open the vts_xx_0.vob with SubRip (doom9)
- export the appropriate subpicture for the buttons as .bmps original size (!)
- import the background and the subpicture in Maestro asset bin and from there into your menu

AND voila that's the original Menu. The same way you can do it with moving menus. Just set the loop point in the Playback Options (in Menu dialog) to the right point. This is a bit try and error at least when it comes to sync with an audio stream. But's possible I do it all the way...

mike

[Areku]

Thanks mikes ;)

(no offense on the chapter post, huh!? ;))

[MickeyNBK]

When I edit the post it shows the attachment is there but for some reason it's not showing up when just viewing the post. If you want I can e-mail you the attachment. It basicly is just 3 pictures of the Menu screen showing the different options for buttons and what I have set them too. The file is about half a meg.

[Areku]

Sure, plz email it to webcamworld@hotmail.com

Tu!