Program for dvd menu's

[moumiaq]

Is there any program that can create menus just like the ones in the original dvd's?That have pictures,templates or something like that?I like the menus that i can create with TmpgEnc Dvd Author but it has limited options.

[Arky]

The following is not claimed (nor is it intended) to be an exhaustive list, but it should give you a few useful pointers.


To create Still menus:

Adobe Photoshop (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html)

Adobe Photoshop Elements ('Lite' version) (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/main.html)

DVD Menu Studio (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdmenu/index.html)


To create Motion menus:

(Basic):

Pinnacle Studio (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Category.asp?Category_ID=1&langue_id=7&Family=0#open)

Related information on this topic (somewhat dated, admittedly) (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27176)


(Intermediate):

Sony Vegas Video (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?pid=914)

Pinnacle Liquid Edition (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=2452&Langue_ID=7)

Adobe Premiere Pro (http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html)

Apple Final Cut Pro HD (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/) (incorporating LiveType (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/livetype.html) - the compositing interface is arguably a little clunky, but this is made up for by some very cool canned effects which would otherwise take hours to create manually)


(Advanced):

Adobe After Effects (http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/main.html)

Discreet Combustion (http://www4.discreet.com/combustion/)

Pinnacle Commotion (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=110&Langue_ID=7)

Apple Shake (Mac - based) (http://www.apple.com/shake/)

Apple Motion (Mac - based) (http://www.apple.com/motion/) (VERY cool piece of software!)


To create DVDs from start to finish, including some composition of Still and Motion Menus:

(Basic):

Sony Vegas Movie Studio (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=932&FeatureID=7800)

Pinnacle Studio (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/Category.asp?Category_ID=1&langue_id=7&Family=0#open)


(Advanced):

Pinnacle Liquid Edition (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=2452&Langue_ID=7)

Sony Vegas Video + DVD Architect (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?pid=912)


To author DVDs from existing assets, but including some compositing capabilities:

DVDLab Pro (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html) (from the point of view of graphical content creation, there are some nice transitions etc., but it is in other areas where this program shines, with some really novel and unique features. Still some concerns about the spec-compliance of the multiplexer - watch this space, though - this program is going to set the DVD Authoring world ablaze as soon as true spec-compliance is achieved. A Piece of software with major potential, in the longterm.)

Apple DVD Studio Pro (Mac - based) (http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/) Very nice software, although compositing menus (as opposed to simply 'assembling' menus) within this program requires the use of the integrated Compressor MPEG encoder, which has some imperfections at the present time.


Arky ;o)

[mpucoder]

I'd also add NeroVision Express to the "To create DVDs from start to finish, including some composition of Still and Motion Menus - basic" list. But with this caveat - it tends to crash with no work-around. I've attempted to author 2 DVDs with it. First was almost perfect (needed tweaking in the button highlight area as it always retained the previous menu's value. ie selecting title 2's chapter menu starts with chapter 2 highlighted) The second crashed repeatedly during encoding, and no changes to the encoding parameters would get around the crash.

[influenza]

DVDLab Pro (from the point of view of graphical content creation, there are some nice transitions etc., but it is in other areas where this program shines, with some really novel and unique features. Still some concerns about the spec-compliance of the multiplexer - watch this space, though - this program is going to set the DVD Authoring world ablaze as soon as true spec-compliance is achieved. A Piece of software with major potential, in the longterm.)

Yeah I was also wondering about the dvd compliance of some of the features. But the couple of experiments I did played on my (picky) JVC standalone.

[Arky]

Yeah, but if you run it through a verifier, you get a whole host of messages. The author of the program is aware of these shortcomings and is working hard to rectify the issues. Don't misunderstand me, I am not disrespecting this program - quite the opposite - I am a very keen supporter of it, from the perspective that I wish to see it succeed and thus bring spec-level authoring to a wider audience. It just needs time to mature, that's all.

I might add that I am also an existing customer of the same developer's DVD Menu Studio (another novel product), and I very much like the company ethos.


Arky ;o)

[influenza]

Well it's certainly a nice program with lots of features, which will bring (advanced) dvd authoring to a much wider audience.

And for the price it's hard not to recommend it :)

[Pudah]

I came to the forum looking for info on creating DVD menus and stumbled upon this thread. I hope the original thread starter doesn't mind if I post my questions here.

I've used DVD Shrink in Reauthor mode to grab videos from my bollywood film DVDs to create a compilation DVD of my favorite songs. It plays great in my standalone player. But now I'd really like to be able to create a menu system for the DVD. What I'd like to do is capture stills from the videos and use those as buttons to select the desired video to play. Maybe a main page from which one would select which movie to play songs from, and then submenu pages listing all songs from each movie:

Main Menu[list=1]
Movie A
Movie B
Movie C
Movie D
[/list=1]


Movie A Menu[list=1]
Song A (still image)
Song B (still image)
Song C (still image)
Song D (still image)
[/list=1]

Movie B Menu[list=1]
Song A (still image)
Song B (still image)
Song C (still image)
[/list=1]

A "play all" option would be great, though not absolutely critical.

Screen captures will be done with VirtualDubMod. I have jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 to use to create any required artwork.

Do I need a full blown DVD authoring program to do this? Are there any freeware or modestly priced programs out there that will let me create such a menu and add it to my compilation DVDs? I could probably spring for DVD-Lab or DVD-Lab Pro. But before I do, I wanted to see if there were any budget tools that I might be able to use since I don't need to do any complex authoring. And what about DVD Menu Studio that was mentioned previously in this thread? Does it just create the menu artwork, or something more than that? Can one create a menu with that and then use its generic exported output with something like IFO Edit or PgcEdit to hook the images with the navigaton instructions? I guess what I'm looking for is some sort of "just menus" type authoring program. Does anything like that exist?

Any suggestions on products I should look at or advice from folks who may have done what I want to do would be greatly appreciated.