new menus

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 5:44 am

Hi,
Thought I would try to create my own menus so I looked for the documentation on how to do so and to my surprise there doesn't appear to be any. The templates themselves seem to have an UFO extension and looking at them with a hex editor gives me no clues. So.................

Can anybody help me find a starting point?

f.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:27 am

It seems that you can create your own menus using Photo Impact 8 or higher and the free plug in from Ulead.

Here's a link that will tell you more.

http://www.ulead.com/pi/plugin.htm

I know that it only mentions DVD Workshop but apparently you can also make menus for Video Studio and Movie Factory also.

Here's another link to a thread that may be of some interest on the matter.

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... light=plug

I too am very interested in pursueing this futher as I would like to create text menus instead of using the canned thumbnail menus that come wiith Video Studio and Movie Factory.

phd · Post by **phd** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 12:00 pm

I have used PI7 as well to create new menu templates. There really was no value added using the wizard. It changes the items to the haming conventions of DVDWS2 which is not necessarily the same with the other Ulead products. The main problem is the name of the template thumbnail object in the UFO which has a different name between various Ulead programs.

The easiest way I've found so far is to find a stock template that has the number of chapter points you like. Make a copy and rename it. Load that into PhotoImpact and resize, move, etc., then save.

If you don't change the naming conventions of the various layers in PhotoImpact, it seems to work well. I don't even bother with the wizard anymore.

Here's a link to a thread which has some examples of ones I created/modified.
http://www.videoredo.net/msgBoard/viewtopic.php?t=341

There are 2 sets. Ones which worked in DMF2 and DMF3. There may or may not be differences in naming conventions in the various versions of VideoStudio.

The key to compatibilty appears to be in the naming convention of one of the objects in the 3rd picture at this link
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... light=plug
Its the little one in the upper left corner that looks like a miniature version of the template. It starts with the name "IMG_TEM"

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 5:28 pm

Pat,
I went over and downloaded the two farscape ons and one of the stargate. I put them in the 'Template\My Favorites' and VS8 didn't recognize them. So I figure that VS8 must have a very specific format.

As you probably know, Irfanview will try to identify a file type even if the appendage is not in line with the file type. It didn't recognize it as any know file type.

I own Corel PhotoPaint and Photoshop CS which are on this machine and am loath to buy another paint program if I can avoid it; particularly since it isn't certain that the menus created would even work in VS8.

In lieu of this do you have any other suggestions?

fritz

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:01 pm

There is another alternative here called DVD Menu Studio for $69:

http://www.mediachance.com/register.htm

Unfortunately they do not offer an export to Ulead but do offer an export to a PSD photoshop file. Once again this is a dead end unless there is some way to bring this psd file into the VS8 ufo spec.

Have you ever made a ufo file that is compatible with VS8?

I'm not sure where to go at the moment.

fritz

phd · Post by **phd** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 7:59 pm

Hi Fritz,

I don't know of any others. It would have to be a paint program that could both import and export in UFO format. I'm not familiar with any other programs that will do that.

As far as I know only PhotoImpact works in this format. If you don't want to have an extra paint program, you could look at a more sophisticated DVD authoring program. Maybe Ulead DVD Workshop Express or the full version. Perhaps DMF3 DiskCreator has enoiugh features although it is at the consumer end. They would have the advantage of using the UFO format. Possibly one of the competitors as well.

Pat

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 9:01 pm

Pat,
Did you or anyone else, successfully ever make a menu with PI that works with VS8. If not there is no sense getting it. If yes I might look at it again.

fritz

ps: I think I'll ask what ulead has to say

phd · Post by **phd** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:38 am

Never tried. Always authored with DMF since V1. Only got PI7 once I had DMF2 and tried menus in that..

You are probably better off asking them. Even with the old forum, I've seen very few post on editing the menus with PI.

If you get no answer from Ulead, you may want to try the Yahoo forum in case anyone has tried PI with VS.

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:51 am

Thanks Pat,
I think that I'll forego getting to Ulead on this. To be honest, there isn't much available for menus here in the Ulead line. So, just for the heck of it I bought a cheap copy of Adobe Premiere Pro (v7.0) to see if it will work with photoshop CS in creating menus. According to what I read the menu is actually a .PSD file using layers. If so it should be fairly straightforward as I'm acquainted with layers. I'll let you know in a week or two how it works out when the disk arrives.

fritz

phd · Post by **phd** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 2:02 am

Cool! Good luck with Premiere.

I didn't know they had DVD authoring capabilities within Premiere. I thought you had to buy Encore for that.

Hope it works well for you,
Pat

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:58 am

I agree with phd -- the version of Premiere Pro 7 that I have does NOT include authoring, but is a great (if rather complicated) editing tool.

Steve__A · Post by **Steve__A** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:23 pm

2tired wrote:Pat,
Did you or anyone else, successfully ever make a menu with PI that works with VS8. If not there is no sense getting it. If yes I might look at it again.

Jerry Jones has a tutorial on his site explaining how to edit UFO templates with PI:

http://www.jonesgroup.net/media/photoim ... tepone.htm

I made a dozen modified templates that I used in DMF3 before the 30 day trial for PI expired. With DMF30DC costing me $69 I was NOT going to pay $89 for a program to edit the templates for that program...

I did find older versions of the program selling on the internet for under $25, or even free with certain webhosting packages. Here is the link to the 30 day trial:

http://www.ulead.com/pi/runme.htm

Steve A.

2tired · Post by **2tired** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:55 pm

Pat - Ken,
For half the price of a Ulead option I got the previous versions of Adobe Premier Pro (V7.0) and Encore (V1.01). Since I am just an amateur at this it didn't make sense to buy the latest and greatest versions but if I can learn them it would give me a start on later upgrades of those products if I ever need them.
I enjoy the interface of VS8 because it makes it simple (once you read the right docs) to download, edit, and put out a DVD as long as you can live with the stock templates. So it will always be there when all else fails.

At the present I am waiting for the return of my new laptop so as to get the canopus 100 back to work. (It had a couple of spots on the LCD). Thanks for all the help.

fritz