DVD Menus....

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:22 pm

Is there anyway to add additional text to the DVD menus when authoring a DVD?

Thanks,
Marty.

rguthrie · Post by **rguthrie** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:01 pm

Marty,

In short the answer is no. You can fiddle with the title, but adding extra text is not possible. However, if you have PhotoImpact, you can either create your own DVD menu or edit an existing menu (which I would do to a copy). I'm not sure if the newest version of MovieFactory allows you to do this (I have version 4). However, you can always try the TBYB version.

Hope this helps,
Ron

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:15 pm

I'm I missing something here or does Movie Factory do everything Video Studio does and more?

Thanks, Marty.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:51 pm

Video Studio is primarily an *editing* program, which happens to have an authoring/burning module attached to round it out. Movie Factory is primarily an authoring/burning program, with some rudimentary editing capacity. In effect they complement each other. VS is much better at editing, and while its authoring aspect is good, Movie Factory gives you more authoring options but far fewer editing options...

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:27 pm

Maybe they should bring the two together, how about Ulead Movie Studio Editor?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:11 pm

Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round...

If they did that, there would only be one income stream, rather than two.

Even at the pro-sumer level, Media Studio Pro is the primary editing program, complemented on the authoring side by the excellent DVD Workshop. Sadly, both seem slated for the dustbin of home editing. What would be nice, though, would be for Corel not to totally dump the underlying code in both these programs, and instead, incorporate a lot of it in VS and MF respectively...

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:05 am

One reason for two separate products is that if you had one "Does it all" program - then some users would complain that they are paying for stuff they will never use. Two programs allows a user to choose which one does what they want at a lower cost.

Back to your Text on the menu problem. As pointed out by rguthrie you need PhotoImpact to make big changes to an existing DVD Menu or alternatively start from scratch. You have another alternative which is to replace the background of the DVD Menu with one of your own. You could include the text on that background image/video.

dmz · Post by **dmz** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:00 am

The only decent authoring program is DVD Workshop. Despite a few limitations (16:9) I would still advise people to purchase it. You start with a completely blank screen and can add any background and graphics and text you like - and you can set what people click on and exactly what plays when they click on it. Moviefactory doesnt even come close.
It is very sad that it is being discontinued as there is nothing like it for ease of use in the world.

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:56 pm

If I really need to I can output the file from VS 11 and then author it with Nero Vision, which is more flexible for authoring but sucks at editing.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:54 pm

While I agree that recent iterations of Nero do a good authoring job -- and the selection of templates (once you download them) is excellent -- the one downside for me is that Nero does not have anything like SmartRender. In other words, even if you input DVD-compatible mpeg-2 into Nero, it will still re-render it, with the consequent loss in quality that implies. If the original quality of the input mpeg-2 is high, the loss of quality may not be noticeable, but if it is only average, then it may be...

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:05 pm

Actually that's not correct, Nero 8 does have smart render. If I have a 3.5GB file it will render and burn the DVD in about 10 minutes.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:13 pm

Hmmm ... that's a feature I haven't heard of in Nero 8...

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:27 am

I couldn't find any reference to it on Nero's site. Anyway, they call it 'Smart Encoding", here is a screen shot of Nero Vison.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:36 am

Interesting, though, that the screenshot says 'Transcoding Video' which clearly means the video is being re-encoded... which in effect means the same thing as converted.

I've now also done a Google search and confirmed that Smart Encoding is certainly part of Nero. Interestingly enough, however, there was at least one thread suggesting that some people have encountered out-of-sync problems with it, similar to those encountered by some users with Video Studio's SmartRender...

martythebrit · Post by **martythebrit** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:52 am

I've never had any out of sync problems. A standard mpg file has to be converted into a vob for the DVD, VS11 does the same thing. As I stated earlier though, VS11 is far superior in the editing department. I think the whole crux of the matter is I would rather just have one application do everything, which VS11 does to a point and which I would much rather use. I just wish the DVD authoring part of the program was a little more flexible. Maybe in VS12 the authoring part will be enhanced a little, one can live in hope!