DVD Menu creation

Hi,

What I am trying to do (but don't have a clue) is to make a menu that works for multiple TV episodes.

I use Winavi to convert to DVD format then burn using Nero - no problem there but how do I create menu's?, and how are the files linked to them?

 

I have done this many times with a program called DVD lab Studio made by a company called Mediachance (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/index.html). Although it is a bit compicated to use at first, it is capable of making professional DVD menus and it takes care of the authoring of the whole DVD compilation. The downside is that this program is not free but they offer a 30 day full version trial.

 

Thanks Nick,

I'll check it out.

 

Hope it works for you.

There are a lot of settings and authoring options, but if you are trying to simply build a DVD menu structure, they won't get in the way.

 

Well - I got DVDLab Pro everything seemed to go really well + easily until I tried to playback and the audio on track one wasn't right.

Looking back I get the following messages:
- Open GOP's were detected in the file (what is a GOP?)
- the file weill play but chapter points may not start acurately
- in your encoder always select close GOP's to avoid such problems

What encoder? Is it talking about Winavi? I cannot find that option.

any ideas?

I've since noticed that the movie as created by Winavi plays fine so it is something to do with the creation in DVDLab - any thoughts?

 

GOP stands for Group of Pictures. To be honest with you, I don't fully understand what it does other than the fact that open GOP's in the original video can cause problems in the process of encoding a video from one format to another. For example AVI to MPEG-2.

I actually got the exact same "warning" messages every time I was about to compile a new DVD. However, as it is not supposed to be a major problem, I usually ignored it and it never caused any problem for me.

I'm going to play around with DVD Lab and try to figure out how to set them to closed GOP's. I'll let you know as soon as I have found something. Hopefully in the meantime, someone else in the forum might be able to provide an answer to this.

 

cheers Nick

I get the impression reading the DVDLab Pro forum (I posted this there as well) that this is a spurious anoying little message though I could be wrong there.

The strange thing is the movie plays fine before DVDLab strips out the VOB files into it's component parts. Maybe I'm applying them incorrectly to the Movie file.

I take it you don't have this problem.

 

Looks like I found a way around it.

Instead of De-multiplexing (which the program recommends) I used the VOB files instead. I didn't realise I had this option - it keeps the video + the audio in the right place.

The down side is bothe the video and audio were of a higher quality when they were seperate.

I would still like to know how to syncranize the audio and video files because of the quality diference if you or anyone has any ideas on this.

thanks

 

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything yet. Truth is I'm having some other problems with DVDlab and my computer also. I promise I'll try and fix this a quick as possible and get back to you on that.

 

ok - thanks

 

Nick,

Firstly thanks for recomending DVDLabs for creating my menu's. I use DVDLab Pro and I love it. I was originally recommended Adobe Encore by a mate but compared to DVD L that is cack.

Ok to my sync problem -

As I said if I compiled using the VOB the sync was fine but the video quality wasn't as good.

Talking to a guy on the DVDLab Pro forum he recommended the following:

1. I got software called VideoRedo Plus.
2. Using the Tools section of VRD there is a QuickStreamFix utility that sorts out all the crap in the VOB. This I output as mpg to check it was still in sync.
3. I then saved again demuxing the files into wpa + wpv files which I feed inti DVD L and compiled. This gave me the better quality streams and they were still in sync.

thanks again for your help m8

 

It's good to hear you found a solution. I'll know what to do if I ever run into the same problem.

As for my own problem, I fixed it yesterday. I was getting some error messages in DVDlab Pro so I wanted to reinstall in. The thing is I had lost my registration key after uninstalling it! I found it yesterday thhough so it's all good.

 

hi,

I thinks the Super DVD Creator 9.2 is the resolution for dvd menu creating. and can easy add *.srt dvd subtitles in dvd channels.
very easy to use it ,and the menu create function is free ,you did not need to buy it .

http://www.alldj.com/sdvdc/index.htm