Hi. I'm using DVD-lab Pro and I'm currently figuring out how to create menus. I just went through the Motion Menu guide on the Mediachance site (the official DVD-Lab site), and I'm pretty sure I can handle configuring the motion menus. But I wanted to use clips from my movie as the video clips used in the menus. Is there a way to get the parts of the movie without sectioning off the part I want? Or will I have to cut each part out of the movie? Speaking of which, HOW do I split the file into separate files? Thanks a bunch for the help.
You'll have to make a new copy of the clip you want for the motion menu since it will have to be written to a different VOB file. If you're wanting to separate an MPEG into separate video and audio files DVD-Lab can do that for you when you import it as an asset. If you're just talking about editing it to get the specific portion you need for the motion menu, the easiest way would be to use an MPEG editor like Womble MPEG-VCR (commercial), VideoReDo (also commercial), or Cutterman (free). If you're going to use Cutterman you need to have the video and audio demuxed first. You can either do that in DVD-Lab or use DGIndex (also free) or some other external program. Hope I haven't made it too confusing.
Well, the type of files I have are only in AVI and VOB formats. I've reformatted the AVI to MPEG2 before, but there were too many issues with it - the video was choppy, distorted, and peppered with pink and green squares, and the audio was out of synch. I know that there are ways of fixing these issues, but I didn't bother and just used DivXtoDVD to change the AVI into my VOB file. Is there any way to make a new copy of the clip in VOB format? (Thanks, by the way. This is the fastest anybody's ever replied to one of my issues. ^_^ )
Since you already have the VOB file(s) you just need to make another copy of the parts you want for motion menus. All you need for this is an MPEG editor. If you're just going to do this one time I'd definitely recommend using commercial software (like Womble MPEG-VCR or VideoReDo) since you can get free trial versions that you can use for 30 days. If you're going to need to do it in the future and don't want to pay for the software I'd recommend using Cutterman. All you need to do is load the VOB file into the editor (for Cutterman you have to demux it to separate video and audio files first) and edit it so it just has the part you want. Then save that part (if you only need video you can save just the video stream or save it as separate video and audio files) and use that to make your motion menu. That will leave you with the original VOBs for the title on your DVD plus the additional copy of selected material to make the menu from. You're welcome. I've been trying to keep on top of the authoring forum so we can make it a little more active than it has been in the past.
Wow, only 11 minutes since I ask and already there's a reply? Man, you really ARE the best. Thanks... again. If you need any help keeping this section active, don't mind asking me. I don't know much (if anything at all), but if there's any way I can help, I'll do it.
Okay, new question. Is there a way to use different files as the intro, loop, and end motions? Because I couldn't find one, so I ended up using MPEG-VCR to link the three parts I wanted into one long piece. Problem is that for the intro motion I don't want any audio, for the loop part I want to put in a musical track (which I've already converted to ac3), and for the last part, I want to put in the original audio that went with that part. It's sort of complicated... any help would be greatly appreciated.
The first 2 menus are pretty clear, but I'm not sure what you're doing with the third. Is it going to be a transition that plays when a button is selected or something else? At any rate the first 2 menus actually sound similar to how Hollywood DVDs are commonly done. What you need is 2 different menus where there's 1 menu that plays first, linked to a 2nd menu that links back to itself. I haven't really used any of DVD-Lab's advanced menu features (although that's part of the reason I bought it) but I've worked with a lot of discs like this in DVDReMake Pro. This is normally accomplished by having a single PGC with each menu as a separate program. Both of them will have a Post command of Link Program 2. I'm sure you can do something similar in DVD-Lab Pro but I'm not sure how much control you have over assembling PGCs (ie which programs go in the same PGC). In most cases it doesn't matter much, except that programs in the same PGC will be written consecutively to the disc by order of program # for seamless playback and if there's too much physical distance between programs some players will pause momentarily between them while the correct spot on the disc is located.
Okay... I'm trying out what you said - the 'menu to menu' thing. I'm not sure if it's gonna work, but I guess it's the best bet I have right now. For the third part, I DID mean a transition to another menu when I press enter on the remote. I think I'm gonna put that clip as its own menu, which the second menu (the main menu, in other words) will link to. I might have to create duplicate menus for each separate link, but I guess that's just how it goes. I'll leave this issue alone for now. Once I compile the DVD, I'll test it out to see if it works or not, and then I'll tell you how it turns out. Thanks.
No problem. If you have more questions about my description and you have a commercial DVD that already has motion menus you might want to download the trial version of DVDReMake Pro just to open it up and see how they do it. Personally if I were trying to do this myself I might use that program just for menu editing because it would be relatively easy to do, but if DVD-Lab can handle it that would be the best solution.
Alright, I compiled the DVD files and played it in WinDVD. Major issues include: - No links/text/images appear on-screen. The links will have the "highlight" color around them once I put the cursor on them, but besides that, the only thing I see on-screen is the motion menu playing over and over. - My subtitle links ("On" and "Off"), though I linked correctly to "Subtitle Stream 1" and "Subtitle OFF" respectively, don't work. The DVD-lab guide said that doing this wouldn't work with all DVD players, and apparently WinDVD is one of those players. They had another method of making links, but it involves VM commands, and I don't exactly understand those too well. (The most I can assume is that they are what DVD code looks like.) - Some of the other stuff I can fix pretty easily. I'll get back to you.
Unfortunately I haven't played with the motion menu feature yet. I may do that tonight since I have a project I've been putting off that I was planning on using it for. I'll let you know if I figure out anything that might help you.
Well, I got past the links issue... somehow. I don't really know EXACTLY what I changed; I just know that I did a few things to the color schemes, and it showed up fine. Except for the main menu links. I had to change them to a blue color (instead of the white I'd wanted), and then they worked fine. The images, though, I still can't figure out. So I just tossed it out of there. As for the subtitles, I didn't want to go there, so I just left them that way. There was another issue that popped up. From the main menu, my links link to transition menus, where there's nothing but a quick movie. That menu then links to ANOTHER menu, which is an introduction to the actual menu. So... the problem was: Main Menu--->Main Menu Ending Transition--->Submenu Starting Transition--->Submenu Works fine, except for the one that links to my subtitles menu. (Strange, it seems that's the only one I'm having real difficulties with. Meh, oh well.) The Ending Transition works fine, but it won't go to the Submenu Starting Transition, even though I link the two together in the exact same way I link the other menus together. I have to click "Next" for it to actually go to it. I managed to get around it by making the Submenu Starting Transition a movie file, and then making the Ending Transition link to the movie and from the movie to the Submenu. Which works fine, but I just thought it was kinda... unnatural. Oh wells. I'm gonna burn it now and play it on my DVD player to se if it works. Ciao.
Okay, that's all figured out. (Had some issues with burning onto a DVD, but got that solved too... don't ever buy Imation, that's all I've got to say...) There's nothing wrong with it anymore, EXCEPT... I demultiplexed one of my movies (only about 2-3 minutes long), but once I converted the audio from MP3--->MPA--->AC3 using DVD-lab/TMPGEnc's AC3 plugin, the audio ended up being just a few seconds behind the video. Now I know this is a common problem, but I figured since I've got a thread that's helping me through the whole process already, I may as well ask here instead of starting another one. So how'm I supposed to fix the audio issue? Crop the movie? Crop the audio? The first I can do pretty easily using MPEG-VCR, but the second one I've got no idea.
According to the DVD-Lab Pro menu there's an audio delay option on the Tools menu that should be able to rewrite the AC3 file adjusted for sync. Since the audio already appears to be delayed you should be using a negative number. Of course you'll have to have a pretty good idea of how far out of sync the audio is, so it may take a few guesses this way. I'm not sure about MPEG-VCR, but I know VideoReDo can adjust audio sync. Realistically any MPEG editing program that can work with elementary streams should be able to do this. BTW I'm not sure what solution you found for the multiple motion menus problem, but reading through the manual it appears that what I described Hollywood releases working is the standard way DVD-Lab handles multiple linked motion menus where the last one loops. It creates separate cells in the same PGC based on the point you set to start looping from.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, that's what I did at first, which actually turned out pretty good. The only problem was that I couldn't put separate audio tracks to the separate cells. So I just created one menu to "simulate" the first cell, linked it to a menu that "simulated" the loop portion, put the links on the menu ("Play Movie, Subtitles, etc."), and linked each one to separate menus that would simulate the end cells. Took more menus than needed, but meh, it was worth it.
