[vet-mm] Creating a DVD Menu

[Kevork Krozian]

Hi Greg,

 This is a fabulous summary you have kindly put together.
I also found the videohelp.com site a good reference point.
I moved to a dual platform (Mac/Win) school 12 months ago after a lifetime
in a Win school and it has given me a few new insights.
I tried to move away from Nero and have recently been using ImgBurn (free)
on Win, but haven't settled for a menu creation utility yet. I just got a
hold of Windows 7 DVD maker and will see if that is a good option. 

Any suggestions welcome.


Kind Regards

Kevork Krozian
Edulists Creator Administrator
www.edulists.com.au
tel: 0419 356 034


-----Original Message-----
From: vet-mm-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:vet-mm-bounces at edulists.com.au]
On Behalf Of Greg Neil (Mr)
Sent: Thursday, 9 February 2012 8:49 PM
To: VET Multimedia Teachers' Mailing List; vet-mm at edulists.com.au
Subject: Re: [vet-mm] Creating a DVD Menu

Windows 7 has a built-in DVD menu creator, although like many of it's kind,
it is template driven and doesn't give you complete control.

Flash is not an appropriate tool for DVD menu creation. DVD players do not
understand flash, and I have yet to see a good tool for converting flash to
DVD menus.

Encore is one option, however it is not a beginners tool. It does have the
advantage of tight integration with Premiere and Photoshop, so if you are
invested in Adobe products, it is probably the best option for you. It can
also do higher end features like playlists, which most of the lower cost or
free options cannot do. It does have some limitations, and used to have a
nasty habit of not covering all the allowable resolutions and often
re-encoding footage needlessly, but these problems may have been ironed out
by now.

There are some freeware options, including DVD Styler and DVDAuthorGUI,
which front-end other tools. They rely on you having your assets already
created - videos, stills, motion backgrounds, buttons etc, but they can
produce decent quality output.

Authoring comes in basically two forms -
 
easy :- all templates and few options for real customisation -
Nero/Roxio/iDVD

and

complex :- create all your own assets, do all your own authoring, total
freedom - Encore/DVD Architect/DVD Studio/DVD Lab Pro

Some of the template driven authoring tools produce slick looking end
product - iDVD, for example - but you can pick it a mile away as they all
start to look the same. The complex authoring takes time and planning, but
you can create whatever you want.

In your case I would recommend Premiere, Photoshop and Encore.

Cheers,

Greg


Greg Neil

ICT Systems Manager
St Margaret's and Berwick Grammar Schools



-----Original Message-----
From: vet-mm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Karen Webster
Sent: Thu 09/02/2012 8:10 PM
To: vet-mm at edulists.com.au
Subject: [vet-mm] Creating a DVD Menu
 
Hi everyone

I am teaching 3/4 VET IDM for the first time. I am using the Pixel Ed
resource and was wondering what program you use to create a DVD Menu. The
video can be done in Premiere but can you create the menu using Flash or do
you need Encore?


thanks
Karen Webster
Alexandra SC


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