TMPEGENC DVD Author guides.

[scorps]

Hello everyone,
I am looking for a guide to help me create a basic menu with scene selection.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks for reading.

[HillJack]

No offense, but authoring DVD's is almost the easiest thing to do when using TMPGEnc DVD Author -- It can't possibly get any more straight forward.

Besides, nothing is final until the disc is burned -- just sit down and try stuff!

[lordsmurf]

Mine's coming by the 24th at www.lordsmurf.com

[scorps]

No offense taken Hilljack.
Have been playing around and can get a scene selection done now but am struggling to get a menu with a straight "Play" option and a scene selection. Oh well these things are sent to try us.

Look forward to your guide Lordsmurf.
Thanks for the replies.

[monoxide77]

i need help using motion menus. i understand that you can add an mpg as the menu background, but i think my confusion comes in with the audio. should i leave it as mpeg2 audio or should i convert audio to ac3 then multiplex? any help would be appreciated.

[overloaded_ide]

First,
If by "with a straight "Play" option and a scene selection" you mean a button that plays the entire movie, It should be on the first menu already!
If you want to select chapters/scenes, they should already be there also!

First in editing you select your chapter points, places you might want to start at or jump to. When creating a menu, choose a template, in menu settings make sure you have choosen "Display main menu and track menu". Your main menu should now have a Play button for the whole movie and one to go to chapter menu. You can choose which chapters to display or hide individually under chapter display.
Then in the box on the left click the menu page you want to edit.

I often set chapters every 5 minutes for jumping and skipping through my DVDs, but only display 5 or so on the menu for starting points this way.
Other settings you migh want to check in there like action to take after play.
I hope that's what you meant and it helps.

Second, motion menus.
Use what ever your DVD files are. I think it should work! For me I just use straight Mpeg2 files I capture normally.
Either make a seperate file for your menu, or select part of your DVD file. Under menu setings, motion menu, set the time the clip should play. Click the background and choose your file (normally my mpeg2 file for me) Find your starting point and click button (add, ok, or whatever it was) You now have a motion menu for the time you specified that starts at the point you selected.
You can of course use a seperate mpeg2 file that is not part of the movie.
Make your motion menu file, click the menu background, open whatever file it is and start at the beggining of the file. Set the time in menu motion settings to the time of your file. I will repeat over and over as long as it's on that menu page when you play the disk. Might be a setting to for play once only, I never looked. That would be nice, as I have found repeating motion menus in a continous non-stop loop are annoying to me. Would be nice if there is a setting to play menu like 4 times then stop. Haven't looked for one yet, there may or may not be a setting?? Or an adjustable pause setting, like play menu then pause 45 seconds and repeat would be nice!

For me I have found a 30 second loop motion menu for some cartoons to be really good for fast fun, but then if the kid puts in the disk and it loops for 10 minutes while she pops popcorn or such it gets annoyiing fast hearing the same 30 seconds over and over for 10 minutes

If your actualling MAKING the files, you could play the 30 seconds (or whatever) then pad with still frames for say 15-30 seconds. Create this file, then loop it. Result would be a loop of movie, 30 second pause, movie, pause.... never ending.

Just got to get in there and play around and see what happens
And preview before burning to make sure it does work

[scorps]

Thanks overloaded_ide , helped a lot.