DVD-Lab menu questions...

[digitalfreaknyc]

Been experimenting with authoring in DVD lab and come up with a few questions:

I'm trying to make a motion menu and I understand that when I render something, it changes into an AVI. However, when I do that, it changes from 16x9 to 4x3. Is there any way to keep the avi in 16x9 when it changes from mpeg?

Second question, my test discs have worked in my panasonic dvd recorder but for some reason, won't work on my malata. totally freezes when I hit one of the links on the screen. Is there something I should be doing differently or any reason why this would happen?

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

Make sure your project settings are 16:9 for th emenu as well as the movie assets. Also, confirm that the video actually is 4:3. AVI doesn't really have a 16:9 settings, so you may well find that the avi is playing back 4:3 but stretched for 16:9 in the image.

That said, I never create motion menus within DLP. I always create them using more dedicated software (Vegas, After Effects) then import the assets afterwards.

There is no such thing as 100% compatability when creating your own disks. There are many factors that might cause problems, including the quality or brand of media, the vagaries of the authoring software, the quality of the encoder and the true compliance of the playback device. I have never had a disk created using DVD Lab Pro not play in any player, but not all play the disks the same way. Example : One slide show I created using the DLP feature played back perfectly on my Pioneer players, an LG and a no-name cheapo, with continuous audio throughout, but a Phillips play muted the audio between slides.

I would start by trying another brand of quality media to see if this fixes things. Also confirm that your bitrate is within spec. in your menus.