DVD-lab

[andash]

hi

I just downloaded the trial versin of DVD-lab. It's seems to be quite good (not tried it too much). I was just wandering about one thing. I looked it up in the help file but couldn't find any answers there.

So my question is this. Is it possible to make the thumbnails of chapters play? I want them to play maby 10 seconds from were the chapter point is and forward in the movie.

thanks

[housepig]

you can't do that directly in DVD Lab*, you need to author that as one big motion menu, so you have your background and all your moving chapter clips already superimposed.

try Vegas Video or Adobe AfterEffects, they shine at this sort of thing.

(* unless someone knows something I don't? please correct me if I'm wrong...)

[andash]

i saw a program called dvdmenu. can i use this to do that? will it take a long time?

[Red96TA]

Somoene posted how to make motion thumbnails about a week ago...It was VERY complex and I gave up after just reading it. Do a search and you'll find it.

[housepig]

if you use Vegas, it's not super complex.

let's say you have 6 chapters on a menu.

find the clips you want to use. make sure they're all about the same length.

open up Vegas, insert 7 video tracks. set your background still or your background mpeg on track 7.

insert your 6 chapter clips into tracks 1 through 6.

Go track by track, resize and align the clips so they are where you want them on your menu.

export the whole thing as a new mpeg.

import that mpeg into dvd lab as your menu background.

I used Vegas because I really like it and it makes sense to me, but any video editor that can do compositing will work - Adobe AfterEffects is a standard, I think Zwei-Stein can do it, and that's freeware. I'm sure Ulead has some product that will do it, but I don't use Ulead stuff so I don't know which one.

Sometimes this stuff isn't all drag & drop.. some things you have to work a little harder to get done.

[Vejita-sama]

You can also do this with several freeware tools. The two that come to mind first are ChapterAnim and TSCV:

http://membres.lycos.fr/luckyrip/

http://www.doom9.org

TSCV is no longer supported. ChapterAnim is pretty basic but gets the job done. As always you get what you pay for, so while I use these two programs all the time the documentation and setup can be trickier compared to commerical products.