Menu and title with audio?

[Victor Hen]

I have Premiere Pro and Encore CS4 and I would like to have a video with a menu that goes to one or two videos, then a short title, then to the movie. I would also like to use an audio (MP3) track that plays during the menu and the title slide. I would also like to save this menu/title/audio as an asset to use for other videos. Can someone give me a short overview of how to do this? I have only been using these two programs for a few days, so am a real newbie. However, I have been able to do the following:

Clip and edit my video, adding a title slide in PPro.
Dynamically link this to Encore where I added a menu.
Save and burn a DVD.

I guess the part I am unsure of, is how to add audio to both the menu and title slide and save as an asset for later use.

[guns1inger]

You will have to re-encode your MP3 to AC3 or Mpeg-1 Layer-2 as MP3 is not DVD compliant.

I don't use Encore, the general process would be

1. Create menu with buttons. Motion menu is usually as simple as dragging the video to the menu background, but your manual or F1 will confirm this.
2. Link the buttons to the first video you want to have play when it is pressed.
3. Link the end of these videos to the next video you want to have play
4. Repeat until you have your chain of videos complete
5. Link the end of the last video in each chain back to the menu
6. Compile, test, and fix anything that didn't work

[Victor Hen]

I think I understand how to assemble a menu with buttons that go to video and how to re-route back to menu, etc. The part that is confusing is that I make the title slide and add audio in PPro, then move it to Encore where I make the menu. How do I add (or extend) the audio so it plays for both the menu and title slide, then save it to be re-used for other videos? BTW, if I save this asset (menu/title slide/with audio) as an asset for later use, I understand I would have to edit the menu choices each time as I would be using it for different videos.

[borax]

I don't use Encore nor Premiere Pro, but if you mean by:

...add (or extend) the audio so it plays for both the menu and title slide

that the audio continues (without break/restart) from a menu to a title (or other menu or other title), that's not possible due to DVD specifications. Each menu or title is an 'entity' where video and audio are mixed (or muxed) into a single file. Therefore you can only add the same audio clip to all your videos and menus where this audio should be played. But it will always restart if you move from a menu to a title or another menu.

[kpic]

IN Encore when you add a new menu (and assuming your audio asset is already imported) click anywhere on the menu itself & on the right side for the menu properties you will see "video" "audio" you can (they call it pick whip) take the audio "whip' looking thing and pull it or point it to your audio source where the assets are located. This will set that audio asset for the menu, as Borax says it will not extend into the actual title it will play only on the menu.

You can save this as a title and simply re-open it over each time as a "base" menu to start with.