DVD Menu - Picture for navigation...

[nharikrishna]

I see a lot of commercial DVDs have this nice feature: a hand symbol or an underline is visible in a menu whenever you navigate Up, Down, Right or Left on your DVD Player. This is used for making selections.

If you see the below picture, I am referring to the little triange to the left of "PLAY".

What is this called and how is it achieved in the consumer level authoring packages?

Regards

[Bjs]

BOV ...

all dvd authoring programs which provide menu's include this function ... some even allow one to create and use there own ... dvdauthorgui ... dvdflick (thou it's a little more work in changing the included defaults).

While many programs do this they don't all have the feature located in the same place.

Button guide

[DB83]

It is called a highlight button.

It is normally achieved by putting one button for each selection and it is the button that is linked to for the selection rather than the text along side it.

[guns1inger]

I also find dingbat fonts (that use symbols instead of letters) very handy for this. I like dafont as a repository for free fonts for menu design.

[nharikrishna]

Thanks for the replies. I understand buttons, highlighting and linking text to video files. When I highlight, the whole text is highlighted by a rectangle. But in commercial DVDs, the little shape (triangle in the above example) actually moves up and down as you move your DVD Player remote.

[DB83]

Because your text has become the button.

You need the text AND a button alongside the text. One button for each menu option.

[lowellriggsiam]

For simplicity purposes you can use Nero.

[nharikrishna]

Thanks to all. Will explore more.

[lordsmurf]

This is easy to do in DVDWS2.

It's a highlight.

[nharikrishna]

Thanks LS. I am using DVD Architect. I will explore the highlighting options. I thought I tried specifying a small hand symbol as highlight, but it didn't show-up. I will try once again.

[CheeseSteak]

This might help:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-happens-vegas/473578-dvd-architect-menu-select-dis-appear.html

[Malcom X]

You check this, is a very nice program for dvd authoring:

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/
This tool has many more features for DVD Authoring as DVD Architekt
Flexible DVD structure
Multiple Audio and Subtitle Channels
Multiple Angles/BOV
More Menu Effects
Dynamic effects
Play Lists, Counter Lists, Random Lists, Chapter List etc.
Audio-Only Track
etc.

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdmenu/index.html

With Photoshop you can make professional menus.

There are also ready Photoshop and After Effects templates:
http://www.pixelpops-shop.com/
http://www.digitalvideoteam.co.uk/

[nharikrishna]

Thanks CheeseSteak. The link appears to provide exactly the info I am looking for.

Thanks Malcom X.

Regards

[DB83]

But the features listsed for DvdLab only refer to the Pro version.

Same really for DVD Architect. The Pro version has the features but not the standard one.

Lordsmurf already discussed Ulead DVD Workshop 2. If fact that is probably the easiest to use.