Menu authoring with video descriptions?

[vance003]

I am trying to create a disc (BD actually, but I've gotten no responses on the BD board, and the lesson'll apply equally to making DVDs) that will be a collection of various video files. The menuing demands are relatively easy. I would like to have a single top level menu that allows me to scroll through the choices to pick the video I want. Chapters within the videos are not needed, nor are in-video pop-up menus. I think multiAVCHD would be good for that bare-bones description, but there is a wrinkle that has me scratching my head. In this menu, when each video choice is highlighted / scrolled to, I would like to be able to present onscreen a brief (one or two sentence) description of the video. So I have to reserve a bit of screen real estate in the menu for essentially a comments box --- easy enough, but then for each video I need to link it to the brief verbal description that would appear when it is the highlighted choice in the menu. Does anyone know of a consumer-level authoring program that can handle these per-video comments?

[DB83]

So if you do not get any response in one day or so - guys do not live on here 24/7 - does that give you the right to cross-post your questions in multiple topics ? No

You need to excercise a little patience.

Am I correct that you only want this descriptive text to appear when you have focus on the particular menu selection ?

If so, I will provide a relatively easy method to achieve this.

[vance003]

I had figured that it would not necessarily be the same people reading the DVD forum as were reading the BD forum, and since the DVD one seems to get more traffic, I hoped to reach more people with expertise.

Your point, however, is taken, and I apologize.

And yes, the descriptive text for each menu item should appear only when that item is highlighted. Thank you.

[DB83]

Ok. I could achieve a simple technique in DVDWorkShop2.

You need a package that will react when the menu item has 'focus' as well as a select linking.

The simple technique involves creating a series of menus each of which will show just one item of text. So, let's say you have 5 menu items. The first menu (the default) shows the text fixed in the menu. You now create another four menus each will show just one item of text which is again fixed.

As each menu item has focus the menu switches to the menu that has the fixed text for that selection. There is an inevitable slight delay during the switch.

The big disadvantage with this method is if you need to have background audio for the menu. The audio will restart at each switch.

[lordsmurf]

The big disadvantage with this method is if you need to have background audio for the menu. The audio will restart at each switch.

... unless you cut it into pieces.

Depending on the player, it might even be seamless.
If DVDWS2 can do something, I've probably done it. Powerful program, but not everything is obvious.