help required on making simple but 'deep' dvd menus

[lancealittle]

hi guys, hope u can help.

i have done some vid editing projects occasionally, but nothing to give me a clue to solve my problem.

i need to create a dvd menu (ironically with no vids :P ), but heres my problem -

what software is best used to make a simple multi-paged dvd-menu (lots of pages actually) interlinked by 2 or 3 buttons on each page ?

ie page 1 leads (via buttons) to 2 other preset pages (call them pages 100 & 200). then pages 100 & 200 both offer options to other pages, and so on.

it will basically, once completed, be something like an interactive dvd game but without vids, only some pics, lots pages & buttons.

can any1 advise please ? most software i know of only makes 1 main page, each button leading to vid clips - thats not my purpose here.

my actual purpose is to create a simple menu driven dvd for my kids to play home-made adventure games, so actions (buttons) lead to consequences (new pages) until reach the end of the game.

i already have software to do this for pc autorun disks, but i specifically want my creation to work on dvd players.

thanks guys n gals
any help is appreciated, any questions please ask.

[guns1inger]

GUIForDVDAuthor should be able to do this, as well as DVD Styler (both free). DVD Lab Pro and DVD Workshop 2 can easily do this, but are not free.

[lancealittle]

thanks guns1linger, ill check them out & let u know how it goes

[DB83]

You may well hit problems depending on how 'deep' you want your menus.

A basic dvd (one with only one VTS - title set) is limited to 99 menus. This would normally be more than enough.

Now consider your scenario with, what I assume to be multiple choices on each menu.

Your first menu could have 2 choices. You than need 2 menus for the next layer. Each of these could also have 2 choices. That is another 4 menus. So on and so on. So even with only 2 choices, you will quite quickly run out of menus. And if you need more choices, you run out even quicker.

There is one other limitation in that your menus can not occupy more than 1 gig on the dvd disk.

There is a way around this but you are then talking of even more complex software.

[lancealittle]

thanks db83 for info. guess i have a problem then, as a typical adventure ive made has over 400 'pages'. 398 of them are choice based, 1 for success & end, 1 for fail & end.

how do they manage similar on interactive dvds ? is there any software to make my own interactive dvds ? i could do the same with that. any thoughts folks ?

[filmboss80]

thanks db83 for info. guess i have a problem then, as a typical adventure ive made has over 400 'pages'. 398 of them are choice based, 1 for success & end, 1 for fail & end.

how do they manage similar on interactive dvds ? is there any software to make my own interactive dvds ? i could do the same with that. any thoughts folks ?

Segment your movie into 4 or 5 separate movies, creating separate TitleSets. (If you fade to black at the end of one segment and fade up from black at the beginning of a new segment, then you can author the DVD to link the separate movies together as one without a noticeable freeze between sequences.) You can make 99 menus per titleset.

[lancealittle]

filmboss, in my original post i said there are no videoclips - just pages of menus needed, each linked by buttons. each page will be mainly text and buttons, with the odd drawing thrown in too

[DB83]

guns1inger ID'd the software that can do this - although I do not think that DVD Workshop can for the complexity you require .

It has been pointed out that you will need multiple VTS (Video Title Sets) to get over the 99 menu limit even if the dvd will not have any actual video in the conventional sense (Menus are technically videos as far as a DVD is concerned).

So it's down to getting a modestly expensive piece of software - DVD Lab Pro - or use the free stuff which will not achieve what you want to 'out of the box' and involve a potentially steep learning curve for VM commands.

[mazinz]

filmboss, in my original post i said there are no videoclips - just pages of menus needed, each linked by buttons. each page will be mainly text and buttons, with the odd drawing thrown in too

technically you do not need a video clip, you could use any "image" file (as a still or even set it to 3 seconds) you want as a dummy title and in this sense it would not take up any space at all while giving you a valid title set with 99 menus.

Others gave you answers to your questions (like using dvd lab pro for multi title set) but if you were still curious about adding a video when you have no video the simple workaround I listed should work for you

guns1inger ID'd the software that can do this - although I do not think that DVD Workshop can for the complexity you require .

It has been pointed out that you will need multiple VTS (Video Title Sets) to get over the 99 menu limit even if the dvd will not have any actual video in the conventional sense (Menus are technically videos as far as a DVD is concerned).

So it's down to getting a modestly expensive piece of software - DVD Lab Pro - or use the free stuff which will not achieve what you want to 'out of the box' and involve a potentially steep learning curve for VM commands.

Correct, DVDWS2 cannot do that. It will only add 99 menus for one title set regardless of how many different clips you add. It does not have the function to do a multi-title set WITH menus for each title set

[lancealittle]

thanks guys, looks like im gonna have to settle for a pc version of my games instead - those i can do <touch wood>