Tip for doing 16:9 menus with correct subpictures

[borghe]

Just thought I would offer up a recommendation for working with 16:9 menus.

I was working on the menus for my Star Wars transfers when I found out that my subpictures for my 16:9 menus were getting screwed up on 4:3 televisions. I knew why (subpictures don't resize in between modes) and with a little work figured out how to fix it.

I created my 16:9 subpictures first. I created my menu in photoshop at 720x405. I then created a layer with my subpictures for the menu on it. I resized the whole picture to 720x480. I then created a new image at 720x480 and copied my subpicture layer to it. A quick saev of that image and my 16:9 subpicture is now complete.

For the 4:3 letterboxed version, I simply resized the 720x480 subpicture image to 720x361. I then selected Canvas Size..., anchored the picture at the bottom, and resized the canvas to 720x421. I clicked ok, selected Canvas Size... again, and this time anchored the image at the top, resized the canvas to 720x480, clicked ok, and saved. Now you have to add two subpicture tracks to your menus. Make sure you assign one for widescreen only and assign the other for letterbox only. Insert the first picture into the widescreen subpicture track and the second into the letterbox one. Having tested this on both my Mits HDTV and a normal 4:3 I can tell you it works perfectly.

Hopefully this helps someone at least a little.

[SaSi]

Good tip. I only wish you had posted it a couple of months ago, when I was chasing my subpictures while the DVD player letterboxed the frame on my 4:3 TV. I was totaly lost, until I realized what was happening (I was using the same subpicture overlay for both wide and narrow aspect).

There is a nice program, DVDMenu, created by the same person that does DVDLab. It addresses the same problems, by doing vector graphics in a correct aspect ratio for the PC screen and then producing correct bitmaps for both 4:3 and 16:9 aspects.

If you don't do too many 16:9 menus, then the Photoshop hassle is not all that bad. Otherwise, it may be good to have a look at the program.

[Rogue3]

Just thought I would offer up a recommendation for working with 16:9 menus.

I was working on the menus for my Star Wars transfers when I found out that my subpictures for my 16:9 menus were getting screwed up on 4:3 televisions. I knew why (subpictures don't resize in between modes) and with a little work figured out how to fix it.

I created my 16:9 subpictures first. I created my menu in photoshop at 720x405. I then created a layer with my subpictures for the menu on it. I resized the whole picture to 720x480. I then created a new image at 720x480 and copied my subpicture layer to it. A quick saev of that image and my 16:9 subpicture is now complete.

For the 4:3 letterboxed version, I simply resized the 720x480 subpicture image to 720x361. I then selected Canvas Size..., anchored the picture at the bottom, and resized the canvas to 720x421. I clicked ok, selected Canvas Size... again, and this time anchored the image at the top, resized the canvas to 720x480, clicked ok, and saved. Now you have to add two subpicture tracks to your menus. Make sure you assign one for widescreen only and assign the other for letterbox only. Insert the first picture into the widescreen subpicture track and the second into the letterbox one. Having tested this on both my Mits HDTV and a normal 4:3 I can tell you it works perfectly.

Hopefully this helps someone at least a little.

This is good information, especially since I'm getting ready to make some home video dvd's in widescreen, but will be giving copies to the family who don't think widescreen is the way to go. My question is, what authoring program are you using? I'm using maestro and don't see where I can add more than 1 subpicture.

[borghe]

scenarist you can add multiple subpictures to a menu. However you have to declare what the subpicture is defaulted as. So you can't add two letterbox subpictures, but you can add one letterbox and one widescreen subpicture.

This solution is only for using a single 16x9 menu for your DVD. It will still be letterboxed on 4:3 TVs. If you wanted to have a non-letterboxed menu along with a 16:9 menu, you would have to create two menu tracks and have one default to 4:3 and one default to 16:9.

[yysie]

What about PAL?

[Rogue3]

scenarist you can add multiple subpictures to a menu. However you have to declare what the subpicture is defaulted as. So you can't add two letterbox subpictures, but you can add one letterbox and one widescreen subpicture.

This solution is only for using a single 16x9 menu for your DVD. It will still be letterboxed on 4:3 TVs. If you wanted to have a non-letterboxed menu along with a 16:9 menu, you would have to create two menu tracks and have one default to 4:3 and one default to 16:9.

Ah, ok, then I won't have a problem. I'm making my menu anamorphic, so it will just be letterbox on a 4:3 tv, so I assume the sub will still match with no problems.

[borghe]

rogue3, not exactly. you will still have problems if Maestro doesn't account for this (it may. I don't use it). The problem is that even though a DVD player adjusts anamorphic video for 4:3 televisions, it doesn't adjust the subpictures. Your menu will be downconverted (have every 4th line removed) and letterboxed but your subpictures will only be letterboxed but not downconverted. As was pointed out above, some authoring progs account for this and modify an additional subpicture track to account for the letterboxed picture. If maestro doesn't, what will effectively happen is that your menu highlights will seemingly "float" around the screen, further apart vertically from their menu counterpart the higher up on the screen you go.

Read up on Maestro. It may automatically take care of it for you. If it doesn't though, you will either a) need to figure out a way to add an additional subpicture, b) create separate menus for 4:3 and 16:9, or c) create a non-anamorphic menu. The last option will appear fine on both 4:3 and 16:9, although a little squashed on 16:9.

[SupaCoopa]

I make all my menus widescreen in Maestro, never had a problem with either 4:3 or 16:9 displays. Everything shows up exactly they way it should, letterboxed (ie black bars up and down) with correctly placed buttons in normal screens and full widescreen with correctly placed buttons in wide screens.

What's more 4:3 menus authored by Maestro do not appear "squashed" in wide screens, they just appear as 4:3 (ie black bars left and right) with correctly placed buttons.

[SupaCoopa]

Oh, and make sure you're using DVD Maestro 2.9 build 2915a as older builds have problems with 16:9 menus. See this thread

[Rogue3]

I make all my menus widescreen in Maestro, never had a problem with either 4:3 or 16:9 displays. Everything shows up exactly they way it should, letterboxed (ie black bars up and down) with correctly placed buttons in normal screens and full widescreen with correctly placed buttons in wide screens.

What's more 4:3 menus authored by Maestro do not appear "squashed" in wide screens, they just appear as 4:3 (ie black bars left and right) with correctly placed buttons.

That's good to know.

By the way, the 4:3 menus not appearing squashed is likely a feature of your dvd player, because the one 4:3 menu I made is stretched in my widescreen tv.

I'm using maestro with the correct build as well.

[borghe]

thanks supacoopa... wasn't sure. It seems most higher end authoring packages have this capability built in. Unfortunately Scenarist isn't about doing stuff for you. It's just making sure it is there for you to do yourself.

Although converting 4:3 menus to 16:9 is pretty cool. The only way I can figure is that it creates two separate menu tracks for this. The only other time I've seen automatic black sidebars generated was on one of the trailers on the Disney Atlantis disc... That is a pretty cool concept. Cool that Mestro does it automatically for menus designed in 4:3. Although I would still rather have a full picture across my 16:9 and leave the black bars for the saps that haven't gone widescreen yet.

[Rogue3]

Cool that Mestro does it automatically for menus designed in 4:3.

Like I said, I've designed menus in 4:3 in maestro and played them back on my widescreen and there were no black bars, just the stretched image. This was most likely done by the dvd player.

[borghe]

Does your DVD player have aspect ratio control? Does it automatically expand non-anamorphic letterboxed discs or put black bars on other 4:3 content? If not, then Maestro most likely created two separate menu PGCs and added the black bars to the 16:9 one. that seems to be the most likely possiblity.

[peterpan]

How do you create/render/export a 4:3 pan-scan mpeg2 to create pan-scan menus in Scenarist?