Scenarist video buttons

[sarahp]

Does any one know if Scenarist can create video buttons and if so, how? I'm trying to create a chapter menu which would play each (scene) chapter for 10 seconds, when clicked you go to that particular scene.

Another question would be to take one of my scenes (chapters) and play about 10 seconds of it as a transition from menu to menu. Is this possible?

Thanks for any help!

[adam]

No DVD authoring software does this. The menu's are simply a motion sequence. You have to create all of that and then import it into the authoring program, and just use it to add the overlay buttons.

You can create moving chapter menus extremely easy in adobe after effects. Just load one pic or video source for the background, and then keep dragging new clips onto it and resizing them how you want them. Then export to a single video file. You can also do this Adobe Premiere or even with the totally free Avisynth, though that is much harder. You are definitely going to have to do this stuff via an editing program, not with a dvd authorer. Same goes for the transitions. They are just video, make them any way you can an import them into your authoring software.

[sarahp]

Thanks for your reply Adam,

I was actually able to pull this off in Adobe Encore, but because Encore kept crashing on me and with it's horrible bugs, I decided to move up to Scenarist. I guess I'll just build it in After Effects! To bad though, that Scenarist can't do it, it would be a great feature, and space saver! Especially since I'm shooting to put this project onto a DVD5 rather than DVD9.

Thanks again,
Sarah