Is there a dvd menu builder as powerfull as Macromedia Flash

[drewzor]

I'm reasonably savey with macromedia flash and could see a huge potential for dvd menu building. Is there anything out there that is as advanced for menu building?

[guns1inger]

Anything that can be done in flash as far as motion is concerned can be done in Premiere or Vegas or After Effects just as easily. If anything, I would find Flash limiting for menu design.

[terjeber]

Also, since flash has a lot of features, and DVD menus in general are rather simpistic stuff, you can't build DVD menus like you do in flash. Essentially a DVD menu is a sequence of movie clips.

[Cornucopia]

Sure, Flash is great for "interactivity"-laden streams, but for DVD menus, the only thing you need is:

1. Still or Movie for the "background"
2. Subpicture Still for the "highlight"-affected areas (and their color/transparency LUT)
3. Rectangular selections that denote "highlight" or "action"-affected areas
4. A mapping of what buttons/actions go with these areas (NEXT,PREV,RESUME,BUTN1,etc)

Since #3 & #4 (and the color/transparency LUT values) are usually only created WITHIN the authoring app itself, only #1 and #2 need be created elsewhere.

This means that Flash, which can't create/export "Stills" or "Movies" any better than any other NLE, Compositing, or Animation app (Vegas, AVID,,Photoshop,,AfterEffects,etc), is not ideally suited, because so many of those "interactivity" features aren't applicable.
You can't EXPORT the LUT, or the action mapping list, etc.

However, I wouldn't call making DVD menu's inherently simplistic, either (simpler-yes, simplistic-no). Those of us who use SPRM/GPRM logic, etc. can make some pretty interesting things happen.

Scott