What video editor for motion/video clip backgrounds and...

[hitman3000]

A couple of years ago I picked up an ATI All-in-Wonder card that came with Intervideo DVD editing software. I have used it a few times, the final product seems to look good and be encoded pretty well. But, I’m not satisfied with it’s menu options. They are just too bare bones and crappy looking(at least on the version I have).

Basically I want a program that can make good professional looking menus with looped motion graphics/video clips for backgrounds on the main menu(and sub menus if possible). Also, I want to be able to create chapter buttons that are JUST the preview pic and not some lame ass goofy frame around the pic. And even better than that would be preview looped motion clips in the chapter buttons, but again no goofy frames around the buttons. I don’t mind something like a drop shadow behind the button, but I hate those wood,metal,bubble and whatever the hell they are frames. They look like a 3 year old authored them. I’m sure there are a lot of programs out there that do what I want, but I don’t know about the features on any of them.

I’m sure it goes without saying that cheaper is better. However, quality must be good, I want to do these menu features but I don’t want to sacrifice quality to do it. So, I would rather pay for a good editor than settle for a cheap one that makes great menus but outputs sub-par DVDs that look worse or more pixilated than the original.
This being said, I hope you guys can suggest something that costs less than the latest version of Adobe Premiere. I’m not ready to make that kind of investment until I get more capable with editing.

So, what do you suggest?

[Richard_G]

What you are talking about is more advanced authoring than editing. Editing software tends to be more for editing the clips that the menu points to rather than the menus themselves. Ulead DVD Workshop 2 will do just about anything with menus, but it isn't an editor....

[guns1inger]

You need to separate out the tasks.

Editors edit. Some have effects and plugins that can do fancy things, but at the bottom line, they edit.

Authoring tools author. Some will allow you to trim video, some also encode. Most just author.

Motion graphics applications create motion graphics. These include abstract effects like fractals, as well as moving text, special effects, and other tricks.

The there are specialist one-trick ponies, open source and freeware tools and all manner of toys to play with.

I do a fair amount of motion menu work. I use photoshop to create graphics, text effects and masks, I use Vegas to assemble the parts together, but I also use virtualdubmpeg2 for some of it's plugins. I then author in DLP because not only does it do motion menus well (although I never use it's built-in render motion functions), it also does delayed cell and multi-cell menus, so you can play smoothly through your intro and into your menu without having that pause in between than comes from using two clips. I even have an older copy of 3DSMax from my 3D days to do GC type effects.

Bottom line : to do what you want requires several different tasks, and the best outcome usually occurs when you use the right tools for each job.

Most of the artistry comes form planning, time and talent, regardless of tools. The authoring stage, while important, isn't where the art happens.

If you are on a budget, look at Gimp for still work (free), WAX2 for motion graphics, virtualdubmpeg2 and some of the MSU plugins for some effects and general rendering (with a good, lossless codec like Lagarith or huffyuv), and perhaps Vegas Movie Studio for bringing it all together. Once it is rendered it can be authored in any of a dozen or more packages.