Menu transitions/effects with Sony DVD Architect Studio

[sir_rob]

I have been fiddling around with Sony DVD Architect Studio. and it is VERY flexible, but I have not found a "simple" way to make menu transitions/effects. The only approach that I have found is to create my own transition video that gets played after a button in the menu is selected and before the target video plays. I know that Ulead Movie Studio will create the menu transitions on its own, but it will not allow users to change the links in the menus. Am I missing anything here, or is this pretty much how everyone else does it?

[tinker]

I am not sure what you mean by "menu transitions", but if you want something like a short clip being played before main movie or between switching from menu to menu, like in some commercial DVD, you will have to make a clip by yourself.

[sir_rob]

Examples of "menu transitions":

1. From a menu, you select a button. The menu zooms in on the motion thumbnail associated with that button until it fills the screen and then starts playing that video.

2. The title, buttons, background, etc. all slide in at different times and different sides of the screen when you go to the menu. Then, when you leave the menu, it does all of that in reverse which leaves you at the selected scene.

I do not know how to do either of those in DVD Architect. I can:
1. Create a menu
2. Copy the image of that menu
3. Insert that image into the time line
4. Add transition effects from that image to the actual video footage
5. Link the button in the menu to go to the image and the transition

This makes it look like a menu transition, but I still do not know how to smoothly create either menu transition that I listed above. Any ideas?

[guns1inger]

Unless they have made some major changes, I suspect you cannot. Normally this would be created in Vegas (or another editor), then used in the authoring.

[tinker]

I do not think any $40 dollars or even $100 software will be able to do any of your #1 and#2 requirements.

[sir_rob]

As I mentioned before, Ulead Movie Factory will do those transitions ($60), but it will not allow users to change the menu button links. I have just learned that DVD-lab will also do menu transitions ($99). I just purchased Vegas Studio 8/DVD Architect ($65 after rebate, newegg), but I am now wondering if I should have purchased DVD-Lab instead. Any thoughts?

[guns1inger]

Yes. Change your approach. I use Vegas and DVD Lab Pro. I never use DVD Lab Pro to do the transitions. Why ?

1. It is limited in what it can do, and the canned effects are, like all all canned effects, cheesy and obvious.

2. It creates an AVI file that you will still have to encode to mpg-2 and bring back into DLP.

I create all my transition scenes and motion menus in Vegas or some other appropriate video tool, then bring them into DLP for authoring. If you take the same approach you can use DVDA to assemble all the parts.

I also make my life easier by creating all my still menus in Photoshop, so I can just bring that into Vegas to get my start and end points.

[tinker]

DVD Lab will do transition between menus, not menu to title.
And like guns1inger say, those transitions are just basic, nothing fancy like you want.

[sir_rob]

Thanks! That helps a lot!

1. guns1inger, why do you use DVD Lab Pro as opposed to DVD Architect (assuming that you have both)?

2. Aside from the obvious that you can manipulate images extremely well in Photoshop, what other benefits does it offer as a menu generator?

Looking around the internet, it appears that DVD Architect has limited support for photoshop files, but I could be wrong. --update: it looks like DVDA supports layered photoshop files, I think you just have to follow DVDA's naming convention for the layers.

[guns1inger]

I find DVD Architect very limited in some areas, and it has a nasty habit of wanting to re-encode footage that is compliant. Sometimes it is a user problem - mis-setting or project parameters etc - but often it isn't. DLP gives me far more flexibility, and I can work much faster in it that with DVDA.

Photoshop has several advantages. The first is that I generally have to spend time in it anyway just creating the background graphic, so I might as well do everything else in there as well. The second is that is is much more subtle than most DVD authoring tools when it comes to things like drop shadows, or dealing with interlace flicker.

I believe that the best results are achieved by using the best tools for each stage of the job. For me, DLP is a great tool for assembling assets. However each asset is best produced in tools that suit the creation of that asset. For still menus, that is often Photoshop. For motion menus and transitions it is usually Vegas, but might also be virtualdub or avisynth or a combination.