A Noob’s Experience Authoring with DVD Studio Pro (so far, could still use some assistance!)

[Eric Pautsch]

DVDSP and authoring can be a little daunting at first…I know…believe me 🙂

Did you go through the tutorials in the manual or look on you tube to get step by steps? Its almost impossible to help that much here on a thread 🙂 It takes practice to get thing right when youre going in blind 🙂

1. Yes….you can add both but the HD files but they will be down rez to SD

2. You probably fed it H.264 file. DVDSP does not accept them – as good thing since h.264 is a delivery codec not a mastering one. Always work with and export a good uncompressed or lossless codec like Prores.

1. Nope…DVD does not author BD

2. yes

3. yes

4. yes

5. yes

1. Yes…think of DVd having 2 planes. One is a background still or video and on top of it is your overlay. They are separate so you can adjust things like opacity and color

2. DVD(NTSC) is 720×480. This is either 4×3 or can be 16×9 anamorphic…but always 720×480. There are other resolutions like half D1 but thats beyond this thread

[Money Mahoney]

Thanks so much, I’m getting a little closer, any additional input is much appreciated, specifically:

1. What are the EXACT settings on the aspect ratio I need so both my older SD clips (4:3) and my new HD clips (16:9) will display properly on a regular TV?

2. If I’m hoping for some kind of highlight to appear for each individual video clip on the authored DVD’s menu… I’m guessing I need to add both a background and overlay art files? (I just did them with Photoshop)

What a complete pain in the ass this program is hey? And I thought learning Final Cut Pro was hard…

[Eric Pautsch]

1..Like I said, DVD is 720×480 or 720×480 16×9 anamorphic. Your 4×3 footage is encoded 4×3 while 16×9 is encoded 16×9. On a 4×3 TV your 16×9 will be letterboxed to fit the smaller screen

2. Here’s a good tutorial to go over….Ill basically be telling you the same thing that is written here:

https://www.larryjordan.biz/creating-dvd-menu-and-button-highlights-using-photoshop-layers/

[Money Mahoney]

Thanks for the reply, here’s where I’m at:

1. I don’t care if there is letterboxing with both 4:3 and 16:9 – I just want the f**king videos not to be chopped off on the left & right borders! I would LOVE to know the EXACT settings on the authoring process to make that happen?

2. I have messed with the “overlay” process & Photoshop (i.e., a background image, and then the “black box” method for the highlights), but still can’t figure out how in the hell to make it work when I put the burned DVD in the player. Is there some kind of crazy mojo or something I need to do or what?

F R U S T R A T I N G A S H E L L hey?

[Money Mahoney]

I found this post somewhere online, seems pretty well written; I followed the instructions, but my burned DVD isn’t showing highlights – maybe I need to pay more attention the the black boxes inside the overlay (Photoshop) file? The part about ensure the button edges are strictly contained inside the block box field – is that correct?

thanks

m

1. Create a background. This image should contain everything you want on the menu EXCEPT for the actual highlights.

2. Save the background as a .tif, or .pict file (other formats will probably work too).

3. Create another file with a black where you want your highlights to be. For example, if you were using a rectangle as a highlight, make a pure black rectangle in the correct spot such that it lines up with where ever it needs to go (this is where Photoshop becomes useful, because of layers, but it’s not strictly necessary).

4. Save this file as a .pict file (TIF, and PNG might work too).

5. Import both picture files into DVD SP.

6. Create a new menu in DVD SP.

7. Drag the background picture from the assets window on to the menu in the graphical outline window.

8. Click on the menu in either the graphical tab or outline tab.

9. In the menu inspector, at the bottom where it asks for the overlay file, click the drop down box and select the picture file with the black overlays for highlights.

10. On the colors tab in the menu inspector, select simple mode. Next, choose the colors for normal, selected and activated states for the buttons on this menu.

11. The final step is to actually create the buttons. With the menu selected, make sure the menu tab/window is visible. Inside this, you should see the menu background. Click and drag to create buttons where they need to go. You need to make sure you completely contain each highlight within the boxes. Also, you CAN’T have overlapping buttons, so be careful not to let them overlap.

You’ve not got your buttons. You can set them up to link to other elements in either the button inspector or in the connections window.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions, let me know. Also, the Discussions forums on https://www.apple.com can be very helpful. You don’t need Photoshop to do this, but I can tell you from personal experience that it’s very nice to have. For one thing, you can use separate layers in the same Photoshop file to do the background(s) and overlays, and in fact if you want, you can make ALL the menus in an entire DVD with one PSD file, with different layers containing different elements.
The image file with black where the overlays goes is never actually visible to the end user. It’s only used to tell DVD SP where the highlights appear. You have to select the color and opacity for each button state (normal/unselected, selected, activated) within DVD SP. I’m going to switch over to my video editing machine and take some screenshots to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. I’ll post them here when I’m done.

By the way, the procedure for a video background and an image background is exactly the same as far as highlights go. You still need a highlights overlay file with black where the highlights are supposed to appear.

[Eric Pautsch]

[Money Mahoney] “maybe I need to pay more attention the the black boxes inside the overlay (Photoshop) file?”

Yes….you do

[Money Mahoney] “The part about ensure the button edges are strictly contained inside the block box field – is that correct?
“
It is correct

Not sure what else to tell you. That piece you found is exactly like all the tutorials I advised you to read. Have you looked at any videos on youtube?

Not sure why you have black on the sides. Whats the aspect ratio of the piece you are editing? Whatever that is you need to nest it in a 720×480 (4×3 or 16×9 anamorphic) timeline and encode

Have you thought about using iDVD? Its much more user friendly

[Money Mahoney]

Hola:

I know I’m very close on my DVDSP authoring challenge, but I’m missing a couple of key steps. Would anyone here be available to do a remote screen sharing session (ala Mikogo.com) to quickly get me through this?

I can pay via PayPal, let me know

THANK YOU

m