DVD scene selection markers as in comm. DVDs

[Mike Kujbida]

John, I do this a lot and here’s a rather lengthy description of every single step I go through.

Make sure to place markers at the appropriate locations and render the video and audio out of Vegas using the following templates.

Make sure the “Render I-frames at markers” box is selected in the “render as” screen for your video.
For the video, use the “DVD Architect NTSC video stream” (or “DVD Architect NTSC widescreen video stream” if it’s in Widescreen) template with the following changes:
If the video is 70 min. or less, click the “Custom” button next to the “Template” box, then the “Video” tab and set the bitrate to a CBR of 8,000,000;
If the video is over 70 min., use a bitrate calculator to determine optimum encoding settings, change to VBR and set the values according to the bitrate calculator’s numbers;
If the quality is even slightly marginal, select the “Two-pass”option;
Set the “Quality ” option to it’s highest setting (31);
Save this as a template by clicking in the template box at the top of this tab, giving it a name (for example, Christmas Play 2008) and then clicking the “Save” icon (looks like a floppy disc) to the right of this box.

For the audio, use the default AC-3 template with the following changes:
Encode set to AC3;
Click on custom tab;
Dialog normalization: -31 dB;
Dynamic range compression: None;
On the first tab set diag. norm to “-31”;
On the last tab marked preprocessing;
Set the Line Mode & RF mode profiles to “None”;
Now save this as a preset using the method described above.

Make sure both files have the same name (i.e. Christmas Play 2008.mpg and Christmas Play 2008.ac3) and are saved to the same folder.

If you want to use a picture from the play as the background menu, this can be done very easily.
Either use an image from a digital still camera (I sometimes use a shot of the empty stage) or grab a still from Vegas and use this.
If you’re not sure how to do this, place the cursor on the timeline at the desired location, set the Preview Window to Best/Full and click the “Snapshot” icon.
A window will open up pointing to the current folder and giving you the option to save the image in JPG or PNG format. I prefer PNG but the choice is yours.
Give the image a name and save it to the same folder that your video and audio files got rendered to.
This way, when it times to author the DVD, everything needed is in one folder.

Open a new project in DVD Architect.
Make sure the “Show Title Safe Area” option is enabled (View – Workspace Overlays).
Change the title “Menu 1” to something like “Christmas Play 2008” by clicking the “Edit Text” button at the bottom right of the centre screen.
Change the theme to one of the stock ones or create your own background using the steps suggested earlier.
To use an image that you created yourself, click in the centre screen, select “Set Background Media”, browse to the folder where the image is and double-click the file.
You should now have it as your main image.
Move the renamed “Menu 1” title as desired.
In the Explorer tab, browse to the folder with your encoded audio & video files.
Double-click the previously created video file.
It should now be in the centre of the main screen as an image with text underneath it.
Before continuing, you have a few options.
You can leave it as a “Text & Image” button or change it to a “Text Only” or “Image Only” by right-clicking it and going down to “Button Style” for the options.
I usually change it to “Text Only” and rename it to “PLAY ALL” using the “Edit Text” button.
You can also change the font type, size, colour and position as desired.
Double-click it to ensure that the entire play comes up (video & audio) as well as all your markers).
Click “Save As”, browse to the folder where the already encoded files are,give it a name and click “Save”.
Repeat this periodically during this whole process by simply clicking the “Save” button so that you don’t accidentally lose any work.

Now it’s time to add a Scene Selection menu.
Right-click in the centre screen and select “Add Submenu”.
Change this to “Text Only” and rename it to “Scene Selection”.
Double-click it to go to the next page.
Change “Menu 2” to “Scene Selection”.
Double-click the video file in the “Explorer” tab as many times as you have scenes in the play (the number of markers you placed on the Vegas timeline).
I generally don’t use more than 12 here as the text ends up being too small.
If your play has from 12 to 24 scenes, repeat the “Add Submenu” steps and divide accordingly.
If you have between 25 and 36 scenes, repeat the “Add Submenu” steps one more time.
Go back to the first “Scene Selection” page.
To change all the buttons to “Text Only” place your cursor in an area just outside the top left of the first button and drag down and to the left so that they’re all highlighted.
Right-click, “Button Style – Text Only.”

At this point in time, assuming you had 12 scenes, you should have 12 “Text Only” buttons on the centre screen.
On the menu on the left side, you should have a “tree” that looks like the following:

Untitled
Christmas Play 2008
Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1)
PLAY ALL
Scene Selection
Scene Selection (Page 1)
1: Link – Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1)
2: Christmas Play 2008
3: Christmas Play 2008
4: Christmas Play 2008
5: Christmas Play 2008
6: Christmas Play 2008
7: Christmas Play 2008
8: Christmas Play 2008
9: Christmas Play 2008
10: Christmas Play 2008
11: Christmas Play 2008
12: Christmas Play 2008
13: Christmas Play 2008

At this point in time, rename all the buttons in the centre screen so that they correspond to what’s happening at that time (for example, Grade 1, Grade 2, etc.)

After this is done, it’s time to make the buttons go to the specific scenes.
Double-click “2: Christmas Play 2008” in the tree menu on the left side.
Switch to the “Timeline” view.
You should see the entire timeline with all the markers you placed in Vegas.
Click the marker that denotes the beginning of scene 2 and press the ‘O’ (for Out) key on the keyboard.
The In point for the first scene is automatically the beginning of the video.
Only the first scene should now be highlighted.
Double-click “3: Christmas Play 2008”.
Click the 2nd marker (the start of scene 2, press the ‘I’ (In) button.
Click the 3rd marker and press the ‘O’ button.
Only the second scene should be highlighted.
Repeat this procedure for all your scenes.

Now to set “End Actions” so that the buttons behave as desired.
Go to the first “Scene Selection” page and double-click ” 2: Christmas Play 2008 in the left side menu.
In the menu on the right side of the screen, click the “End Action” tab.
You now have two choices.
You can have it return to the “Scene Selection” page or the “Main Menu” page.
To have it return to the “Scene Selection” page, click in the drop-down box beside “Destination” and select “Scene Selection”.
To have it return to the main menu, click in the drop-down box beside “Destination” and select “Christmas Play 2008”.
Repeat as desired for all your individual scene selections.

Finally, let’s clean it up a bit more.
If you don’t do the following steps, all your buttons and arrows will have a transparent yellow box on them when you click them for selection purposes.
I personally prefer to have an underline instead so that’s the procedure I’ll explain.
Go to the “Main Menu” page by clicking either “Christmas Play 2008” or “Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1) on the menu on the left side.
In the centre screen, click (just once) the “Christmas Play 2008” button.
Click the “Highlight” tab in the menu on the right-hand side and, in the drop-down box next to the “Style” button, select underline.
Repeat this process for the “Scene Selection” button also on the main page.
Double-click the “Scene Selection” button to go to the next page.
Highlight all the buttons as well as the Up arrow (at the bottom of the page) by clicking and dragging your cursorMake sure to place markers at the appropriate locations and render the video and audio out of Vegas using the following templates.

Make sure the “Render I-frames at markers” box is selected in the “render as” screen for your video.
For the video, use the “DVD Architect NTSC video stream” (or “DVD Architect NTSC widescreen video stream” if it’s in Widescreen) template with the following changes:
If the video is 70 min. or less, click the “Custom” button next to the “Template” box, then the “Video” tab and set the bitrate to a CBR of 8,000,000;
If the video is over 70 min., use a bitrate calculator to determine optimum encoding settings, change to VBR and set the values according to the bitrate calculator’s numbers;
If the quality is even slightly marginal, select the “Two-pass”option;
Set the “Quality ” option to it’s highest setting (31);
Save this as a template by clicking in the template box at the top of this tab, giving it a name (for example, Christmas Play 2008) and then clicking the “Save” icon (looks like a floppy disc) to the right of this box.

For the audio, use the default AC-3 template with the following changes:
Encode set to AC3;
Click on custom tab;
Dialog normalization: -31 dB;
Dynamic range compression: None;
On the first tab set diag. norm to “-31”;
On the last tab marked preprocessing;
Set the Line Mode & RF mode profiles to “None”;
Now save this as a preset using the method described above.

Make sure both files have the same name (i.e. Christmas Play 2008.mpg and Christmas Play 2008.ac3) and are saved to the same folder.

If you want to use a picture from the play as the background menu, this can be done very easily.
Either use an image from a digital still camera (I sometimes use a shot of the empty stage) or grab a still from Vegas and use this.
If you’re not sure how to do this, place the cursor on the timeline at the desired location, set the Preview Window to Best/Full and click the “Snapshot” icon.
A window will open up pointing to the current folder and giving you the option to save the image in JPG or PNG format. I prefer PNG but the choice is yours.
Give the image a name and save it to the same folder that your video and audio files got rendered to.
This way, when it times to author the DVD, everything needed is in one folder.

Open a new project in DVD Architect.
Make sure the “Show Title Safe Area” option is enabled (View – Workspace Overlays).
Change the title “Menu 1” to something like “Christmas Play 2008” by clicking the “Edit Text” button at the bottom right of the centre screen.
Change the theme to one of the stock ones or create your own background using the steps suggested earlier.
To use an image that you created yourself, click in the centre screen, select “Set Background Media”, browse to the folder where the image is and double-click the file.
You should now have it as your main image.
Move the renamed “Menu 1” title as desired.
In the Explorer tab, browse to the folder with your encoded audio & video files.
Double-click the previously created video file.
It should now be in the centre of the main screen as an image with text underneath it.
Before continuing, you have a few options.
You can leave it as a “Text & Image” button or change it to a “Text Only” or “Image Only” by right-clicking it and going down to “Button Style” for the options.
I usually change it to “Text Only” and rename it to “PLAY ALL” using the “Edit Text” button.
You can also change the font type, size, colour and position as desired.
Double-click it to ensure that the entire play comes up (video & audio) as well as all your markers).
Click “Save As”, browse to the folder where the already encoded files are,give it a name and click “Save”.
Repeat this periodically during this whole process by simply clicking the “Save” button so that you don’t accidentally lose any work.

Now it’s time to add a Scene Selection menu.
Right-click in the centre screen and select “Add Submenu”.
Change this to “Text Only” and rename it to “Scene Selection”.
Double-click it to go to the next page.
Change “Menu 2” to “Scene Selection”.
Double-click the video file in the “Explorer” tab as many times as you have scenes in the play (the number of markers you placed on the Vegas timeline).
I generally don’t use more than 12 here as the text ends up being too small.
If your play has from 12 to 24 scenes, repeat the “Add Submenu” steps and divide accordingly.
If you have between 25 and 36 scenes, repeat the “Add Submenu” steps one more time.
Go back to the first “Scene Selection” page.
To change all the buttons to “Text Only” place your cursor in an area just outside the top left of the first button and drag down and to the left so that they’re all highlighted.
Right-click, “Button Style – Text Only.”

At this point in time, assuming you had 12 scenes, you should have 12 “Text Only” buttons on the centre screen.
On the menu on the left side, you should have a “tree” that looks like the following:

Untitled
Christmas Play 2008
Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1)
PLAY ALL
Scene Selection
Scene Selection (Page 1)
1: Link – Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1)
2: Christmas Play 2008
3: Christmas Play 2008
4: Christmas Play 2008
5: Christmas Play 2008
6: Christmas Play 2008
7: Christmas Play 2008
8: Christmas Play 2008
9: Christmas Play 2008
10: Christmas Play 2008
11: Christmas Play 2008
12: Christmas Play 2008
13: Christmas Play 2008

At this point in time, rename all the buttons in the centre screen so that they correspond to what’s happening at that time (for example, Grade 1, Grade 2, etc.)

After this is done, it’s time to make the buttons go to the specific scenes.
Double-click “2: Christmas Play 2008” in the tree menu on the left side.
Switch to the “Timeline” view.
You should see the entire timeline with all the markers you placed in Vegas.
Click the marker that denotes the beginning of scene 2 and press the ‘O’ (for Out) key on the keyboard.
The In point for the first scene is automatically the beginning of the video.
Only the first scene should now be highlighted.
Double-click “3: Christmas Play 2008”.
Click the 2nd marker (the start of scene 2, press the ‘I’ (In) button.
Click the 3rd marker and press the ‘O’ button.
Only the second scene should be highlighted.
Repeat this procedure for all your scenes.

Now to set “End Actions” so that the buttons behave as desired.
Go to the first “Scene Selection” page and double-click ” 2: Christmas Play 2008 in the left side menu.
In the menu on the right side of the screen, click the “End Action” tab.
You now have two choices.
You can have it return to the “Scene Selection” page or the “Main Menu” page.
To have it return to the “Scene Selection” page, click in the drop-down box beside “Destination” and select “Scene Selection”.
To have it return to the main menu, click in the drop-down box beside “Destination” and select “Christmas Play 2008”.
Repeat as desired for all your individual scene selections.

Finally, let’s clean it up a bit more.
If you don’t do the following steps, all your buttons and arrows will have a transparent yellow box on them when you click them for selection purposes.
I personally prefer to have an underline instead so that’s the procedure I’ll explain.
Go to the “Main Menu” page by clicking either “Christmas Play 2008” or “Christmas Play 2008 (Page 1) on the menu on the left side.
In the centre screen, click (just once) the “Christmas Play 2008” button.
Click the “Highlight” tab in the menu on the right-hand side and, in the drop-down box next to the “Style” button, select underline.
Repeat this process for the “Scene Selection” button also on the main page.
Double-click the “Scene Selection” button to go to the next page.
Highlight all the buttons as well as the Up arrow (at the bottom of the page) by clicking and dragging your curosr to select all of these items.
Don’t worry about the “Scene Selection” title at the top of the page.
Once everything is highlighted, click the “Highlight”button and repeat what you did on the main page.
Repeat this process for any other “Scene Selection” pages.

At long last, you’re almost ready to burn the DVD.
If you have DVD burning software, my recommendation is to use DVD Architect to “Prepare” the files and the burning software to do the actual burn.
If you don’t have burning software, you can use DVD Architect to “Burn” the DVD for you.
I use RecordNow so I’ll describe what I do and hope that yours is similar.
Click the “Make DVD” button at the top of the screen.
Click “Prepare” and browse to a folder location to store the files.
I always suggest that you create a new folder and title it accordingly (for example, “Christmas Play 2008 – DVD”).
This way, you know what the folder is.
Click “Next”, “Next” and “Finish”.
If you clicked “Burn” instead of “Prepare”, it brings up a folder that should be self-explanatory.
Once again, create a “Prepare/Burn” folder as I just described.
The rest of the steps are the same.
Stick in a blank DVD and hit “Burn”.
As you’ve already done the encoding in Vegas, this process should be fairly quick.

If you chose to “Prepare”, you’re done with DVD Architect at this point.
Click “Save” one last time (this creates a file called “SPREPARE.SPSS”.
This file allows to make changes to this process and then only “prepares” the changes so it’s very quick.

Launch your burning software and tell it that you want to create a DATA DVD as opposed to a regular DVD.
Browse to the “Christmas Play 2008 – DVD” folder and drag the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO _TS folders into your software.
Stick in a blank DVD and hit “Burn”.

I’d recommend using a DVD-RW the first time just in case you find out that you’ve made a mistake or two.
That way, you’re not going to be wasting DVDs.
I’ll use this moment to highly recommend that you stick to name brand media.
My personal favourites are Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden with the latter being preferable.
If you have a printer that works on DVDs, I highly recommend the Taiyo-Yuden Watershield brand.
They’re a bit more money but the image quality is fantastic!! to select all of these items.
Don’t worry about the “Scene Selection” title at the top of the page.
Once everything is highlighted, click the “Highlight”button and repeat what you did on the main page.
Repeat this process for any other “Scene Selection” pages.

At long last, you’re almost ready to burn the DVD.
If you have DVD burning software, my recommendation is to use DVD Architect to “Prepare” the files and the burning software to do the actual burn.
If you don’t have burning software, you can use DVD Architect to “Burn” the DVD for you.
I use RecordNow so I’ll describe what I do and hope that yours is similar.
Click the “Make DVD” button at the top of the screen.
Click “Prepare” and browse to a folder location to store the files.
I always suggest that you create a new folder and title it accordingly (for example, “Christmas Play 2008 – DVD”).
This way, you know what the folder is.
Click “Next”, “Next” and “Finish”.
If you clicked “Burn” instead of “Prepare”, it brings up a folder that should be self-explanatory.
Once again, create a “Prepare/Burn” folder as I just described.
The rest of the steps are the same.
Stick in a blank DVD and hit “Burn”.
As you’ve already done the encoding in Vegas, this process should be fairly quick.

If you chose to “Prepare”, you’re done with DVD Architect at this point.
Click “Save” one last time (this creates a file called “SPREPARE.SPSS”.
This file allows to make changes to this process and then only “prepares” the changes so it’s very quick.

Launch your burning software and tell it that you want to create a DATA DVD as opposed to a regular DVD.
Browse to the “Christmas Play 2008 – DVD” folder and drag the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO _TS folders into your software.
Stick in a blank DVD and hit “Burn”.

I’d recommend using a DVD-RW the first time just in case you find out that you’ve made a mistake or two.
That way, you’re not going to be wasting DVDs.
I’ll use this moment to highly recommend that you stick to name brand media.
My personal favourites are Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden with the latter being preferable.
If you have a printer that works on DVDs, I highly recommend the Taiyo-Yuden Watershield brand.
They’re a bit more money but the image quality is fantastic!!

[Kert]

Mike, thank you for your detailed response. I’ll try it on my next project. Best, John

[Mike Hinkel]

Thanks Mike! I’ll try to absorb all of that and put it to practice.

I have other issues here that the preset may help with. I have picked up a ton of noise that was not so noticeable in the renders I used. Is there a program that could help eliminate some of that. Things look a whole lot different than what I was editing.

Thanks again

[Mike Kujbida]

Mike, do you mean video noise or audio noise?
Are you watching it on your computer or a TV set?
If it’s a DVD, what was your source material and what render template did you use?

[Linda O’connell]

Thank you for this..
I have one question that I can’t figure out, when you need more than one scene selection page, you had said to add a submenu again.
How do I get a Scene Selection page 2?
You said to “divide it up accordingly” but I am not sure what you mean by that. Could you please clarify?

Thank you.

[Mike Kujbida]

“How do I get a Scene Selection page 2?”

The same way you did the first time which is to right-click in the centre of the screen and select “Add Submenu”.

“You said to “divide it up accordingly” but I am not sure what you mean by that. Could you please clarify?”

In the original post, I said that I generally don’t use more than 12 here as the text ends up being too small.
For example, the Christmas shows I do typically have 20-24 scenes (i.e. songs) in them.
If there were 20 songs, I would have two submenus of 10 songs each.
If there were 24 songs, there would be 2 submenus of 12 songs each.

Does this make sense?

[Alan Ennis]

I signed up just to say thank you for this tutorial. Very helpful and concise and saved me a ton of hunting around help files and half answered questions on forums.

Thanks again, take care.

Alan
Ireland/Dublin

[Mike Kujbida]

Alan, I’m very glad to hear that this explanation was helpful to you.

[Mihail Torich]

PLease help!

did all the steps accurately and clear – do have all my videos in a “compilation” under one button.
in the preview window each video in the compilation is fillowed by another and finally return to the root menu. but after burning the disc and playing it on a computer i realised that i cannot skip the final title in the compilation and go the root menu – i need to watch it full to get back.

Looks like a bug. Please help – i would be more than thankful for any ideas or assistance..

thanks a lot!

Mihail

[Marc Mcdaniel]

Mike, I wanna say, I don’t doubt your methods one iota, but I was just curious as to what the benefits are to burning the video as a data file instead of a regular DVD video file. Just finished burning as you described here including burning it as a data file and it turned out real good. The only difference I noticed was when I inserted it into my PC, it didn’t begin playing automatically in Windows Media Player like it does with the regular DVD burning method. I had to double-click on the vob file to have it start. I haven’t tried it in a DVD player yet, but I assume it will start up automatically.

Thanks, Marc.