[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

[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.

[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]

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…

[Money Mahoney]

OK GUYS:

I did indeed start my whole project over from scratch, be careful to use the “SD” settings before I imported the video assets… and I still got the error message indicated earlier today.

And so, here’s hoping someone can give me EXACT instructions on how to delete the problematic folder that seems to be hanging me up?

thanks

m

[Money Mahoney]

Thanks for the fast response, but… how does one change the location of where the build folder? Is that something I can change in “preferences” or something? Specific instructions would be greatly appreciated

thanks,

m

[Money Mahoney]

Details please: Re-compress/re-format the original video source files first and THEN re-create the menu in DVD pro? Or something else?

Just hoping to get some quick info on the specifics on what I might need to do to get this DVD out the door asap.

thanks

m

[Money Mahoney]

That’s exactly the same machine I edit FCP7 on – and it’s STILL a huge frustration waiting for files to render. I also use Canon HDSLRS, have used 60d, T3i, 7D and 5DII. FYI, I think I’m bailing on FCP after I finish my latest project (FCPX is totally lame I think), I’ll probably be moving to Adobe next.

QUICK TIPS:

1. Always format your external hard drives for Mac
2. Audio should always be 48khz (matches FCP video settings)
3. Lots of folks recommend the ProRes422 HQ settings (you can convert files with a free program called Streamclip)
4. Stay away from “interlaced” (“i”) vs. “progressive” (“p”)
5. Not sure if it matters so much between DV-NTSC and the HD 1080i settings; FCP always asks if you’d like to keep the original video settings when you import video into the timeline.

Bottom line: If you’re using a nice lens on your Canon, the settings are good (contrast, ISO,etc), everything is in focus and your audio is solid… it’s sort of hard to mess things up. Content is king, and video is king of content.

cheers,

chef

[Money Mahoney]

not to clear which aspect of the process you’re having trouble with: transferring files to the hard drive? Capturing? Setting up the render folders? What?

FYI, the speed & power of your computer is a HUGE factor with HD video files. If you don’t have speed & power to spare, you might explore how to use proxy files for editing (i.e., editing with smaller file versions of the full-size files). That will save you TONS of mid-project rendering time.

cheers,

m