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User guides - DVDLab Beginners Compleat Guide! Updated 1/30/05
After a full week of scouring the internet for a good tutorial, not finding one that fit the
needs of a technically challenged individual, I decided to write this.
There are other guides, some going into great detail how to edit the audio portion, or how to
encode an mpeg before authoring, but none that simply take advantage of the few easy
tools/wizards included with this extremely well done application.
I hope to make it as simple as possible for anyone to create a professional looking menu,
with chapters, transitions, and some special effects, that produce a finished, professional
looking DVD. Please remember, this is not intended to take advantage of ALL the options
available, just enough of them to create a successful, working, nice looking dvd.
The first look overwhelms the user with a multitude of options. In other words, "What's all
this then?"
The screen is divided into 4 basic parts, and although they don't seem to be logical, things
fall into place after a few uses.
The assets window is where we put everything we want to go into our dvd. Here is where you
load the mpeg, any still shots you want for a menu background or extra audio tracks that
play in a menu screen.
The tree window simply shows you the different bits that go into making the dvd. As we
create menus and transitions, those bits will show up here.
The working window is just that. Where all the real work get's done. This is where we create
the menus, transitions, motion menus, adjust audio and video if needed, crop, resize, add
buttons, etc. Everything that shows up on the finished dvd we create in here.
The preview window allows you to preview your movie, motion menus, etc., and is basically
something I ignore.
First steps:
Set up the project properties.
Click on Project, Project Properties.
Here is where you choose NTSC or PAL (if you don't know what that is, or which one you
need, I suggest you check at http://www.high-techproductions.com/ntsc.htm
Give your dvd a name also, MYDVD just isn't descriptive enough.
Leave everything else as is, unless you KNOW you must change it (for widescreen TV, or
digital monitor output).
Click OK
It says "Highly Recommended" for a reason. Choose to Demux to Elementary Streams, and
click OK. You can change the dropdown box to "Demux without asking" if you don't want to
be bothered by this popup again. It is changeable in Project, Project Properties, Options tab.
If you encoded your mpeg with LPCM audio, DVDLab will give you another popup, asking if
you want to transcode the audio. Hit the Transcode button. It's painless, and DVDLab does a
quick easy job on it.
You will now have two items in the assets window, video (movie.mpv) and audio (movie.mpa)
Import other assets.
I like to use some sort of movie poster, or dvd cover, for my backgrounds. The templates
available are OK, but nothing spectacular. One can usually find some sort of picture on the
internet, or has a digital still available, or even one frame from your movie.
If you are using a digital image, you can import it into assets the same way we imported the
movie.
Right click in the Assets Window, and browse for your image. You must change the dropdown
box to "images" (or all files) first:
Images can be almost any size, providing the aspect ratio is correct. In this case 4:3 which
means, the same basic aspect of a TV. If you are creating a dvd for a widescreen TV, then
16:9 is correct. Also remember the smaller the image, the lower the quality when viewed on
your TV. Bigger is better, in physical size, not bytes.
You will now have three items in the assets window.
Drag the red line to the right, until you get about to the start of the credits. Notice the
preview window shows a more detailed view of where the cursor is. Release the mouse button
in an approximate position. Now you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move
forward and backward through the movie, until you find the exact place you want to edit.
Right click on the movie in the working window, and select Trim end.
Leave the two options ticked.
DVDLab will trim the ending off the movie, automatically trimming the audio during
compilation, and we're ready to make some real magic.
Making Menus.
Here's where you can get seriously creative, or keep it as simple as you want. Either way,
you end up with something more than just an autoplay movie on the dvd.
Click on the little arrow beside the magic wand at the top and select Auto-Chapters.
This gives you two options for creating chapter points in your movie.
The first is to create a given number of chapters, at a set interval through the movie. Nice,
but not always where you want them. The second allows you to have DVDLab detect scene
changes, and make chapter points for you. It does take some trial and error with the
sensitivity to get it right, but I have found that if you want a lot of chapters, set the
sensitivity to about 240, and if you want only a few set it to about 120. 255 is just too much,
ending up with chapters every few seconds, and 100 is too low, missing some of the major
points, especially if those are fade in/out in your movie. Setting the Minimum Space x
Minutes to less than 3 gives more chapters, and more than 3 sometimes misses places you
wish you had a chapter. The settings shown here work for me.
Next, click on the arrow beside the magic wand again, this time selecting Add Scene
Selection Menus.
You will be presented with another window, with a few menu options. Background color is not
so important here, as we are going to change that later anyhow, but try to select the
button/link style you like most. Layout can also be altered in many ways later. For this
project, I am selecting a basic 6 window, with frames and buttons.
You can right click on the image and resize it to fit the way you want, by selecting Change
Size (duh!).
Now it's time to make that important link we were reminded of, as well as any other links
that are NOT chapters.
For example, if you were making a dvd that has two or more movies on it, you can create
links here that lead to the scene/chapter selection menus, or directly to the beginning of the
movie itself.
For our project, I am only going to have one link, leading to the chapters menu, but...it's
time to get fancy.
I am going to make the link invisible. It is also going to have a timer that selects it after 60
seconds, and goes to the chapters menu, with a nice transition effect. Here's how.
First, make a link, any kind of link, text, a button, a box, a frame, doesn't matter at all. Of
course, if you want it to be visible, then be fussy. Here's an example of my title screen with
a visible link.
Of course it isn't a link yet, just an arrow, which I got by selecting the Objects tab at the
bottom of the assets window, and drag/drop it on the menu in the working window. You can
click, drag, and drop any object this way, until you get it where you want it.
Now we need to make it a link. In this project, I am linking directly to the chapters menu, so
I right click on my arrow, and select Link > Scenes 1 for Movie 1 (our first chapter menu).
This puts a little 1 beside it, and changes the color to let us know it is button 1 (the default)
and it's a link.
You could leave it like this, and move on to the Chapters Menu section below, or let's make it
disappear!
On the right hand side of the working window is a 5 tabbed sub-menu. Each tab has different
ways of manipulating the objects in the menu. I'll leave it to you to play with these options,
as most of them are self-explanitory, once you see how I manipulate one object.
The first tab (color) has Fill, Shadow, two sliders to manipulate that shadow, and
transparency.
Fill would be used to fill in outlined text, or a frame.
Shadow is just that, different types of shadows you can put under any object in the menu,
with two ways of changing the shadow. You can use the first slider to make it drop a long
ways, or not at all. The second slider can be used to make the shadow very dark, or very
light. One unique way of using this, is to create a neon light effect, as in one of my other
tutorials here: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=219946
If you are happy with your link/button choice, skip ahead to the Chapters Menu section.
Hint: Make a link invisible, yet active!
Highlight your link/button, that is, click on it once. Now slide the transparency all the way to
the right. The link disappears! This is the only link on this page/menu, so we don't really
need to see it anyhow. When a button is pushed on the dvd remote, it will automatically
activate this link.
Next, select the Link tab on the right. In the Button Visibility dropdown box, select Invisible
All. Next select the PBC tab, and in the top, put 60. In the next box, put a 1 for button 1,
and put 1 again in the third box so it activates. That will make that link automatically
activate after 60 seconds, and move on to the first of our chapters menus.
Hint: Create an animated gif in Paintshop Pro (or other good graphics program), save it as an
avi, encode it as you would any other avi to dvd format, and import it. Then set it as a
moving background for your main menu too!
Hint: For even more spectacular effects, hit the
Chapters Menu.
Double click on Scenes 1 for Movie 1 in the tree.
This brings up a pretty boring looking menu.
Time to make it shine, but first a little necessity. Making the first link automatic. Face it,
some people will just stare at that screen, not knowing what to do next. We are going to
make it automatically start the movie, if they don't push a button in 60 seconds. Adjust the
time as you see fit.
On the right side is a 5 tabbed menu. Select the PBC tab, and set your timeout, link you want
default, and link you want to automatically activate. In this case, link 1 is to the movie start.
Now to spice up the menu.
If you like, you can import a picture or frame from the movie as the background, just the
same way we did for Menu 1. First, right click on the chapters menu in the working window,
and select Remove Background. Now drag, hold the SHIFT key, and drop your image into the
menu. Instant background.
I also like to make the icons and buttons more eye-catching. To do this, see my Hint above
about neon light effect.
Just an example:
You can go on to make each of your chapters menus unique, or all the same. Get creative,
have fun with it.
Making Transitions.
This is a simple yet stunning effect, made even easier with DVDLab's wizard.
Double click on Menu 1 in the tree. Click on the arrow beside the magic wand at the top, and
select Menu Transition.
DVDLab gives us 38 different effects to choose from. I like the random burning effect for
action movies, page curl for drama, etc., use whatever you like. When you've chosen your
effect, make sure you choose the From and To options at the top. In this case, we are
transitioning from Menu 1 to Scenes 1 for Movie 1, then hit the Proceed button.
Give it a name, something that represents what it is, click Save, and DVDLab will create the
transition, and automatically place it where it belongs.
You can also modify the times for a longer pause before, after and a longer transition
inbetween. I find that 1 second pause is plenty, and the default 0.8 is good, and transition
times no longer than 2 seconds.
Repeat this for every menu you wish to have a transition effect.
Final Notes.
Quick, grab the finished disk and run over to your dvd player and see if it works! Be sure to
check all menus and buttons, to insure that they do what you expect them to do.
Success! Sit back, crack a cold beverage, and bask in the glory of having mastered
(well...sorta) DVDLab.
Although there are FAR more options available, I'm sure you will discover them in time, this
guide hopefully helped you make your first successful dvd with one of the most exceptional
authoring programs available.
Don't forget to visit the Mediachance website for more tutorials, FAQ's, updates, and even a
friendly forum, where you can get answers directly from the guy(s) who are developing
DVDLab.
I'm by no means an expert. This guide is only from my experience (less than a week!), yet I
haven't made any coasters yet.
Cheers, and enjoy, Jim (aka reboot)