Re: content of opening menu?


"Terry Pinnell" <terrypin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:b48q03hq7v1ck9eiqlhdjjgapis7dg3nth@xxxxxxxxxx
Using TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6 (TDA), how do I get the opening menu to
contain
* 1 labeled button that plays the whole DVD
* 5 suitably labeled buttons for each of the 5 chapters I have
defined.

So far, I have managed only to get a single button on the main menu
which when activated displays another screen showing the 5 chapter
buttons.

Perhaps it's not possible? Maybe it's assumed you would always want to
use the Play All button?

The reason I'd prefer to do it my way is because I could then
presumably make the first (full play) button a relatively large one,
with smaller buttons for the chapters. That seems more intuitive for
the viewer IMO.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

In two parts/ways:

A lot depends on how you are using the term Chapter.
A chapter is a Part of a Title ( or "track" in TDA), so
you see "Chapters" in a "Track Menu". There are no
"Chapters" in the Main menu, just tracks.

In creating a DVD you can treat each track "as if" it
were a special "Chapter" of one movie/presentation;
if that suites your needs. That is what the "Play All"
button on the "Main Menu", is for. So, if you were to
divide the clip that was your one track into 5 clips
that correspond to your "Chapters", you could have
5 tracks that you can individually address and can
be played, in order by the "Play All" button.

Once you have changed your "Chapters" into tracks, you
could do the following:

Assuming you have made your own Main menu theme,
you can just edit it.

One concept to keep in mind is that you can easily change
what any feature/item of a menu "looks like", but you have to
trick TDA if you want to change what a menu item does.

It sounds like you want an item on your menu that does what
the "Play All" button does, but have it look different, no problem.

The "Play All" button is a graphic image/video menu item (as
opposed to a text field) so you would need to create a graphic
image to be your larger first menu item. You could create an
image file (a psd file would be best, with a transparent
background) with text in the same font as you are using for the
other menu items, just at a larger font size. That's if you are
using text menu items.

If you want it to be a "thumbnail" image just select your first
"chapter"/track .mpg, then find the frame you want to use, as
the still image. (You could use a frame capture tool to select
a frame and save it for manipulation in a graphics editor, if you
wanted more options like changing the shape/AR of image or
adding titling or placing a text title under your "Play All"
"thumbnail") Or you could use any Bitmap, JPEG, PSD, or
MPEG image you wanted.

Then you could have the menu you wanted, with your larger
first selection and all 5 of your "Chapter" tracks on your first
menu page. Just set the "Menu display settings"; "Action to
take after each track has been played:" to "Play next track".
That way it will function just as if the tracks were real chapters.

--------------------------

Now the super hard way, just use the "Track menu only"
setting. Then change the "Play" button into your larger first
menu item. (The same way I described for the "Play All"
button.)

Luck;
Ken



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