A menu with 10 videos that link to submenu of video scenes

[deco81]

Hi

To clarify the subject, I have some videos I need to work with for a project for my employer.

We have 10 (approx) videos that we'd like to have on the main menu (or it could be a submenu I guess) then each of those buttons would lead to another menu with the scenes from that video (typically 8-10 scenes). Is this doable with Elements 7? Any other means of accomplishing something similar would be useful suggestions also.

Thanks!

[ATR]

I will be back tomorrow and go into greater detail about the DVD Menu situation that you presented, but for now just some questions.

1. Forget about the menus for a moment, are you going to be able to get this project on one standard DVD disc? Are you aiming for DVD-VIDEO on a DVD disc standard (4.7 GB/120 min) or DVD disc DL (8.5 GB/240 min)? How much time is represented by your 10 videos (what are their formats)?

2. Does your ideal menu situation include a plan to "Play All" (from beginning of project to end) as well as the capability to opt to select and play just one of the movies (from its beginning to its end, followed by return to beginning of the whole project)? Are you thinking to use the DVD Menu Templates from Premiere Elements 7 or design your own?

3. Any chance of keeping your project down to max of 6 videos? Can the number of scenes per video be kept constant or will the number vary from movie to movie?

To be continued..........

ATR

[deco81]

The videos are 10-15 minutes each and are in xvid format (I might be able to get them in a different format from the source). Either size is ok, I am prepared to use 8.5gb DVDs if need be.

Play All isn't necessary. There wouldn't be a use for it, but if it has to be there thats ok.

I was going to use a template, ideally. At least until I get a handle on everything.

6 videos is too few. The number of scenes per movie isn't terribly important as long as there is some.

I hope that answers your questions! Thanks much.

D.

[ATR]

This is to let you know that I have not forgotten about you and your question.

I am preparing a comprehensive response which should be ready sometime tomorrow. There are space issues with the use of 10 videos and what the existing Premiere Elements DVD Menu will allow. In addition there is no way that I know of for each individual movie to have its own Scene Menu Page.
Also, we need to discuss if you will need to get involved in creating your own menu or editing existing ones. Do you have Photoshop? If so, what version? The creating your own menu is still not going to get us around the Scene Menu Page issue.

But, more about that tomorrow.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

Steve's article on DVD menus will help
http://muvipix.com/products.php?subcat_id=41

If you create a scene menu with just one scene button it would work.
You can also create a main menu with 10 main menu buttons but they could not lead to their own scene menu. Premiere Elements does not allow for sub menus so you can only get Scene and Main. You can manipulate them to some degree and get close to what you want, check out Steve's article on DVD Markers and see if that helps.

http://videoinasnap.chuckengels.com/source/steve/steve_tips_04-06.htm

That should keep you busy until ATR comes back with his suggestions :)

[ATR]

You present the case of 10 movies on a DVD-VIDEO, individual choice of movie by the viewer, and each movie having its own scene menu.

Basic Considerations
1. Timeline marker type and placement are going to determine the thumbnails/buttons that you will have on the DVD Menu Main and Scene Page(s).
2. Premiere Elements existing DVD-Menu Templates come with a Main Page and a Scene Page, each with the design limiting the number of entries allowed per page of the Main Menu as well as the Scene Menu. If you exceed the designed-in number, you end up with “spill over” and additional pages generated for the Main and/or Scene Menu pages.
3. You can have 10 movies on the Main Page for individual playback choice by using a Main Marker at the beginning and a Stop Marker at the end of each movie on the Timeline. You leave a few second space between each of the movies on the Timeline.
4. With Premiere Elements, I see no scheme to have each of the movies having its own Scene Page that you can go to directly.
5. You can edit the existing Premiere Elements 4 DVD Menu Templates in Photoshop Elements 6 with regard to adding or subtracting “most” of the buttons and a limited number of other features. You can also create your own from scratch using Photoshop which has the essential layer set (group) feature. But creating your own does not get around the issue of wanting each movie with its own scene menu that you can get to directly.
7. There are a limited amount of features that you can change when you are in a Premiere Elements Project/Create Menus, namely change background, some text, audio, etc. All this does not seem to go to the basic issue at hand.

Example if you opt to use existing DVD Menus As Is.
Premiere Elements 4/Create Menus/General/Generic1

Let us say that a Main Page comes designed for 6 entries and a Scene Page for 8 entries, then, if you had 10 movies each with a Main Menu Marker placed at the beginning of each movie on the Timeline, you would end up with 2 pages of Main Menus, with 6 movies on Main Menu Page 1 and 4 movies on Main Menu Page 2. Now, if each of the 10 movies had 8 scenes and you placed Scene Markers at their corresponding locations on the Timeline, then you would end up with 10 pages of Scene Menus. In this scenario, if you could keep to 8 scenes per movie, then you could have a Scene Menu page for each movie and name it accordingly. BUT, this would not get you directly to the scenes for a given movie. After you hit Scene Selection on the Main Page, you would start at Page 1 of your 10 Scene Pages and have to navigate through the pages until you got to the one you wanted. On the other hand, if you varied the number of scenes per movie, you would end up with most of the Scene Pages having thumbnails for more than one movie. Example: if 5 scenes per movie, Scene Page 1 would have 5 thumbnails for movie 1 and 3 thumbnails for movie 2, Scene Page 2 would have 3 thumbnails for movie 2 and 3 thumbnails for movie 3, and so on. Of course, you could get a brief name to each scene, maybe Movie 1, S1 etc.

Example if you opt to edit existing DVD Menus
Premiere Elements 4/Create Menus/General/Generic 1

You would go Program Files/Adobe/Premiere Elements 4/DVD Templates/General/Generic 1 and modify the specific files:
Main Menu: generic1_pal_s_mm.psd
Scene Menu: generic1_pal_sm.psd
You can open these in Photoshop Elements 6 and will be able to open the Layer Sets to get at individual layers. I have successfully modified this Main Menu to include 10 instead of 6 buttons and can modify the number of buttons on the Scene Menu as well. However, The Scene Menu have a fixed number of buttons as the page size and safety margins will allow, not 5 on one page, 2 on another, or 10 on another.


Example if you opt to create DVD Menu

As I said this is not going to address the movie with its own scene menu issue. I currently have the tryout version of Photoshop CS4 Extended and will tryout first hand creating menus as per the links that I am about to include.


http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/encore/articles/enc15menu.html

Check out the following links:

This one, especially the links in #6
http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25223&highlight=Menus

Keep in mind that whether you are in a NTSC or PAL area, the PAL sizing of 576 x 720 is used in version starting with 3, I think.

This is another project that I got involved in relating to Premiere Elements DVD Menus and special needs.
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6bbf5

Please review all and let me know where we can go from here. Editing existing Premiere Elements DVD Menus can have it pitfalls that I can elaborate on next if necessary.

ATR

[ATR]

I was searching the Internet for one thing and came across this link for DVD Architect.

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~wvg/DVD-A%201.htm

Check it out, especially the part of Main Menu Movie with its own Scene Menu Page. See if I understood it correctly.

ATR