[gabrielleitao]

Welcome to the DVD Studio Pro Thread

Hello,

I've been using this great DVD creating software, professional and easy-to-use, although I have some questions concerning how to propertly use it.

NOTE: I post this topic to all users who would like to share support, questions, answers, and talks about this great software. If you use it, lets talk about it here, its a great place to talk and ask questions about how to use it.

First: about audio on menus. When I am in the main menu (1), I put a song to play when the menu is open. Then, to the next menu (2), I put the same song. When I am in (1) and I click on the buttom to go to (2) the song stops and it only continues when the menu (2) is fully opened. And it starts from the beginning. Is there a way to "link" those menus (1 and 2) so when I have a transition between them the song doesnt stop and keeps playing form one to another? Ask me questions if I didnt make myself clear.

Second: How can I have iDVD and Keynote templates on my DVD Studio Pro Project. Also, do you know if I can make something like Front Row for my DVD, with the same effects, using DVDSTUDIOPRO.

Third (and last ): This is the most important question I have, because it is important. I have 40GB of Home Videos I recorded with my Digital Camera, from a trip I took last month. It's like 6-8 hours of video. Now, lets face it, that's toooo much. lol. Because if I compare with an 25-minute interview video I downloaded from the Internet, the size is only 210MB. The interview video is in AVI (512x384), and my home videos are in MPG (640x480). If I take one of my home videos, which is exactly 22-minutes, its size is 1GB. Its a lot if I compare with the interview with my home video, and the interview is in a great quality. How I thought, if I could make my home videos the same encoding as the one of the interview I downloaded in the Internet, I thought my videos would be in a reasonable size and I would be able to put all of them in a SINGLE DVD Disc, and that would solve all of my problems, since I don't want to make 12 DVDs to put all of my Home Videos of my trip. It would be better to have all of them in a single DVD. I tried putting about 20 copies of this interview (220MB each) on a DVD that I created with DVD Studio. It completed 4.4GB on the DVD Disc, and a total of 450 minutes of video, which is great. Then I thought if this works, I could put my home videos in that format. And it is not me, I have ltos of friends who have great quality movies on their computers, which are 700MB and have a 2-hour video file.

So, my big questions is? How can I do it? how can I encode or do something that would make possible all of my home videos to fit a single DVD, like the interview I have on my computer, with great quality, and doesnt take too much space?

Thank you for reading this, and helping me out here.
Everyone who likes this great software, DVD Studio Pro, lets share info here, because it is a great software for creating DVDs.

Any answer would be really appreciated,

[gabrielleitao]

bump

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by gabrielleitao

So, my big questions is? How can I do it? how can I encode or do something that would make possible all of my home videos to fit a single DVD, like the interview I have on my computer, with great quality, and doesnt take too much space?

Just burn your avi files as a data DVD, in Toast or in the Finder (or disk utility or any other thing that burns data DVDs). Of course these won't play in standard DVD players, because they aren't Video DVDs. Video DVDs need to have MPEG as their compression codec. If you think about this it makes perfect sense. DVD players have been around since long before DivX, and in order for the oldest DVD players to play Video DVDs, Video DVDs cannot have compression technology on them that existed before the players did. And if some DVD players can play some Video DVDs and others can't, then the whole concept of Video DVD would be useless and no one would buy the hardware. That said, some DVD players specifically play DivX movies as well as Video DVDs, they are called "DivX Certified," and there is a list of them at divx.com.

Your other options are to encode to VCD compliant MPEG-1 (about 10 hours per 4 GB), which you'll probably find acceptable at first especially for interviews and that type of thing, but will really really bug you later on if you upgrade your TV and find yourself watching VHS-quality home movies when you know you could have DVD-quality. That, or just burn a few extra discs, which really isn't that bad.

[Macrat]

First: about audio on menus. When I am in the main menu (1), I put a song to play when the menu is open. Then, to the next menu (2), I put the same song. When I am in (1) and I click on the buttom to go to (2) the song stops and it only continues when the menu (2) is fully opened. And it starts from the beginning. Is there a way to "link" those menus (1 and 2) so when I have a transition between them the song doesnt stop and keeps playing form one to another? Ask me questions if I didnt make myself clear.

Also, do you know if I can make something like Front Row for my DVD, with the same effects, using DVDSTUDIOPRO.

Any answer would be really appreciated,

I don't do authoring, but I do design menus for a living so I can answer these. Keep in mind the dvd menus are based on antiquated 1990's tech. It's best to think of each menu as a video you play and watch, with subtitles designed to act as buttons, because that is what they are.

There is no way to link the audio from one menu to another, since they are treated as completely different video/audio chapters.

And because they are just videos, there is no way to add interactivity like Front Row.

Those things should be possible to do in Blu-ray or HD DVD however.