Hope someone here can help me with the following problem.

With a current project of mine I am making video menus, ie: making video overlays in photoshop, then taking it into vegas to add to video and the end result is a 30 second menu (in mpeg2 format for dvda) that loops.

Here is the problem, when I insert everything in dvda, all looks great in preview. And even if I play back the mpeg file (menu) on its own in another player on my pc (vlc player), everything looks great.
When I make the final dvd in dvda, the end result is that all the text on the menu (which was created in photoshop) is blocky around the edges. It is only evident in the final burnt dvd and nowhere else. This brings me to the conclusion that it is something to do with dvda. Maybe I have missed a setting or something.

By the way, I have compiled other video menus for the same project (with text created in photoshop also) and they all work fine. Pulling my hair a bit on this one, could someone please help.

Many thanks

All menus in DVD Architect must be recompressed - even if the MPEG2 file you give it is valid. So the first thing is to NOT give it MPEG2. Since it's so small, I'd consider going Uncompressed for the menu.

Next, make the menu PROGRESSIVE.

See of these two changes help your menu to look better.

Thanks for your reply Edward, much appreciated.

I tried your suggestion of rendering the dvd menu to uncompressed avi instead of mpeg2 and it worked beautifully. I didn't change the video to progressive though.

Thanks again

Antonie Koen

When you say render the dvd menu to avi, do you mean the short video clip that you're going to use for the background ?
Do you mean render that to avi in vegas, ready for use as the menu background ?

I usually render the short video clip for the background menu to mpeg-2 and it looks great.

Paul.

I do create the short video to be used as a menu in dvda in vegas and usually mpeg2 is fine if it's just video, but in this case I had an overlay with text created in photoshop. When I rendered the video (with overlay) to mpeg2 in vegas and after placed it in dvda and then it gets recompressed when making final dvd, the text that was created in photoshop came out terrible. But after following Edward's suggestions, everything is well now.

My conclusion, if correct, is to always render video that would be used as a menu in dvda, as uncompressed avi. This seems to be a safe route to avoid any quality loss.

I create all my menus in photoshop and only add the buttons in dvda, but if you add all your text that are required in your menus in dvda, you woun't have the issue I experienced with text going all funny.

Hope this makes sense :)

When you say render the dvd menu to avi, do you mean the short video clip that you're going to use for the background ?

Yes, the video clip that will be used for the background of the menu. Menus are ALWAYS re-rendered so if you go to MPEG2 for the menu, that MPEG2 file will be recompressed into the actual menu.

Ah i see, another handy tip.

Thanks.

Paul.