DVDA 5 Menu buttons

[Roy Alexander]

As a relative newcomer to DVDA 5 I have successfully made a menu with all the buttons working ok but the images of the scene in each button is static and I can't find anyway of making the images show a moving part of the scene as a loop. Can this be done and if so how? If it can be done I'm probally reading the jargon in the help wrongly. I've been searching the help as Animating buttons, this is the way it is described in Sonic MyDVD. I think it is more interesting to the viewer to see the moving images in the menu buttons so I hope someone can tell me how to do it.

[David Dalton]

Roy

About a year ago Sony aired a webinar which went into a lot of detail about the menu structure and buttons..
Here's the link
Webinar: Creating DVDs and Blu-ray discs with Vegas Pro and DVD Architect Pro

Cheers

[Jorma Nippala]

You might start by going to your Menu Button Properties > Media, Thumbnail Properties, Thumbnail Media, Replace...(with the video clip you want), in Style choose Animated. Used also MyDVD (for too long).
You have DVD A Studio, but most of the many tutorials are good for it also.

[Roy Alexander]

David. I have studied quickly the tutorial you kindly gave me the link to, and although very good it appears to be about Vegas pro 11 and architect 5.2. I have Vegas movie studio 10 platinum and DVDA 5. A lot of the info contained in the tutorial doesn't appear to apply to my version.

Jorma. in the drop down box you refer to, the choice of style of the button is greyed out and fixed on still.

[Edward Troxel]

You must set the menu button to "Animated". However, the menu must also have a "Length". You can also set the startpoint in the video where you wish the animation to start.

[Jorma Nippala]

Roy,
check the Edward T. post. And did you replace a.jpg with a.mpg in Thumbnail media?

[Roy Alexander]

Thanks guys, I have now got the thumbnails in the menu display to animate. The problem is that they all continue to play to the end of the video. Although the text will show what the content of each chapter is, the image continues to play and show what's in the next chapter and so on. I thought I could make a loop for each chapter thumbnail . but it hasn't made any difference. So if you can tell me how to make each thumbnail play the same few seconds repeatedly as a loop I will be most grateful.

[Don Bloom]

You need to set the length of time in PROPERTIES.

[Roy Alexander]

where and how do I find properties?

[Jorma Nippala]

Yes,
you'll find that option in Menu page properties, Menu length Specify, Length (e.g. 00:00:15,000). Also change in End Action, Command to Loop, if you want that.
in DVDAS Help, see Setting looping points for menus.

[Roy Alexander]

Thanks again all you helpful guys. All your advice was taken on board and certainly put me on the right track to achieving the result I wanted. The reason I couldn't loop the thumbnails was because I hadn't clicked onto specify the length of the menu, I had left in on Auto. There's is one point however that I find a bit distracting and that is the music playing during the menu display is I presume linked to the looping of the thumbnails. As a result when the end of the length of menu is reached with the thumbnail display it also comes to the end of the music and so the music repeats from the beginning again. I suppose there is no way the music can be played without looping whilst the thumbnails are looping. Thanks again

[Edward Troxel]

Yes, there is only one "length" so you must make everything conform to that length. I'd change the music to, somehow, properly match the length you need - and probably fade in/out so the transition isn't jarring.

[Roy Alexander]

I have found the way to make the music play in the menu display without a gap between repeating the loops.
I simply click onto loop point and set it at 1 second. Sounds great with no jarring to the ear.

[Roy Alexander]

REGARDING LAST POST. FALSE ALARM. iT WORKED WHILE WATCHING AND LISTENING TO THE PREVIEW BUT WHEN PLAYING BACK THE DVD IT WAS BACK TO NORMAL WITH A NOTICABLE AUDIO BREAK BETWEEN REPEATS WHILE MENU BEING DISPLAYED. AH WELL BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.

[Edward Troxel]

A DVD player takes time to move the playhead. A computer doesn't require that time.