The Compleat Beginners Guide to DVDLab

http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=220092
VideoHelp.com
User guides - DVDLab Beginners Compleat Guide! Updated 1/30/05

reboot - May 05, 2004 15:26

The Compleat Beginners Guide to DVDLab

www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/

After a full week of scouring the internet for a good tutorial, not finding one that fit the
needs of a technically challenged individual, I decided to write this.
There are other guides, some going into great detail how to edit the audio portion, or how to
encode an mpeg before authoring, but none that simply take advantage of the few easy
tools/wizards included with this extremely well done application.
I hope to make it as simple as possible for anyone to create a professional looking menu,
with chapters, transitions, and some special effects, that produce a finished, professional
looking DVD. Please remember, this is not intended to take advantage of ALL the options
available, just enough of them to create a successful, working, nice looking dvd.

This guide assumes three things:

1.) You know how to make, or already have, a dvd compliant mpeg. This isn't an encoding,
nor ripping tutorial
2.) You have authored at least one successful dvd in another application. Probably the one
that came with your burner, and found it lacking in features, and/or output quality.
3.) You have a burner and the appropriate blank media (dvd+r or dvd-r). It is recommended
that you use a dvdrw for your first few attempts, just to make sure that the finished produce
will play in YOUR player.
Now, on to the fun.

The first look overwhelms the user with a multitude of options. In other words, "What's all
this then?"
The screen is divided into 4 basic parts, and although they don't seem to be logical, things
fall into place after a few uses.

The assets window is where we put everything we want to go into our dvd. Here is where you
load the mpeg, any still shots you want for a menu background or extra audio tracks that
play in a menu screen.
The tree window simply shows you the different bits that go into making the dvd. As we
create menus and transitions, those bits will show up here.
The working window is just that. Where all the real work get's done. This is where we create
the menus, transitions, motion menus, adjust audio and video if needed, crop, resize, add
buttons, etc. Everything that shows up on the finished dvd we create in here.
The preview window allows you to preview your movie, motion menus, etc., and is basically
something I ignore.

First steps:
Set up the project properties.
Click on Project, Project Properties.

Here is where you choose NTSC or PAL (if you don't know what that is, or which one you
need, I suggest you check at http://www.high-techproductions.com/ntsc.htm
Give your dvd a name also, MYDVD just isn't descriptive enough.
Leave everything else as is, unless you KNOW you must change it (for widescreen TV, or
digital monitor output).
Click OK

Import your video.

Right click in the Assets Window, and select Import. Browse for your previously encoded, dvd
compliant, mpeg file.
Click on it, then click Open. DVDLab will pop up a window:

It says "Highly Recommended" for a reason. Choose to Demux to Elementary Streams, and
click OK. You can change the dropdown box to "Demux without asking" if you don't want to
be bothered by this popup again. It is changeable in Project, Project Properties, Options tab.
If you encoded your mpeg with LPCM audio, DVDLab will give you another popup, asking if
you want to transcode the audio. Hit the Transcode button. It's painless, and DVDLab does a
quick easy job on it.
You will now have two items in the assets window, video (movie.mpv) and audio (movie.mpa)
Import other assets.
I like to use some sort of movie poster, or dvd cover, for my backgrounds. The templates
available are OK, but nothing spectacular. One can usually find some sort of picture on the
internet, or has a digital still available, or even one frame from your movie.
If you are using a digital image, you can import it into assets the same way we imported the
movie.
Right click in the Assets Window, and browse for your image. You must change the dropdown
box to "images" (or all files) first:

Images can be almost any size, providing the aspect ratio is correct. In this case 4:3 which
means, the same basic aspect of a TV. If you are creating a dvd for a widescreen TV, then
16:9 is correct. Also remember the smaller the image, the lower the quality when viewed on
your TV. Bigger is better, in physical size, not bytes.
You will now have three items in the assets window.

Working with assets.

Now is the time to get the movie into the project. Double click Movie1 in the Tree. This will
change the view in the working window to something like this:
Click on your movie.mpv in the assets window, drag, and drop it on the movie in the working
window.
Do the same with the movie_1_48k.mpa audio file.
Notice in the very bottom right corner, a green bar has appeared, with some numbers. This is
the current finished size of your dvd project, in megabytes. If you go over the standard dvdr
(dvd5) spec, this bar will turn red as a warning that your project is too large.
If your bar is green, skip ahead to Making Menus.
If the bar is red, then you must do something to make the project smaller. This involves
anything from a complete re-encode of the file, to a simple edit. Encoding takes so much
time, I usually end up chopping off all the credits to make things fit, and DVDLab can do it,
without needing to use another editor, then reimporting the asset.
To do this, click the mouse pointer over the red line at the very left side of the movie box, in
the working window.

Drag the red line to the right, until you get about to the start of the credits. Notice the
preview window shows a more detailed view of where the cursor is. Release the mouse button
in an approximate position. Now you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move
forward and backward through the movie, until you find the exact place you want to edit.
Right click on the movie in the working window, and select Trim end.
Leave the two options ticked.
DVDLab will trim the ending off the movie, automatically trimming the audio during
compilation, and we're ready to make some real magic.

Making Menus.
Here's where you can get seriously creative, or keep it as simple as you want. Either way,
you end up with something more than just an autoplay movie on the dvd.
Click on the little arrow beside the magic wand at the top and select Auto-Chapters.

This gives you two options for creating chapter points in your movie.
The first is to create a given number of chapters, at a set interval through the movie. Nice,
but not always where you want them. The second allows you to have DVDLab detect scene
changes, and make chapter points for you. It does take some trial and error with the
sensitivity to get it right, but I have found that if you want a lot of chapters, set the
sensitivity to about 240, and if you want only a few set it to about 120. 255 is just too much,
ending up with chapters every few seconds, and 100 is too low, missing some of the major
points, especially if those are fade in/out in your movie. Setting the Minimum Space x
Minutes to less than 3 gives more chapters, and more than 3 sometimes misses places you
wish you had a chapter. The settings shown here work for me.
Next, click on the arrow beside the magic wand again, this time selecting Add Scene
Selection Menus.
You will be presented with another window, with a few menu options. Background color is not
so important here, as we are going to change that later anyhow, but try to select the
button/link style you like most. Layout can also be altered in many ways later. For this
project, I am selecting a basic 6 window, with frames and buttons.

You will be prompted to create scene selections menu, click Yes.

DVDLab will create a number of scene selection menus, based on the number of chapter
points you created. These automatically show up in the tree window, and there is only one
reminder to place a link from menu 1 to scenes 1.
We'll get to that in just a second.

Working with Menu 1.

This is the first thing (almost) that you will see when playing the DVD. Here is where I like to
make a nice title screen, only having one or two links (buttons) on it. Double click Menu 1 in
the tree window, and that brings up our working screen for the menu.
Maximize it for easier viewing.
There are two sets of dotted lines. The inner set is called the TV safe zone. Anything that
must show on the screen must be placed inside this line. Anything outside this line may not
be viewable on your TV.
Hint: If using a downloaded image as a background, edit the image and make 50 pixel
borders around the whole thing.
For this project, I am going to use a frame from the movie as the background, although any
jpg will work, DVDLab will import a still frame from the preview window just as easily.
Scroll through your movie until you find an appropriate frame. Click, and drag up to the
menu 1 box in the working window. IMPORTANT! Hold the SHIFT key down, and then release
the mouse button. This will automatically resize the image to completely fill the menu 1 box,
making it a background. If you don't hold the SHIFT key down, the frame will be imported in
original size, and you must manipulate it. If you DO want to manually adjust the background,
there are two buttons that will automatically center it vertically and horizontally.

You can right click on the image and resize it to fit the way you want, by selecting Change
Size (duh!).
Now it's time to make that important link we were reminded of, as well as any other links
that are NOT chapters.
For example, if you were making a dvd that has two or more movies on it, you can create
links here that lead to the scene/chapter selection menus, or directly to the beginning of the
movie itself.
For our project, I am only going to have one link, leading to the chapters menu, but...it's
time to get fancy.
I am going to make the link invisible. It is also going to have a timer that selects it after 60
seconds, and goes to the chapters menu, with a nice transition effect. Here's how.
First, make a link, any kind of link, text, a button, a box, a frame, doesn't matter at all. Of
course, if you want it to be visible, then be fussy. Here's an example of my title screen with
a visible link.

Of course it isn't a link yet, just an arrow, which I got by selecting the Objects tab at the
bottom of the assets window, and drag/drop it on the menu in the working window. You can
click, drag, and drop any object this way, until you get it where you want it.
Now we need to make it a link. In this project, I am linking directly to the chapters menu, so
I right click on my arrow, and select Link > Scenes 1 for Movie 1 (our first chapter menu).

This puts a little 1 beside it, and changes the color to let us know it is button 1 (the default)
and it's a link.
You could leave it like this, and move on to the Chapters Menu section below, or let's make it
disappear!
On the right hand side of the working window is a 5 tabbed sub-menu. Each tab has different
ways of manipulating the objects in the menu. I'll leave it to you to play with these options,
as most of them are self-explanitory, once you see how I manipulate one object.

The first tab (color) has Fill, Shadow, two sliders to manipulate that shadow, and
transparency.
Fill would be used to fill in outlined text, or a frame.
Shadow is just that, different types of shadows you can put under any object in the menu,
with two ways of changing the shadow. You can use the first slider to make it drop a long
ways, or not at all. The second slider can be used to make the shadow very dark, or very
light. One unique way of using this, is to create a neon light effect, as in one of my other
tutorials here: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=219946
If you are happy with your link/button choice, skip ahead to the Chapters Menu section.
Hint: Make a link invisible, yet active!
Highlight your link/button, that is, click on it once. Now slide the transparency all the way to
the right. The link disappears! This is the only link on this page/menu, so we don't really
need to see it anyhow. When a button is pushed on the dvd remote, it will automatically
activate this link.
Next, select the Link tab on the right. In the Button Visibility dropdown box, select Invisible
All. Next select the PBC tab, and in the top, put 60. In the next box, put a 1 for button 1,
and put 1 again in the third box so it activates. That will make that link automatically
activate after 60 seconds, and move on to the first of our chapters menus.
Hint: Create an animated gif in Paintshop Pro (or other good graphics program), save it as an
avi, encode it as you would any other avi to dvd format, and import it. Then set it as a
moving background for your main menu too!
Hint: For even more spectacular effects, hit the

button and play!

Chapters Menu.
Double click on Scenes 1 for Movie 1 in the tree.
This brings up a pretty boring looking menu.

Time to make it shine, but first a little necessity. Making the first link automatic. Face it,
some people will just stare at that screen, not knowing what to do next. We are going to
make it automatically start the movie, if they don't push a button in 60 seconds. Adjust the
time as you see fit.
On the right side is a 5 tabbed menu. Select the PBC tab, and set your timeout, link you want
default, and link you want to automatically activate. In this case, link 1 is to the movie start.
Now to spice up the menu.
If you like, you can import a picture or frame from the movie as the background, just the
same way we did for Menu 1. First, right click on the chapters menu in the working window,
and select Remove Background. Now drag, hold the SHIFT key, and drop your image into the
menu. Instant background.
I also like to make the icons and buttons more eye-catching. To do this, see my Hint above
about neon light effect.
Just an example:

You can go on to make each of your chapters menus unique, or all the same. Get creative,
have fun with it.

Making Transitions.
This is a simple yet stunning effect, made even easier with DVDLab's wizard.
Double click on Menu 1 in the tree. Click on the arrow beside the magic wand at the top, and
select Menu Transition.
DVDLab gives us 38 different effects to choose from. I like the random burning effect for
action movies, page curl for drama, etc., use whatever you like. When you've chosen your
effect, make sure you choose the From and To options at the top. In this case, we are
transitioning from Menu 1 to Scenes 1 for Movie 1, then hit the Proceed button.

Give it a name, something that represents what it is, click Save, and DVDLab will create the
transition, and automatically place it where it belongs.
You can also modify the times for a longer pause before, after and a longer transition
inbetween. I find that 1 second pause is plenty, and the default 0.8 is good, and transition
times no longer than 2 seconds.
Repeat this for every menu you wish to have a transition effect.

Making motion menus, aka getting professional about it

Although this may be one of the most confusing parts, it also produces the most effective,
eye-catching menu's, and once again, DVDLab has generously given us a wizard!
Double click on your first scenes 1 for movie 1 in the tree.
Select the little arrow beside the magic wand again, this time selecting Render Menu Motion.
You are presented with a menu to generate all the effects.
You may notice that your first menu choice is black, probably before the first actual frame of
the movie, which is useless. Here we can adjust that. In the top portion, click on your first
menu item (#1 in the picture). Now click and gradually slide the "Start Point" slider to the
right (#2 in the picture), until you arrive at the first frame you want to see, in that box, of
your motion menu.
In each of the boxes a few frames of the movie is going to play, the "motion" in our menu.
10 seconds is usually sufficient, and 15 seconds max, or the menu's delay in loading because
of size. (#3 in the picture)
Another annoying effect, is that all the boxes play, then stop, then restart at the same time.
We can cure that too!
Click once right after the tick mark in the top right box, then click again. Do this for ALL
items in that box (#4 in the picture). This makes the motions repeat, if they are shorter than
your clip length as selected in #3, and also shuffles the start times, so they don't all start
and repeat at the same time. Gives the motion a nice random effect. Now hit the Render
button (#5) and wait until it's done. It only takes a minute. While you are waiting, take note
of where the rendering is being saved (#6), and open up your encoder program.
When DVDLab is done rendering, open the render in your encoder, and encode it to dvd
compliant mpeg. It's only 10 seconds long, so it shouldn't take too much time.
Repeat the above steps for all your chapter menus, giving them unique names, so you know
which belongs where. For example, I name my first chapters scenes menu "scenes1", the
second "scenes2" etc.
Now we import the finished short mpegs just like any other asset. Right click in the assets
window, import, and select your mpegs. DVDLab will demux it into an .mpv, this is normal.
To finish, we need to make the menus into the motion menus we just created, so double click
Scenes 1 for Movie 1 in the tree, then from the assets window, drag and drop the
scenes1.mpv up to the working window. Double click Scenes 2 for Movie 1 in the tree, drag
and drop the scenes2.mpv from assets to the working window, etc. Do this for all your
chapters/scenes menus.
DVDLab will give a warning about overwriting. Provided you have not made other changes to
any menu AFTER rendering, this is fine. If you made any changes to any menu after
rendering, you will have to re-render and encode that menu.
Hint: Add an audio track to any menu. Just import the audio track like any other asset, and
drag and drop it on the menu in the working window.

Making the DVD.

ONe last check in the bottom right corner to make sure we haven't got a red bar, and we're
ready to compile the project.
Click on Project, Compile DVD, and providing you've done things right, you will be presented
with this screen:
All settings should be pretty much the same as mine, with the exception of the temp folder
and the output folder.
This will create two folders in the output folder, ready to burn with either the built in burning
app, or your favourite burning software.
If you get an error screen,
you will have to correct those errors before continuing, or risk the chance of making a
coaster (a disk that doesn't play).
Remember above, I suggested you try this on a dvdrw first. Now's the time to be brave and
hit the Start button.
Nothing get's burned until you say so. Make sure you have enough room on your output
drive/folder to hold the dvd.
The little pie charts give a good representation of the space available and the space needed.
Once DVDLab has compiled the video, you can click on Project, Burn DVD from Disk. This will
open DVDLab's built in burning engine, and allow you to burn the compilation.

Final Notes.
Quick, grab the finished disk and run over to your dvd player and see if it works! Be sure to
check all menus and buttons, to insure that they do what you expect them to do.
Success! Sit back, crack a cold beverage, and bask in the glory of having mastered
(well...sorta) DVDLab.
Although there are FAR more options available, I'm sure you will discover them in time, this
guide hopefully helped you make your first successful dvd with one of the most exceptional
authoring programs available.
Don't forget to visit the Mediachance website for more tutorials, FAQ's, updates, and even a
friendly forum, where you can get answers directly from the guy(s) who are developing
DVDLab.
I'm by no means an expert. This guide is only from my experience (less than a week!), yet I
haven't made any coasters yet.
Cheers, and enjoy, Jim (aka reboot)