DVD Class - Class 5

Class 5

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• Overlay Menus
• Most DVD menus you create or see are Overlay or Standard menus
• Menus can have audio and video creating a motion menu
• Pretty quick in response time
• Highlights limited in colors
  
  
• Simple Overlays
• Only black is mapped thus only one color is used
• Advance Overlays
  • Four colors are used though white usually transparent
  • Able to "key" colors either via Chroma or Grayscale

• Preparing images for DVDSP
• Square vs non-square pixels
• NTSC uses a 0.9:1 aspect ratio
• Pixels in DVDSP are non-square thus square pixel files will appear "thin"
• Two ways to compensate using Photoshop CS
• Begin a new non-square file with preset "NTSC-DV 720x480 with guides"
• Begin a new square pixel file with dimension set at 720x534
• Note: D1 NTSC is 720x486 thus file is set at 720x540
• Working in Photoshop CS
• Even though DVDSP resizes files do your resizing in PS (Bicubic Sharper - downsampling)
• Use the NTSC filter to see how your colors will look
• Watch out for saturated colors keep primaries under 235
• Make horizontal lines at least 3 pixels and design at 640x480 or non-square

• Overlay Tips
• Colors
  • Can change color palette even sample from menu
  • Able to make highlight sets
  • "Save as Default" will save color set for other buttons
  • Able to make your own set of swatches
  
  
• Production
  • Create text with layer styles but remember to flatten them
    • Create a new layer below the "Layer Style" layer
    • Select the layer with the "Layer Style"
    • From the Layers palette menu choose "Merge Down"
    • Rename new layer
  • When importing "set all layers visible", turn off overlay layer
  • Use the "W" keyboard shortcut to toggle menu states
  • Option + Command + ~ for smaller screens
  
  
• Audio
  • If you add audio to a looping menu fade it in and out
  • Can only use one audio format
  • Adding multiple audio clips does not change duration of menu automatically
  
  
• Motion menus and Looping Points
  • If you set a loop point the loop point will be disabled if:
    • Add text to the menu via DVDSP
    • Add text to menu's buttons
    • Using drop zones
    • Adding graphics to button hotspots
    • Note: if you do use a loop point overlay will be disabled before loop point

• Layered Menus
• Not part of DVD-Video spec unique to DVDSP
• However able to create similar effects in other authoring packages
• No motion menus or audio
• Slow response time
• Two advantages
  • Able to "turn on" graphics outside of hotspots
  • Not limited in colors
• Make sure you import with "no visible layers"