Adding menus to a DVD?

A

apreading

New member
I have played with DVDshrink and love the product - great for ripping copies of DVDs for the kids to abuse, and extracting home movies from DVDs and does just about everything I want.

Just 1 problem - it doesnt seem able to produce my own menu when multiple titles/chapters on a disk.

So I looked at TMPGEnc as this has a very nice looking Menu Editor. Couple of problems that it seems to love extra audio tracks and possibly subtitles (no big issue), but one annoying problem in that it wont make a DVD with titles of different aspect ratios.

Is there a cheap (or free) product which will just add a menu to my DVD files, of varying aspect ratios? Nothing fancy required just something basic - and not degrading the video quality as a result.

Have read some bad remarks about ulead - or is that the one for me?

Gotta keep it simple as alot of what I have read has totally gone over my head...

Thanks
 
ChickenMan

ChickenMan

1
I'd check out DVDLab Pro, they have a 30 day free trial product and it allows more than 1 audio and includes Subtitles as well.
 
A

apreading

New member
Just looking around a bit for info on DVLAb and found quite a bit about the freeware TheFilmMachine - would this do the job for me?

I guess I will try both of these out and see how it goes.

Where is the best place to get DVDLab from?

Cheers
 
ChickenMan

ChickenMan

1
Get DVDLab Pro beta version from their home page here http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/historypropre.html but be quick as Ver 1.0 has just been released and the free beta's might be removed.

The FilmMachine and DVDLab have just about zero in common. One is a front end to an encoder, the other does Authoring only. I suggest you do a bit more reading if you think they are the same/similar :D
 
VIPER_1069

VIPER_1069

1
have to agree with chickenman on the DVDLAB advice its a pretty good program been using it for quite some time now and its excellent for fast creation of menus and scene selects :)

yes its not freeware but it is pretty cheap and well worth the money :)


unfortunatley the number of freeware author tools are pretty scarce if any ?!

FILM MACHINE is for avi to dvd conversion but to get best results you will need a proper encoder retail CCE as freeware encoder qenc is not perfect for good results :(
 
A

apreading

New member
Cant download the latest beta - bad url. Does anyone have a copy anywhere else, or is it worth contacting them to report the URL?

Thanks for the advice - will have a look see at the previous beta version tonight.
 
ChickenMan

ChickenMan

1
Damn, they have removed it already :(

I've attached their latest DVDLab Pro RC4 version, its a 30 day free trial version. The RC3 ver can be d/led from the above site however.
 

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ChickenMan

ChickenMan

1
$200, thats cheap, check out the competition, being Sonic Scenarist and Spruce Maestro. Its in the 10's of thousands for those :D
 
A

apreading

New member
Cheers!

If I run a beta for 30 days, can I then run the full version for another 30 do you think?

No time to try it out properly for a couple of days, so dont want to start my trial just yet, but thanks for the help & advice.

The price might be reasonable for what it is, but I only actually want/need a small slice of it, so it is still expensive for my intended use. Not out of the question though...
 
MackemX

MackemX

1
for freeware authoring programs there are DVDAuthor GUI and GUI for DVDAuthor but I'm not sure about creating different aspect ratios but that doesn't mean it doesn't do it :). I'm sure it takes the info from the video stream about the image size when compiling

there is also Titlewriter that can be used after DVDShrink to insert main/chapter menu's onto a reauthored DVD but again I have limited experience with this
 
A

apreading

New member
Cheers - one of these should be just the ticket with a bit of luck. I think TitleWriter may be first port of call as it seems to be endorsed by DVDShrink people...?

Many thanks to all - hopefully I will be on the right track now.
 
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