Beyond the Office
August 17th, 2004
proudly presented by
PC World
Technology Advice You Can Trust
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/1/0/
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Our editors' favorite PC and console games and hardware, a look at the
evolving world of digital music, tips on burning CDs and DVDs, and
everything about wireless technology and cell phones.
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August 17th, 2004
Making Movies: Create DVD Menus
Sr. Assoc. Ed. Richard Baguley
In my last newsletter, I looked at the various ways that you can get
your old videos onto DVD:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/722265/0/
But there is more to doing the job properly than just grabbing the
video and slapping it onto a DVD: If you want it to look professional
and be easy to navigate, you'll need to add a menu.
If you've watched a commercial movie on DVD, then you know what I'm
talking about. DVD menus are the screens where you choose to play the
movie, check out so-called bonus material such as trailers or
interviews with the director and stars, or skip to particular points
in the film. In fact, many studios consider menus to be a hugely
important part of the DVD and spend a lot of time and money producing
ones that echo the look, feel, and sound of the film.
Fortunately, we amateur home-movie makers don't have to spend anything
like the time or money that the pros do to get nice-looking menus that
make watching our movies easier. In fact, the software for creating
DVDs can also create the menus--although the extent to which you can
customize the menus varies. I've used Ulead DVD MovieFactory. If you
want to check it out, you can download a trial copy here:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/722266/0/
The first thing to think about is how you want to break up your movie.
Specifically, menus provide an easy way to go directly to a particular
point in the video, called a chapter. It's similar to the way each
chapter in a book focuses on a particular set of events--and this is a
good way to think about organizing your menu.
Say, for instance, that you are editing a video of a recent vacation.
You might want to create one chapter for the first day, another for
the second, and so on. Alternatively, you could break the video down
by subject: one chapter for your trip to the beach and another for the
theme park.
Automatic Menus
Many of the DVD authoring programs I've tried can automatically create
menus based on a theme you choose. After you create the menu, most of
these programs allow you to tweak it manually, adding your own images,
background music, and so on.
But one thing to watch out for with automatic menu creation tools is
the number of chapters they generate. For example, I wanted to create
a DVD from the footage I shot on a recent vacation, so I imported the
video from my digital camcorder into DVD MovieFactory and directed the
application to automatically create menu entries. It created 22
chapters, way too many for my 15 minutes of video.
The program did this because I had it use scene detection to generate
the chapters: Every time the program detected a pause in the recording
(because I had stopped the camcorder), it interpreted it as a new
scene, and hence a new chapter in the video. In the end, I re-imported
the video without using scene detection, then manually went through it
and decided where I wanted the chapter points to be. This wasn't
difficult: I just scrolled through the video and clicked a button in
the Add/Edit Chapters tool when I wanted to start a new chapter. The
program then automatically created the menu using my chosen chapter
points.
Had I wanted to, I could have customized the menu further by changing
the background image and choosing different positions for the menu
items, for example. But the preset background was fine, so I simply
added some music from a CD. I then burned the project to DVD.
It really was that painless: A few minutes of effort produced a menu
that makes my video look more professional and will help me find a
particular scene when I watch it again in a few years.
* Videos to Watch: The 48 Hour Film Project *
If you've ever complained that there isn't enough time to complete
your video, you'll sympathize with the participants in the 48 Hour
Film Project:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/722267/0/
This event occurs annually in cities all over the world. The idea is
simple: Teams enter to write, shoot, edit, and finish a video in 48
hours. Just to make it interesting, they are assigned a genre like
espionage or horror. And all of the teams have to include a prop, a
character, and a phrase that they don't know about in advance. For
instance, in this year's London event, the filmmakers had to include a
ladder, a character named Dr. Sam Weston, and the phrase "That's the
last time I lend you my cricket bat."
Once the videos are submitted, a jury of film experts picks the best
ones, which go on to an international competition. The results of the
London project are available for viewing online:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/722268/0/
Not surprisingly, some of the projects are a bit rough around the
edges; but others show real flair. I was impressed with Face Value, a
mockumentary on an awful American Idol-esque pop group, and The
Meeting, a thriller about what happens when spies retire. Both of
these films show that with a little thought, a digital video camera,
and a lot of caffeine, you can create a funny, well-produced film in
just two days.
Have a question or comment? Write to Richard Baguley:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read Richard Baguley's regularly published "Making Movies" columns:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/364370/0/
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=====================================================================
Top News From PC World
* Microsoft Updates Works
Works 8 adds utilities to productivity suite that delivers all the
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Editors' Picks
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Create Post-it style reminders on your desktop.
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OpenOffice.org apps include a word processor, a spreadsheet, a
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For a full list of this week's Editors' Picks, go to:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/195127/21421685/722237/0/
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* Reviews *
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Cards based on the new bus perform well, but early tests offer no
clear reason to upgrade just yet.
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Check the latest prices on Cameras:
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