Authoring Software - Menu Creation

[muzer]

We had our family 8mm films professionally converted and recorded onto a DVD.
I would like to modify these DVDs by creating my own menus.

Can anyone suggest a good software to accomplish this.

I do not want to spend a lot, as I will not use this software very much after accomplishing this.

[ormonde]

"Can anyone suggest a good software to accomplish this."

TMPGEnc DVD Author–it is shareware, but fully functional for 30 days. with this program, you can open existing DVDs as well as individual VOB and Mpeg files and create chapter points, and menus.

[muzer]

TMPGEnc DVD Author - Supported Input Files

TMPGEnc DVD Author–it is shareware, but fully functional for 30 days. with this program, you can open existing DVDs as well as individual VOB and Mpeg files and create chapter points, and menus.

Thank you, I will give this one a try.

[ormonde]

"Thank you, I will give this one a try."

Glad to be of help–hope it works for you

[muzer]

More Questions

Originally posted by ormonde
Glad to be of help-hope it works for you

I am pretty impressed with TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.5 as I was able to create menus within minutes.
I was also able to delete some frames added by the company that did the conversion. However, I decided that I would like to do some more editing.

The files are currently in VOB format and spread over 4 DVD disks. I would like to be able to create new compilation as I don't like the way the movies are organized across the disks.

1. Do I have to convert the files to some other format first?
2. Do I need additional software to do this?

I really appreciate any suggestions and thank you for your time spent.

[ormonde]

"The files are currently in VOB format and spread over 4 DVD disks."

So you have about 17.48 gigs of material.

"I would like to be able to create new compilation as I don't like the way the movies are organized across the disks."

You can reorganize the menu structure in DVD Author. If you want to make the entire compilation smaller in size, you will have to use DVDShrink to compress.

[muzer]

Originally posted by ormonde
So you have about 17.48 gigs of material.

About 14 gigs, the fourth disk has very little material on it.

You can reorganize the menu structure in DVD Author.

I would like to change the order of the clips when Play All is selected. I will also need to move some clips from one disk to another.

If you want to make the entire compilation smaller in size, you will have to use DVDShrink to compress.

I don't want to loose any quality so I would rather not compress. The fact the videos spread across 4 disks does not bother me at all.

I learned that the VOB files need to be converted first to allow any editing. Will the video loose on quality during the conversion?

Thank you.

[ormonde]

"I learned that the VOB files need to be converted first to allow any editing"

Exactly what kind of editing do you want to accomplish? DVD Author can do certain types of editing, but the scope is limited.

[muzer]

Originally posted by ormonde
Exactly what kind of editing do you want to accomplish? DVD Author can do certain types of editing, but the scope is limited.

All I need to do is move some of the video segments around, for example cut a section of frames out and paste them in between some other frames. The disks contain a lot of few-minute video clips. I just want to change the order the clips are played if someone chooses to play the whole disk at once without selecting from the menu.

[ormonde]

"All I need to do is move some of the video segments around, for example cut a section of frames out and paste them in between some other frames."

I would suggest using DVDShrink in "Re-author" mode to edit out certain segments-it's much easier. Use the Start/End feature to find the points you want to edit. I would merge all the VOB files together as 1 file beforehand if you do it this way.