maestro menus problem, moving, figure, having

andy

I am having a problem trying to figure out how to get the menus to work.  I have ben trying for two or three days to figure this out but now i just need help.  Firstof all, how do I get the menu that is moving to maestro, and where do I find that menu.  And if I can't do that how do i get the one that isnt' moving and put and overlay on it to do the buttons.  My problem is basically doing th menus and haveoin buttons.  I jsut can't figure out how get the overlay for the still menu or where to get it at either.  If someone could explain this to me I think that I can get the rest of it.

I'm assuming that you read the maestro guide, because if I'm understanding you correctly, you are looking for an overlay.

1st of all, Maestro doesn't create anything for you. You have to prepare/create all of your assets including the overlay in another prog (I use Photoshop) then import them into Maestro.

The way to create an overlay is to make a new imagefile (BMP) with a white background and using 1 or more of 4 colors (black, red ,blue, amp; 1 more that I can't remember) create your graphics/text.

Later in Maestro, you select a background image and drag the overlay image on top of it. You can then create buttons and map the colors to other colors and choose how button colors change when in the highlighted, action, and selected states. Animated menus work the same way in that you place an overlay above your clip.

You need to do this for every menu you create.

thanks for that.  I do have one other thing that is getting to me to.  where do I find the animated menu in my original dvd files.  If I was correct in what I thought, Dvd Maestro would not accept this file where I was making my menus

HI
as a beginner to the DVD stuff, and having tried several programs i have found dazzle dvd complete a good starter, it auto insert chapters and allows you to do it manually as well, give it a go

Yes, DVDcomplete is a good beginner prog amp; the deluxe version can do animated menus.
However, it doesn't always work with reencoded tmpg files; having said that, I have yet to run pulldown.exe because tmpg supposedly should take care of that but that's another topic altogether. If you can get it, do try it out though.

As for Maestro, you can either use your own clip (same DVDcompliant MPEG2 format) or if you're reffering to using the original, then I suggest getting this prog called VOBrater (from this site) which will let you view what's in each VOB ID and title set so that you can find where your animated menu is.

I got that program that I was told to try to get and now I need someone that will tell me how to use it.

I am also interested in someone telling me how to make a dvd compliant file for Dazzle Dvd complete,  I tried to use the m2v file that i had made for dvd maestro but it wasn't dvd compliant.  Can someone please tell me how do make one.

That's what I was saying, DVDcomplete sometimes is very picky about sources. I've found that It's better to feed it a system stream (MPG2 file) it likes to do the separation itself. I've had mixed success using tmpg the problem is that it want's to se 29.97 when tmpg really uses 23.97 a more detailed expalnation can be found on this forum.

There's a program called pulldown.exe that should correct this although I haven't tried it and TMPG should incorporate this function anyway. (maybe the TMPG function is buggy??) so give it a go.

My logic is that Maestro is a much better prog so why bother.

As for using DVDcomplete, that should be self explanatory, the wizard holds your hand all the way through but I think you mean How do I customize the menus?

No problem: 1st select blank DVD project, rename it if you want (the usual right click windows way)
2- on the toolbar select add movie (it looks like a movie reel)
This screen is the same one as the wizard so I'm sure you know how to add a movie.
3- select from the toolbar create menus (looks like a remote control)
again, same screen as wizard. Select customize so that you can substitute your own graphics.
4- You can switch from the background and the foreground (don't worry about one being darker than the other it's only to remind you which layer you're working on) right click windows style and select the choice to add your own background. Then toggle to foregroung and customize your buttons (easy drag amp; drop way). Do this for all menus.
5- This is where I usually get freezes when doing 2+hr films. What should happen is that your menus get created and a simulator pops up so that you can test your links.
6- If satisfied, then select from the toolbar build DVD (I forgot how the icon looks) sit back and relax.

When it works, DVDcomplete is a great easy to use program which gives great results, I still use it for quicky projects from analog sources, I did phantom menace with it and then my problems started. Others have had the same problems. Seriously, if it works get your feet wet with it and then move on to something else; I recommend Maestro, forget DVDit amp; Videopack 5.