Movie menus add splendor to the DVD discs and they can be used as navigation for videos. Family photos, romantic or cozy background audio, and decorative button border added to the memorable DVDs, could it be the better gift for family reunion, or the birthday of daughter? We are so excited to be sharing a super interesting DIY guide for DVD menus, including background images, audio, page buttons etc. In this guide, you will learn:
Part I: Preparation for Movie Menu DIY
Part II: How to DIY Movie Menu
Part III: Add DIY Movie Menu to the Program
Part IV: Movie menu displayed on TV
Part I: Preparation for Movie Menu DIY
Now, let’s switch to the DIY process. We use Sothink Free DVD Creator to DIY movie menu.
It is necessary to introduce the movie menu components (Take the “Violet Frame” as an example)
Tab.1: Movie Menu Components
| “My DVD” | The default menu title text which can be edited in xml file. |
| “Background.jpg” | The background picture of the menu. |
| “Background.mp3” | The background audio of the menu. |
| Button border | *.png. The black part (0×000000) is the display area for button background image. |
| Button highlight | *.wmf. Be highlighted when mouse moves over. |
| Page button | The background vector of pageup and pagedown (*.png). |
| Page button highlight | The pageup and pagedown button highlight (*.wmf). Be highlighted when mouse moves over. |
Almost all of the components can be DIY in this movie menu, including background image, title, background audio, video button (background, button border, highlight, text), page button (background, highlight) and xml file. However, you can get your own template through changing part of the existing resources, such as background image, audio, button text etc. The resources needed to be prepared are shown as follows:
Tab.2: The Resources Needed
| Background image | jpg or png; size:720×480 | |
| Background audio | mp3/wma/wav; 15 seconds—180 seconds long audio recommended. | |
| video.png | Button border | |
| prev.png | Pageup button background picture | |
| next.png | Pagedown button background picture | |
| video.wmf | Button highlight | The consistent color is recommended to be used in these three pictures. |
| prev.wmf | Pageup button highlight | |
| next.wmf | Pagedown button highlight | |
| template.xml | Copying the existing template.xml file is recommended. | |
Note: All the resources name should be consistent with the existing resources (For instance, the designed background image can only be called “background.jpg”, the button border should be called “video.png” etc.)
Photoshop is recommended to design the background images, button border and background of page buttons. The page button highlight can be made with Sothink SWF Quiker and the output should be WMF format. We recommend using the same color when you make the highlight of the page buttons. All of the resources should be placed in the same folder (For example, “Happy Family”). And this folder should be put in the directory “…SourceTec\Sothink Movie DVD Maker\Templates”. For instance, “D:\Program Files\SourceTec\Sothink Movie DVD Maker\Templates”.
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