poor quality video menu

howardnwhite wrote on 11/18/2013, 4:22 PM
Hi. Any reason why using videos for menus in DVD architect seem to be very low blocky pixelated quality? They are rendered from editing program to MPEG2DVD. This is exactly the same format (and settings within) that I use for the movies themselves which come out beautifully. Any ideas? It seems I am stuck with still menus at the moment. Great shame. These videos for the menu always get rendered (the movies themselves do NOT). But the menu looks pretty poor when I do a preview (before making an actual disc and therefore before the render). And again, the movies themselves seem to look better even here. Bit hard to say for certain in the preview window which is not especially good quality, but I think I am right. These video menus are simple, usually just a photo slideshow and some titling. Sorry I have not given a lot of details about bitrates, etc, but the point is the movies are fine and use EXACTLT the same specs as my menu movies. Any ideas? Thanks very much. My architect is version 4.5 I think. All standard definition

Comments

videoITguy wrote on 11/18/2013, 5:45 PM
When authoring a DVD or Blu-ray - you must realize that a menu created is always rendered (ALWAYS) because it is the sum of it's components, - be they buttons, text, backgrounds, etc.

Hence, if you submit a video to be the background of a menu frame, it will ALWAYS be re-rendered. Try this, you should work with a HD source orginal of video, render it with high quality on the VegasPro timeline to the Sony MXF container (that's Mpeg2 codec for you) and then import this as your background scene for the menu frame in DVDAPro.

JUST FYI - DVD architect Pro will always render standard definition with a bit of softness - see plenty of threads in the forum about how to overcome this when producing a DVD from HD sources and using the proper Sony VegasPro workflow to get your finals.