I've been doing a lot of experimenting to try to pin down why I'm getting the results I'm getting, and I thought I'd just post just in case others have experienced similar behavior (and perhaps someone has found a solution)
Here's the rundown:
1) Menus created at 655x480 (as per DVDA Manual's instructions) in Photoshop CS
2) Transition Videos created in Vegas 6 at 720x480 (0.9 PAR) and rendered to MPEG-2 (using DVD Architect 29.97 template)
The PSD files are imported into DVDA as menus. The menus are mostly made up of vertical rectangles.
The transition videos for the purposes of my tests were simple cross dissolves from one PSD file to the PSD file of the menu. After I rendered the video out to MPEG-2, I imported it into DVDA (3.0c).
When I preview the transition in DVDA, there is a definite shift, and thus the transition from video to menu is not seamless. When the video ends and the menu is displayed, it appears as if the rectangles "shink" inward. It's remeniscent of changes in pixel aspect ratio. I sometimes have to preview the transition several times to see the shift, but it's definitely visible when playing the DVD on a set-top player.
From what I can tell, the "shrinking" seems to most affect objects that are longer than they are wider. Also, the narrower the object, the more noticeable the shrinking effect is. Furthermore, the shrinking appears to affect objects vertically aligned to the center of the image.
The type of behavior I decribe does not seem to occur (or at least is not noticeable enough) with objects positioned off-center, or objects are that are at least as wide as they are long (i.e. a square or horizontal rectangle).
Possible solutions are:
1) Do not position anything aligned to the vertical center
2) Do not create buttons/objects that are longer than they are wider
In my case, however, neither of these are desired solutions as one of the menus I'm creating will be thumbnails of the images in a photo gallery (arranged on a 3x3 grid). Several of the images are vertically oriented (i.e. landscape), and are therefore longer than they are wider.
Has anyone experienced this behavior before? Anyone find any workable solutions? My next step is to test other DVD authoring apps, but I'd rather not have to switch just for this.
If anyone is interested, I've uploaded some of my test files (an MPEG-2 file and a PSD menu) that demonstrate the behavior I've described. Just import them into DVDA and set the end action of the MPEG-2 file to go to the menu file. You may have to look closely, as the effect is not always immediately noticeable.
Download (180k)
http://archetyped.com/vegas/resources/DVDA_Transition_Test.zip
Here's the rundown:
1) Menus created at 655x480 (as per DVDA Manual's instructions) in Photoshop CS
2) Transition Videos created in Vegas 6 at 720x480 (0.9 PAR) and rendered to MPEG-2 (using DVD Architect 29.97 template)
The PSD files are imported into DVDA as menus. The menus are mostly made up of vertical rectangles.
The transition videos for the purposes of my tests were simple cross dissolves from one PSD file to the PSD file of the menu. After I rendered the video out to MPEG-2, I imported it into DVDA (3.0c).
When I preview the transition in DVDA, there is a definite shift, and thus the transition from video to menu is not seamless. When the video ends and the menu is displayed, it appears as if the rectangles "shink" inward. It's remeniscent of changes in pixel aspect ratio. I sometimes have to preview the transition several times to see the shift, but it's definitely visible when playing the DVD on a set-top player.
From what I can tell, the "shrinking" seems to most affect objects that are longer than they are wider. Also, the narrower the object, the more noticeable the shrinking effect is. Furthermore, the shrinking appears to affect objects vertically aligned to the center of the image.
The type of behavior I decribe does not seem to occur (or at least is not noticeable enough) with objects positioned off-center, or objects are that are at least as wide as they are long (i.e. a square or horizontal rectangle).
Possible solutions are:
1) Do not position anything aligned to the vertical center
2) Do not create buttons/objects that are longer than they are wider
In my case, however, neither of these are desired solutions as one of the menus I'm creating will be thumbnails of the images in a photo gallery (arranged on a 3x3 grid). Several of the images are vertically oriented (i.e. landscape), and are therefore longer than they are wider.
Has anyone experienced this behavior before? Anyone find any workable solutions? My next step is to test other DVD authoring apps, but I'd rather not have to switch just for this.
If anyone is interested, I've uploaded some of my test files (an MPEG-2 file and a PSD menu) that demonstrate the behavior I've described. Just import them into DVDA and set the end action of the MPEG-2 file to go to the menu file. You may have to look closely, as the effect is not always immediately noticeable.
Download (180k)
http://archetyped.com/vegas/resources/DVDA_Transition_Test.zip