Simple Menu

whooops wrote on 3/30/2008, 1:02 PM
I just came over to Vegas Platinum 8 f& DVD Architect 4.5 rom Pinnacle. I have used Pinnacle since ver 8 and now have 11 but it is so buggy I gave up. I am trying to load a simple AVI file into DVD Architect 4.5 and create a main menu with text to link 8 titles within the AVI file. If I go to the first chapter it should displays that and continues running or I can hit the DVD control and go back to the menu for a different selection. Just simple.....
I have gone over the instructions and the forum and have found nothing I can make sense out of. It may be because of my previous Pinnacle experience. I would even be interested in a good book on menus, but have not found any on the net.

I can load the AVI file and when I click on the start it superimposes menu 1 on the remaining frames....When I try and preview the movie I see the frames but with Menu 1 on top of them.
I am really confussed here .....
Any help appreciated

Comments

GeorgeW wrote on 3/30/2008, 6:47 PM
Have you tried the Help Tutorials. Help / Show Me How (then select How to Add Titles)

NOTE: I am assuming your version comes with the online help tutorials...
musicvid10 wrote on 3/30/2008, 8:16 PM
Very little of what you learned from the "simplicity" of Pinnacle is going to make any sense with the Sony products.

Believe me, it's a good thing. I left Pinnacle many years ago about the time of the Studio 7 debacle, and I'm ecstatic at what I can now do with Vegas8.0 / DVDA 4.5.
bStro wrote on 3/30/2008, 9:21 PM
I suspect that you dragged the AVI and dropped it directly onto the timeline. If I recall correctly, that's how you add a movie in Pinnacle Studio. It's not how you add one in DVDA, though.

Or, rather, you can drag and drop a movie onto a timeline, but you have to make sure it's the right timeline. The timeline visible when you create a new project is the one for the menu itself, so what you did was add your video as the menu background, which I don't imagine was your intent. In Studio, there is one timeline for the entire project, and you intermix the menus with the videos (correct?). In DVDA, every menu and every video object has its own timeline.

To keep the menu as it is and add a button for your video to that menu, drag and drop the video onto the menu workspace (the thing that already says "Menu 1" on it. Or go to Insert -> Media. (There are more ways to add a movie to a project, but these two are the most common.)

DVDA operates quite a bit differently from Pinnacle Studio, so you're going to have to unlearn a few things. I also started out with Pinnacle Studio 8, but I found that way too buggy and dropped it within a couple months. Then found Vegas and DVDA and never looked back.

Rob