Question...

[Kitsunexus]

OK, so this is kinda random, even for Chit-Chat, but how the heck do they make DVD movie menus? You know, the ones that have music, and animate, and show video clips?

I want to assume it's Flash, but I don't think that DVD player processors could handle it. Could anyone enlighten me, please?

[Hobo Xiphas]

It's just a regular video loop.

Pop a DVD into a good computer player like mplayer and if you select the right vob file you'll see it is just a video loop.

[Kitsunexus]

So it's just video? How can they take a video and add interactivity to it, like buttons and stuff?

[Joe Redifer]

Answer... (thanks for using a teaser subject title on this thread... it tells me EXACTLY what the thread will be about.)

You can use a "yucky" Mac with it's DVD Studio Pro program to do it.  It's the best DVD authoring program ever.  It's not Flash.  Menus without sound can be layered menus... graphics created in Photoshop with layers still enabled.  Certain layers are on or off when certain buttons are selected.  Stuff with video is simply video, but then you use graphic overlays (different from layers) to choose button.  Most studio menus I've seen suck ass and it can be hard to tell what button is selected since they think style is more important than usability (I see this with a lot of teenage-made websites and MySpace pages as well).  You can also have a Simple Menu which is just a still screen that can use simple semi-transparencies created by the DVD player to select your button.  There can be music playing in the background.  Menus can be made to loop and do all sorts of shit.  But who gives a f*ck about a fancy menu?  That's not the reason you're watching the DVD and people will forget about it quickly no matter what.  But they'll remember the main program on the DVD.

PS - Unskippable menus suck ass.  I hate animated menus that you cannot skip and must watch the animation to it's completion before you can make a selection.  Then after you choose something, you have to watch an animated "outro" the menu does, also unskippable.  LAME LAME LAME!

[Kitsunexus]

So it's just layered pictures and video then? Cool, thank you. And sorry for the vague title.

[Joe Redifer]

Yes, either a layered Photoshop picture (these can seem slow to respond), a single still picture with single-colored transparent shapes created by the DVD player itself, or motion video.  Any of these except the Photoshop layered-menus can have graphical overlays which act kind of like the Photoshop layers but are quicker, more versatile and yet a tad more restricted in what you can do (since all the shapes have to be loaded into the DVD player's RAM).

[FM-77]

DVDs are for suckers. Illegally pirated and stolen videos all the way. No menus. No "DO NOT PIRATE THIS!" screens. No fuss. Only perfection.

[Joe Redifer]

Oh come on.  If you are going to pirate a DVD, you MUST pirate the "Don't pirate this" screen just out of spite.

[Keranu]

Laserdisc FTW. 

[FM-77]

I honestly only pirate movies becuase that "don't pirate this" screen annoys me.

[nodtveidt]

OK, so this is kinda random, even for Chit-Chat, but how the heck do they make DVD movie menus? You know, the ones that have music, and animate, and show video clips?

I want to assume it's Flash, but I don't think that DVD player processors could handle it. Could anyone enlighten me, please?

It's not Flash. It's a special type of scripting file that is coded in a similar manner though. There's not a whole lot of documentation on the code standard, but it's out there if you know how to find it. I wanted to write my own DVD authoring software awhile back and looked for information on how it's done. It's not terribly complicated stuff but it is rather detailed, so someone without any kind of programming background probably wouldn't want to mess with it.

[Kitsunexus]

Cool, thanks! I wasn't going to try and make a menu, I was just curious... ^_^

[Hobo Xiphas]

Laserdisc FTW. 

The redardation is spreading.

I'm disappointed in you, K. 

[nat]

I honestly only pirate movies becuase that "don't pirate this" screen annoys me.

"FBI Warning"

Do they still use those screens on DVDs or is it something more generic nowadays? I honestly haven't noticed.

But the "FBI Warning" screens with the colorcycling background from the Betamax and VHS days are classic. Beta was the shit.

[Joe Redifer]

The old pirate warnings with color cycling backgrounds were unique to Paramount releases.  Rarely does any movie these days or even back then have actual FBI-provided screens.  Some do, though.