Using Pictures or Video in Your DVD Studio Pro Menu Templates

One of the best ways to spice up your DVD is to add personal pictures and videos into the menus themselves. Unless you are a graphic design wizard your best bet is to use the pre-made templates that DVD Studio Pro has available to you. Within those there are a number of places that allow you to add this media, and it will end up making your menus much more superior.

Once you have created a menu, for whatever purpose, you can then add a template of your choosing. Usually you try to keep the same visual streak all the way through your DVD, so pick it wisely. Most of these templates have places in them that you can actually put pictures or videos. These will be grey boxes of various sizes that have an arrow in them pointing downward. You must first import a picture or piece of video into the asset browser, and then you can drag and drop these pieces of media onto the grey boxes where they are allowed. Now you will have the picture or video there in the menu where that box was.

Usually the size and position of the picture box is set by the template according to the visual style and position that the template is using. This does not mean you cannot alter it. You can stretch it to make it larger or move its position on the actual menu. Try this out, but keep in mind that the audience will view the menu holistically and it should still play together visually.

These are a great option for use in buttons as well. For example, on conventional DVDs the chapter selection menu is filled with buttons that play a tiny bit of video of their respective chapters to remind the audience where they wanted to be in the film. This is an option that you have as well. Take a small section of the film that you have compressed and imported into DVD Studio Pro and drag and drop it into the picture button box. Make sure that the template you have is using their picture boxes as buttons already otherwise you may have to convert a normal picture box into an active button.

Since templates are often impersonal this is a good way to make your DVD menu system look a little more appropriate. Play around with this, but try not to overload your DVD with distracting images and video. The main focus of the disc is still to play your film or video project.