Adding Music to Menus in DVD Studio Pro

The more media and work that go into each menu in your DVD Studio Pro project the more energy will be produced on the final product. Each page can be layered with design and pictures, giving it a personal feel that reflects the themes in your digital video project. One of the greatest types of media that can be added to each menu is music, giving a scored background to each menu individually.

To add a music track to a menu in DVD Studio Pro you first have to import the music file as an asset. Go to the Asset bar and click on the Import button. This will let you browse available hard drive and server space for whatever media files you would like to use in your project. Select the music file and import it into the project. Once you have done this it will appear in the Asset list in the upper left-hand area of the DVD Studio Pro interface.

Go to the graphical view and select the menu that you intend to add the musical track to. Once it is up look to the lower right hand Menu window, which lets you work with options relating to the aesthetics and function of this menu. You will see on the bottom of this window s a place for audio tracks. Select the correct audio track out of the Asset menu and drag and drop it into the Audio menu. Now the audio track will play through when this menu is displayed on the DVD.

Directly above the Audio list you can select features of the DVD menu that will affect the audio track. There is an option called At End that will let you set the menu to loop, remain still, or timeout once the media characterized in the menu has finished playing. With this you can decide if you want the audio track to play again once it has finished by selecting loop.

If you want to remove an audio track from the menu you can highlight it in the audio list and then select the “-“ button directly below it. You can also have several audio tracks play simply by dragging several onto this menu. If there are several there they will play in the order as they are listed in this menu. You can arrange them into the order that you wish them to play.

Adding music to a menu is just an easy way of giving your DVD a lot more character. Once you become more adept with the software you can begin getting even more creative with the media you employ.