Hi Terry,

I have rarely had any menu problems that were not self-inflicted. I haven't tried out many, but for those that I did, I did not try anything fancy. I agree with John EB that you should not try to put too many buttons on one screen. I usually let the template do the main work for me.

Thus, I am presenting 2 examples. In the first, I also have 15 chapters but I selected the simple Travel & Holidays template and it created a main page plus 2 chapters pages. I had no trouble double-clicking this to get it to work. The first chapter page has 12 chapters and the second only 3. I changed the background of both the main and chapter pages. The image on the main page (my wife did that in the sand), and the button that says "Chapîtres" used to be Chapters by default but I edited it in Photo Designer 7 (still needs work to get it to look like the other text and to correct the î to i). Still to come is my intro video. I used it in another project menu with no problems. I adjusted the images in each box to correspond to what I wanted to show each chapter. The only problems that I encountered in the menu of this project were that I inserted more images and videos near the beginning of the timeline thus my chapter markers got out of sync and had to be adjusted, and there was a spelling mistake. I tried to keep it simple, especially the text as it is hard to read on a TV.

Here is the main menu image. I changed the background using the Edit button under Design Page. Note that video is not checked, but Sound/Music is, and there is some music here. It is actually the default file I think, sound of waves and gulls.

The image below shows the dialog box for the photo that I selected for the main image. Access is Design page, Edit:

Here are pages 2 and 3 showing the details:

I did a test using the "Easy" template and I presume that this is what you used. This is probably not a good choice for more than 6 chapters as it appears to have tried to put everything on one page. Your problem with not getting the text to the centre of the image is quite simple. Click on the group/ungroup button and you will see the size of the text box. It does not cover the width of the image, thus the centre will be offset. Im the image below, I stretched the box. However, the text would be too small for the TV thus this I would not use this template. I presume that below the thumbnails that are over the photo, you also have the 2 buttons (round yellow button with 2 horizontal black bars and a button with text like mine - Iles de la Madeleine) and as per your #2. Below is the second page showing the chapters:

Below is the first page, similar to yours. The image was selected by default and actually runs a video of part of the movie since the Video was checked by default under Design page. I haven't fully looked at how this works yet, but it did a nice job without me. A second image shows the dialog screen for the video or the image for the first page. In your case #2, you seem to have selected the menu entry from the Preview screen. I don't know how you did that or what it is. You should be on the Edit screen. The screen that you show is not the one to change the image that you have behind the dialog box. Click on Edit at the top left and then Edit under Design page. Look at what is check-marked by default.

Finally, I find that there is a lot of flexibility in the menu system, but you have to go through the correct screens and do some experimentation. It's best to practice outside of an important project. Let me know if you have any trouble viewing the images. If so, I will put them in Dropbox.

Regards,

Hi

@John CB and Terry

How close to the edge of the TV screen do the icons and buttons appear? 

Are they within the 'Safe Area' to avoid problems with TV overscan.

@Terry

Thinking about whether this is a bug or not - IMHO there is a bug with the templates in that MEP does not stop you adding too many chapters on a page. 

In my collection of commercial DVD' and BD's (approx 150)  that have I cannot remember any having more than 8 chapters on a page.

John

Morning John,

How's the weather in Montreal? We're heading for a nice sunny day and 16 C here in West Sussex.

Thanks for those very helpful and detailed examples. Any chance you can upload to your Dropbox for proper resolution please? I'm not sure why you seem to have a different template structure to mine. Only 3 categories (can't read the text) versus my 4.

Which category of 'Travel & Holiday' options did you use in your example, and within that which specific template?

See my post to John EB about chapters.

Thanks for that revelation about text justification requiring prior use of the Grouping tool. I don't know why mine wasn't set to match the thumbnail by default. But AFAICT after further experiment that has to be changed manually for every chapter individually. Apply to all doesn't do it. It seems a flaw IMO that the default for all templates isn't to have the text box as wide as the buttons. In the case under discussion and the couple of others I tried, the default seem to be about 75% of the size, aligned at the left of the button.

I need to study your examples more carefully, hopefully when I can read the text and settings in a higher res version.

I assumed that you were unable to reproduce the problem I had with the default template as described in my earlier post. Nor can I now!

I started a fresh project and imported the same 15 MP4s and gave all a chapter automatically.

Appled template Static > Default ... 16:9 This time it worked OK! All 15 on one page and all seem to work as expected.

I added 2 more chapters making 17. All still OK, with MEP assigning 16 to first page and the 17th on a second.

So maybe previously the project (built in exactly the same way as just described) somehow got corrupted?

Were you able to reproduce the #3 problem with DVD, animated > Mountaineers?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

The weather in Montreal? You had to ask. Friday morning I woke up to 2-3 inches of slushy snow. I checked the forecast - reasonably nice weather for the next week, so I got the summer tires put on the car. Sunday morning woke up to 3-4 inches of slushy snow. I spent the last 2 days working on renovation tasks. Here is the view out my upstairs office window Sunday morning:

I put all of the images in Dropbox as requested:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wbw9174lqiykdr8/IdM%20Menu1.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zbuz82phoq7auka/IdM%20Menu1a.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3v8nxlvlkppyqw/IdM%20Menu2.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5lorid4ya1ivchd/IdM%20Menu3.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yg043hyudxrhf7p/IdM%20Menu%20Easy%202.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m272r96chery19d/IdM%20Menu%20Easy%201.jpg

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zo1iu18b2kqk9id/IdM%20Menu%20Easy%201a.jpg

I did the menu during the Christmas Charlevoix holiday on the laptop and I think that I used Beach as the music is the same.

I think that I made another video last year using Mountaineer with no problems. I haven't had time to try it again, maybe tomorrow.

For my button change to Chapitres, I didn't change the highlight and it still says Chapters. Maybe I'll give it a try on Monday. There are still a some mysteries to solve, but overall, I have not had much trouble. 

I think that even my above menu with 12 icons is too much for one screen, but I noticed that modifying the number of icons using the Order tab and selecting Composition 8/1 did not change the size of the icons because there are still 4 across. My text is very short in each case. Even 6/1 had no change on icon size, but there is more room for text. I have found that too many icons or too much text becomes too small and difficult to read on a TV. It's better to go for less items with larger text.

Hi John,

Based on that progression of Actual v Forecast, is this what you woke up to this morning?

Many thanks for those higher res images. I'll step through your notes again later.

#4. I like to do my customising in the Arranger. Using the template User-defined > General > Easy, if I change the track 1 objects and return to Burn mode the change is not displayed (it still shows the original image). But clicking the Preview arrow does play it correctly.

Toggling between the main Edit and Burn modes does not refresh the main DVD menu static display. But switching to the chapter menu and back does so. If this minor 'graphic refresh' flaw applies to all templates, that's a useful practical tip. But if you don't have a chapter menu you need to save and re-open the project to get a faithful main menu displayed and avoid possible confusion.

--------------------

I'd be interested to know how many templates there are in the 'official' MEP 2014 Premium set? IOW, how many objects you have in the \DVD\Layout folder as reported by Explorer? I have 203 here, reflecting years of copying across from previous MEP versions.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

@John CB and Terry

How close to the edge of the TV screen do the icons and buttons appear?

Are they within the 'Safe Area' to avoid problems with TV overscan.

Hi John,

Not sure which template and configuration you're asking about?

I don't usually have a problem over that. If in any doubt you can always switch on the TV overscan area:

Or for better quality: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP-DVDmenu-overscan.jpg

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

Last night before I posted, I went out foraging for firewood. Good King Dave across the street was kind enough to give me some. This morning the house is warm, the sun is shining, the snow is starting to melt in the sun, and it's -2C outside.

#3 Mountaineer

I tested out Mountaineer this morning from a new project with 17 photos and 17 chapters. I went to Burn, a default menu was created, I doubled-clicked on Mountaineer and it created it. Then I tried double-clicking on the other 2 templates that are very similar: Low Tides and Desert. Nothing seemed to happen on the main menu screen. Same using Apply. I went to the detail menu and applied and double-clicked on each of the 3 templates. The detail screen changed each time. Thus for some reason, the main menu screen does not refresh with the new background image. This seems to be a bug or something. This was not the only place where the background image did not change. However, I did notice that the foreground did change as some of the templates have slightly different templates.

I noticed that this occurs on templates that are of the same family. The 3 above are all basically the same. To see this better, go to the first General templates and try out Neon LIghts, Soft Edges and Purple Glass. Double-clicking each in turn does not change the background image but does changes the foreground buttons and text on the main menu.

As you say, to make a change to the background within a family, it seems that you have to apply a menu from a different family and then go back to the one that you want. Strange.

#4 Editing in Arranger

I got the same as you. I added a title in to the main menu using the Arranger and it did not show up at first, but did after navigating to a chapter menu and then back to the main menu. This should be documented or corrected because for the only other attempt that I did, when the title did not show up in the menu, I went back to the Arranger and removed it thinking that I could not do this. This was counter-productive.

Templates - Quantity

In MEP2014 Plus, I have 113 layouts, 131 in MEP2013, and only 53 in X6. I don't recall adding any to MEP2013 from previous versions. I am disappointed with the quantity in X6 as Magix was advertising that it contained "new" templates. This means that X5 contained less?

TV Overscan

I checked with my 12 icon Beach template and everything almost falls within the TV overscan area. On the chapter menu screen, the upper left arrow button is slightly off to the left, and the lower right arrow button is slightly out to the right.

However, my main menu appears to be 4:3 instead of 16:9. The chapter menus are 16:9. I am not sure how this happened, but I may have selected a 4:3 image somehow. I can't find a way to get it to 16:9 without losing my image. I guess I will have to burn a version to see what really happens.

#5 - Button text - added to the list by John CB

I would like to add this to the list. For the text of the chapter menu, which is actually a button, when I pass over the button with the mouse in Preview mode, the button is highlighted and so is the text. If I change the text, the highlight is the same text.

However, the button on the main menu for Chapters is actually a bmp and cannot be changed through a dialog box. I would like to see Magix change this so that the text and highlight can easily be changed. For example, instead of "Chapters", I would like "Menu." Can't do it without changing the bitmaps, both the main and the highlight. Even in the French version, "Chapitres" is not an option; I installed MEP in French on the laptop. Other languages must have the same problems, unless I am missing something.

Thanks for testing those John. You can see why I believe a thorough overhaul is needed. I've raised a ticketed support request but I'm not hopeful of this getting any development attention.

#5
Agreed. I wish text could easily be changed independently in the main and chapter menus. For some of my older viewers I want to keep the text as basic as possible. I often want to simply put Play All under or alongside the main menu button. And Click to play individual chapters on the chapter menu. And sometimes, when the icon is less than obvious (Popcorn is an example) I'd even like to add small text saying 'Click here to get the Chapter menu', or 'Click here to go back to the main menu'.

Number of templates
Have you tried copying the layout folders between MEP versions?

And can X6 also use MEP layouts?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry,

#5 Buttons

I took some time today to see how to change the buttons. They are simply bmp files. Using 2012_beach and Paint, I created the 3 Chapter buttons - beach_submenu, beach_submenu_alpha, and beach_submenu_highlight. The problem is getting the text on each button at exactly the same location. I am close.

I tried using Xara and saving a bmp but the highlight was way out. I tried using PhotoDesigner 7 and I was able to create the 3 buttons using the same image, just changing the text and rectangle colours and bold vs regular. I had the same problem with the highlight button, it came out larger and to the right for some reason. I will try again to see if I can resolve this, but the answer may be to just use Paint.

I wonder if anyone else has successfully done this.

DVD TEMPLATES - MEP2014 to X6

There is a file called masterlist.csv that contains all of the DVD templates used. The file in X6 contains all templates used including those in previous version. The only things missing were the files. Mountaineer is not in X6 and I just simply copied the folder over and it worked. Looking at the others, they all seem to be the same files as the older versions.

I looked at MEP17 and there are many that are not in X6, but they are 4:3 format. The interesting objects for me from these older products are the photos, masks and ogg files that I can possibly use in a different context.

Thanks John. I'll add 'MEP button customising' to my Experiments Needed list.

Despite my 203 templates, truth is I've not used the vast majority and am unlikely to do so. But they can give you inspiration for customising.

An earlier video editor I used years ago,TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6) had templates which were text-based, allowing easy construction of menus in 'list' form. Not very visually attractive but practical for many entries.

P.S: Did you see my breakthrough on using Pixelan ChromaWarp for 'masked fades'?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK