Apple DVD Studio Pro 4 - Manual (Page 244)

For best quality, be sure your graphic:
• Matches the menu’s resolution and aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9): If you are creating 16:9 menus
in SD projects, or with the 720 x 480p, 720 x 576p, or 1440 x 1080i HD resolutions in
HD projects, be sure the graphic is anamorphic. See
Creating Graphics to Use in Menus
and Choosing an Aspect Ratio for details.
• Conforms to the broadcast video color space: Graphics that look stunning in your graphics
program can look very different when viewed on DVD. Most graphics applications let
you scale colors to NTSC or PAL color space.
DVD Studio Pro automatically scales the size of the background graphic to fit the frame
size if necessary. This can result in the menu’s background color being visible along some
edges.
Note: The color of an empty menu’s background can be set in the Menu pane of
DVD Studio Pro Preferences. By default this color is set to dark gray.
Video Clips for Backgrounds
Assigning a video clip as a menu’s background creates a motion menu. The video can be
an animation or live action. Often the video is actually a still background with several
small moving images representing scenes you can jump to. See
Creating Video for Motion
Menus for more information on creating the video.
You can choose what happens when a menu’s video clip reaches its end:
• It can simply stop, displaying a still image of the last frame.
• It can loop, jumping from the end back to a point in the video clip that you choose.
It is common for a menu’s video clip to have a relatively complicated
introduction—perhaps with the buttons flying in and a piece of dialogue providing the
audio—and then resolve into a mostly still graphic, with lights flickering or objects moving
in a repetitive way. This kind of design makes it easier to create a loop that jumps from
the end back to the loop point as smoothly as possible.
See Configuring Motion Menu Settings for more information on setting looping options.
Assigning a Background to a Menu
There are several ways to assign a background to a menu. Use the method that you feel
most comfortable with. In all cases, these methods also replace an existing background.
Assigning a Menu Background Using the Inspector
You can assign a menu background using the Inspector. With this method, you can only
choose from assets already imported into DVD Studio Pro.
To assign a menu background using the Inspector
1 Select the menu and make sure the Menu Inspector displays the menu properties.
244 Chapter 13 Creating Menus Using the Standard Method