DVD Studio Pro 3 allows unprecedented access to the world of DVD creation. Here are eight great ways to make that access more efficient and user friendly. You can get more details on all of these tips in DVD Studio Pro 3: In the Studio.
Creating a new Style is fairly straightforward. You pretty much just start designing a new menu and then "save off" a piece as a style. As a quick example, take a look at Figure 1. We have a simple menu with a button defined on it. The button has a particular font and highlight shape. We can make that a Style by using the context menu (Ctrl-click on the button as shown in the figure). Select the Create Button Style option, and off you go!
Figure 1
To create a new button from a Button Style, just drag the style onto your menu and drop it there. This makes it a breeze to produce consistent buttons. Figure 2 shows a drop in progress.
Figure 2
Photoshop uses function-like folders for layers. You can use them in Photoshop for organizing complex images. They are absolutely vital in the process of building your DVD layered menus. When you're done making your menu, though, you should flatten your sets and scale the image before bringing it into DVDSP. Sets don't harm anything, but they aren't useful as such in DVDSP. (If you leave sets in a layered document and import that document into DVDSP, the sets show up as empty, unnamed layers.) Figure 3 shows our "raw" version of the Photoshop document with all the buttons in their sets. Figure 4 shows the "flat" version scaled to the proper dimensions for use in the project.
Figure 3
Figure 4
The toolbar is customizable and lets you keep your favorite actions close by. You can configure the toolbar by Ctrl-clicking anywhere along it and selecting Customize Toolbar from the pop-up menu (see Figure 5).
Figure 5
You'll get a customizer dialog with the myriad possibilities for your toolbar. You can drag items to and from the toolbar to suit your needs. Pull out the things you rarely touch, and add in the tasks more common to your projects.
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DVDSP 3 brought back a fantastic way of visualizing your entire project. (Something similar existed in 1.x, but it wasn't available in 2.x.) The Graphical view can visually represent the content and connections in your project. Plus, as you can see in Figure 6, you can actually work right in this view. You can add and delete items as well as manipulate properties like setting the First Play title.
Figure 6
Try to get in the habit of maintaining this view. It's a great way to show other people (like your clients or your boss or your kids) what's going on behind the scenes of complex projects.
DVD Studio Pro includes a separate, stand-alone audio encoding/decoding application called A.Pack. A.Pack can encode PCM audio streams (both AIFF and WAV) into Dolby Digital, previously know as AC-3. You can have up to five regular audio channels and a low-frequency effects channel, commonly know as 5.1: left, center, right, surround left, surround right, and subwoofer. You can encode simple stereo and mono tracks as well. These streams take up much less space on your DVD than the original AIFF streams do. Just get in the habit of always converting your audio. It's also important to mention that A.Pack is an encoder, not an editor. For example, if you want to pan a sound from the left speaker to the right, you need to do that in your editing program, such as Final Cut Pro or Soundtrack. A.Pack just wants to see a completed channel, ready for encoding. Your should use your editing software to export each speaker as one track. (Of course, if your editing software is fancy enough, you can just use it to export in AC-3 format directly!)
It's easy. It's fun. It'll save your sanity. To make things easier on us later, we'll want to name the scripts and their GPRM entries something useful. We chose Menu Lead-in and set that in the Property Inspector for the script, as you can see in Figure 7. (You may need to select your script from the Outline tab to get it to appear in the Inspector.) And there aren't that many GPRMs, so go ahead and name them too. It really does make debugging and maintaining your scripts much easier.
Figure 7
Here's another quick script tip. Use the Info pane in the Simulator while you're navigating heavily scripted menus. You launch this pane by clicking the "i" button in the Simulator. You should end up with a screen similar to the one in Figure 8.
Figure 8
You can track each of your variables in real time and watch when and how they change. This can be a huge help when you experience quirks in your disc. If scripted jumps work some but not all of the time, this is where you need to go to do your research.
One last parting tip. This is more for your clients and audience than for you, but it's good to keep in mind. You can set the jump targets for the buttons on your DVD player remote control. Don't be afraid to do this when it makes sense! For example, say you have a corporate video of a question-and-answer session. On the DVD, you might make a chapter (and menu entry) for each question. Don't just leave the Menu button on the remote control pointed at the first menu of the disc. Set it to jump back to the chapter menu from which the user launched the single question clip. It'll feel more natural to the user and takes almost no time. Figure 9 shows the Track Inspector and highlights where you make the change.
Figure 9
One thing to remember: you don't have to jump to a particular menu or track. Your jump target can be a smart script that decides where to go based on the current settings of variables and such.
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