... and that raises another question about downloading menus from DirectorZone: You don't really know what you're getting because you don't have any idea what that background image has been through before it gets to DZ.

Do you often talk to yourself?

What are you going on about? We're having a perfectly sensible conversation.

Cheers - Tony
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<p>I think it's the age, mate. Don't worry about it!</p> Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

In my opinion, I don't think any of this really matters or that it is relevant to most users. It wasn't until PD9 later in the year that a patch issued allowed a 1920x1080 image to be used as a background. See the release notes. After that patch, a high res image can be used. This would explain to me why the menus created by menu designers uploaded to the DZ are low res prior to late 2011. Recalled that a photo of people was not allowed on a menu to be uploaded to the DZ at one time. No amimation or video is allowed but they get through. This would explain why images are places, things, or abstract drawing are usually on the background on older menus. Below is a sampling of 4 and 5 stars menus, most downloaded, most favorited, most commented and those with video or animation or picture of people's faces found in DirectorZone.

Menu name, background image resolution, upload date:

glow-new (cyberlink)........ 960x540 2008/04/24

Green Vacation (cyberlink) 960x540 2008/05/27

Album 2...........................960x540 2008/08/23

cinema............................960x540 2009/12/13

Movie Night Menu 2..........960x540 2010/02/03

Vorhang 41 menue...........960x540 2010/10/31

Book 578 menue..............960x540 2011/07/09

Vampire Diaries................600x450 2011/12/01 (great animation)

Back in Time..................1280x720 2011/01/01 (mp4)

Fractal 4148.................1920x1080 2012/05/17

new create...................1920x1080 2015/02/03 (faces)

It looks like higher resolution backround are allowed only on later versions of menu designer. These menus above are among the best rated by users in the DZ. The low res backgrounds looks great to me. Text is always sharp. Maybe there are no complainers because a good sofware or standalone BD player can upscale to near HD quality. Remember the ads for the competing software players and reviews years ago for upscaling DVD video to near HD. None of the images are blurred or fuzzy to me.

Some of the menus listed above works great in older versions of PD but can be easily fixed to work with PD13. The background image can also be replaced if desired. Hope all get the menu they want by d/l, creating, or modifying...

P.S. The menus used in a PD competitor have abstract type backgrounds that scales just fine and I always substitute a different image anyway (personal use).

YNOTFISH - Now you get my conundrum and have seen the light.

"Junk in, junk out": A term used in Hollywood and the graphics world to describe the problem of how a low res image cannot be upscaled to a high res image without becoming badly pixelated, no matter how we may try to write software that fumbles with trying to make it work ("interpolation"). There is no magical process that can do this to any professionally acceptable degree.

Bottom Line: The majority of the menus downloadable on DZ are useless (certainly all of the "4:3" ratio menus), and DZ has no way of telling you the resolution of the original background image, which means it's a gamble (at best) if you're wasting your time or not. This is a HUGE letdown to pretty much everyone since everything went HD a long time ago but the menus got left behind. The only solution is to spend the time to create your own menus, and if you're not lifting images from someone else and/or not a graphic artist yourself, you're pretty much limited to extremely basic menus. Quality-wise, this whole situation is basically a disaster for the casual user who is unwittingly expecting a quality "HD" output result from a "16:9" menu download.

Yes - and that's exactly why it's best to make your own!

From the other thread it sounds like that's not such an appealing option... but it is something you can absolutely trust!

Once you've made one, you can just modify that for different projects (saves a bit of re-formatting time).

Cheers - Tony
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