Hi David. I am at a similar level as yourself using the same software (it is very frustrating to navigate) but I have recently conquered the menu prooblems you are having.

In Menu Design once you have set up your background, text, fonts, size, effects etc you save it as a template. When you go to create disc up the top is a tab "author" "preview". In author you can move your buttons around, edit text and move the text around. Here you also change the music (which loves to reset itself). If you make changes in the "author" mode and then go back into Menu Designer to make another change it will reset itself.
Make sure once you have made all these changes that you save it (clicking on the disc icon up the top) and your template should be set.


I have found the few help functions in Cyberlink are pretty poor and assume that we are all more advanced than perhaps we are.

Hope I haven't told you how to suck eggs. Good luck!

Hi David,

I agree. The DVD authoring is hopeless. I was hoping it would have improved in the latest version but sadly it hasn't. Not much good adding more features in if they don't work properly. See this post a bit further down with the problems I have experienced & suggestions.

http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4256.page

Cyberlink, are you listening?

I am writing to share your concerns, rather than offer any constructive advice. Like you I am very new to DVD editing but was quite pleased with my progress until I came to do the Menu creation. I stumbled my way through it but it was certainly the weakest part of my first movie. I would be happy to start off with a blank canvass and then add the text, buttons etc rather than starting with template, music and all. The advice you received has been useful to me. Hope you get on top of the problem. If I make any useful discoveries I will pass them on. Regards David B.

Further, when you are prompted to name and save your template, there is a sliding bar underneath where you name the template. I cannot ascertain what function it has. You can slide it left and right and there is no indication that anything is happening.

David Emerling

Maybe I'm "piling on", but I am so glad I found this topic in the forum... because that is exactly the type of frustration I have put up with the last several days.

PowerDirector is a wonderful video editing software, but DVD menu creation is hopelessly confusing and convoluted. Templates don't seem to work like I would expect them to. There are some things that you can only edit in a template -- not in the project itself. When you do that, you run the risk of having two templates named the exact same thing (it shouldn't even let you do that!) and many times your changes have reverted back ("My Video" and the canned music seems to reappear whether you want it to or not.)

The only hope is to edit a copy of the "template" to exactly what you need for the project. Then apply that template and finish the project. And hope that you never have to change a thing in the template or else you'll have to start all over again.

My concept of a template is that it should be a "beginning point for a project. But from that point on, anything that could have been assigned in the template can be customized for the project. That would include the selection of thumbnails and background pictures and videos and the number and position of buttons.

Quote: My concept of a template is that it should be a "beginning point for a project. But from that point on, anything that could have been assigned in the template can be customized for the project. That would include the selection of thumbnails and background pictures and videos and the number and position of buttons.

I'm wondering why there always must be a template?

Why not simply build a menu from scratch by creating whatever background you want ... creating the buttons, positioning them, and assigning their function ... slipping in a little music and burn the dang thing!?

Quote:
I'm wondering why there always must be a template?
Why not simply build a menu from scratch by creating whatever background you want ... creating the buttons, positioning them, and assigning their function ... slipping in a little music and burn the dang thing!?

Yep, that's pretty much my point.

I use PowerPoint a lot. When you create a PowerPoint presentation, you can choose a template which sets up basic stuff like fonts, background, style, stuff like that. Then you can change anything you want. If you want to apply a different template later, you certainly can. If you do, your formatting changes, but not your content.

Actually, every time you start a new presentation in PowerPoint, you start with a template whether you like it or not. It's just a very barebones template that basically defines a white background with a black font. That's the closest thing to starting from scratch.

And that's what I wish was in PD7.

Here's something I like to do with my videos that doesn't seem to be possible with PD7.

Let's say I have a video with only 4 chapter markings.

I would like to create a main menu with all 4 of those chapters selectable right from there!

In other words, I don't want to have to select a "Chapters" button just to get to another menu that has 4 selections. I want an all-in-one main page!

I have used other video editing programs in the past where I've made a main page that has many tiny thumbnails, each one representing a chapter.

PD7 is a great video editor ... EXCEPT for the menu creator.

I'm wondering how this could possibly have slipped by those who test these programs. I'm guessing they don't put much emphasis on menu creation as compared to video editing features, consequently, flaws like this get by.