choosing / trimming video for motion thumbnails in Menu Designer ? Is this possible?

rcohen

Member Location: Smokey mountains, TN Joined: Oct 10, 2013 21:44 Messages: 58 Offline

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Apr 19, 2015 10:47

I'm just now gearing up to learn how to create menus for DVD's in PD12, and I'm having a bit of a hard time.

I have a number of short videos in this project and all of them have the same intro segment. And so, since the video thumbnails all start from frame zero, all thumbnails are identical making the idea pretty worthless.

Is there a way to select (or trim) the PART of the video that you wish to play in this thumbnail ?

Thanks a bunch

rcohen RCMedia Services dot net
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tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Apr 19, 2015 11:54

If your project is on the timline, then manually select your chapters and then you can choose the frame that you want to display in any menu for any chapter that you create.

Let us know if this helps.

rcohen

Member Location: Smokey mountains, TN Joined: Oct 10, 2013 21:44 Messages: 58 Offline

Apr 19, 2015 12:01

Hi Tom,

I indeed tried that, but for some reason this did not change the live video on the thumbnail. From the edit chapters menu, the different still frame DOES show. As soon as I navigate back to Create Disc / Content tab, frame #1 is still there.... That is the problem I'm seeking help for.

Thanks again for your replies...

rcohen RCMedia Services dot net
Most Anything Digital

rcohen

Member Location: Smokey mountains, TN Joined: Oct 10, 2013 21:44 Messages: 58 Offline

Apr 19, 2015 12:10

It dawned on me that perhaps you are talking about chapter thumbnails on the individual videos. I am actually taking about the video thumbnails themselves (one per video) on the Scenes panel. The thumbnails for the chapters work fine.

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tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Apr 19, 2015 14:07

If you are importing produced videoes in the create disc module then the first frame of the video will be used for the thumbnail. You have no chapters in produced videoes. Your workflow is different from mine.

Try this:

1. Don't import videos instead import projects which will have at least 1 chapter.

2. On each of the above individual projects, select the frame to be displayed for chapter 1 and save it.

3. Import those extra projects that you already performed step 2 above.

I find that if you try the above again after you saved the project then it absolutely won't work because the project is cached. Start a new project and choose a different name if you want it to work.

Let us know if any of this make sense to you or helps...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Apr 19. 2015 14:11

rcohen

Member Location: Smokey mountains, TN Joined: Oct 10, 2013 21:44 Messages: 58 Offline

Apr 19, 2015 17:41

Hi Tom,

I discovered something that makes the entire desire to produce menus in PD moot. No matter what I do regarding hardware acceleration, the video in my menu'd DVD looks like JUNK. The compression artifacts are NASTY and utterly unusable. I have searched for answers and both ON this forum and other locations, I am finding a LOT of folks have the SAME problem.

And so I mark this up to another thing that Cyberlink doesn't want to fix (I found folks way back in V9 that complained about this, all the way to 13). <sigh>.

Thanks for your time Tom. I will stick to YouTube projects with PD as I find this is the only thing I can do well with PD. Meanwhile, I'm starting to save my pennies to afford a more professional option.

I appreciate your time sir! Oh, and also your Menu Themes.... I downloaded some of them in the process of learning PD's menu system.

Cheers

rcohen RCMedia Services dot net
Most Anything Digital