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Menu background music in Create CD - PD13
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In Windows Movie Maker I created music files by linking together four or five short video clips, and then saving the projects as WMA files. I then set these files as the background music for the Root and Chapter menus in my PD project. However, rather than play the entire WMA file and then repeating it per my setting, only the beginning portion of each file is being played and repeated - basically the audio from the first video clip used when creating the music file. I tried converting all the files to MP3's, with the same problem. Why is PD13 doing this? Is there some secret place where I can change a setting to correct this problem? I see no obvious setting options when I'm choosing a file to use for the background music - it seems pretty straightforward, which makes this all the more frustrating - I want straightforward and uncomplicated! Thanks for any help....
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
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Hi Muriel13 -

The age old question! Thanks for the chuckle, by the way... putting simple & straightforward in the same paragraph as PDR's menus! laughing It doesn't work like that.

The root menu music duration can be set by clicking Playback Mode & setting menu time-out to 99 seconds - that's the maximum.

There is a way to do what you want, but it takes a tiny bit of prep work. Without it, PDR's Titles/Chapters pages will be stuck with repeating after about 15 seconds.


  1. Decide how long you want the music to run in the Titles/Chapters page - let's say 1 minute 30 seconds

  2. In PDR, import an image as a background for your menu

  3. Insert it and make the duration 00:01:30:00

  4. Produce that to video format - let's call it Menu_Back

  5. Open your project where you want to apply you compiled menu music

  6. Select a menu to modify - add your Menu_Back video as the background

  7. Apply that menu to your project

  8. Select your compiled music as the background music for the menu

  9. Click Preview - voila! Your menu music in Titles/Chapters runs for 1:30 (i.e. the duration of the background video


Note: it took me longer to write those instructions than it would to actually do it! Also, you could use any video as the background, so steps 2, 3 & 4 may not be necessary.

laughing Thank you Xerox! https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/17273.page#87523

Cheers - Tony

P.S. If you really want simple & straightforward, I'll send you over our PM. You can keep him.
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Tony,

Thanks for your response. I tried this and it worked - sort of. The problem was that in the video file that I made for use as my background, the image ended up skewed. I didn't have time to try to work that out, so instead I adjusted my project. However I saved your instructions and when I have more time (lol) I intend to try this again and figure out how to make it work.

~ Muriel
puzzled2 [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 26, 2016 20:43 Messages: 17 Offline
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Thank you, this is a great work around. It took a few tries but it worked. I also tried adding the music to the image before I produced it in video format. I thought that should work equally well but it timed out and restarted after 15 seconds. I still think it should have worked. I may have done something wrong when I modified the menu. But I am working fine. Thank you.
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