How to Add DVD Chapters and Menus?

In order to produce DVD copies of your completed digital video project files, it's necessary to prepare the edited sequences in a number of ways. During the process of capturing your clips from digital tape, your Windows PC or Apple Mac computer will have placed the clips into what's called a "wrapper format", in the case of Windows this will result in an AVI file, whereas on a Mac it will be a MOV (basically QuickTime). Although they are stored in this format during the editing process, they will need to be converted to another format compatible with DVD players before starting the process known as "burning" the disk. Before that, however, you first need to split the contents of the timeline up into Chapters.

A chapter mark identifies the point at which the player will arrive when you press the Next button on the DVD remote control, or when you ask to display the menu on the screen. Each discrete segment of the disk is called a chapter, so this needs to be defined first.

Some programs, such as Pinnacle Studio and Apple iMovie, make this process very easy. Other more sophisticated applications, such as Adobe Premiere Elements, also have built-in menu templates that make it very easy for you to choose the design and layout that best represents your subject matter (such as "Our Vacation," "Wedding," "New Baby," and so on) and then modify it to your own requirements. It's a good idea to experiment with the templates that are provided with all the main entry level packages as a way of discovering for yourself what the possibilities are. Having done so, you'll then learn how they can be modified to your specific requirements and it's also possible that you'll soon be creating your own from scratch.

The creation of the markers that identify the beginning of a new chapter on the project timeline is as simple as clicking a menu option and setting the point according to either a time code reference or the position of the timeline cursor or scrubber. In general, the setting of a chapter marker will result in a new menu item being created that, in turn, might also produce a thumbnail image that can be selected by the user when wishing to jump to a particular sequence on the DVD playback. Some programs, such as Pinnacle Studio, are able to produce what's called a "motion menu thumbnail," in which the thumbnail itself comprises a short, cyclical video clip. Give careful consideration to how you name your markers because it's this that will appear on the screen and long names won't always fit with your chosen design, they could even be truncated. Create short, simple names that identify what's in the sequence, and try not to create a large number of markers or you'll produce too many menu pages for your intended users to get through.

Several of the consumer level editing and DVD authoring packages now offer an instant means of creating a DVD from your edited sequences, and these are ideal if you're concerned about getting it right the first time. Basically, such programs will enable you to connect your DV or Digitals camcorder to your computer via FireWire, after which the program will then rewind the tape, import your video footage and burn it direct to DVD. Chapter marks are usually generated at regular intervals, such as every five minutes.