Possible To Delay Drop Zone 1 & 2 To Coordinate With Audio?

The audio and the video on my menu isn't timed the way I want, I want a slight delay in my first two drop zones so that it comes in with the best part of the song. How do I go about delaying those two drop zones in order to do that? Thanks a lot!

You can often mess with the songs.....if you drill down into iDVD and then again into the theme....
See this:
John Beatty1, "audio level control in menu screen" #2, 09:30pm Sep 8, 2005 CDT
and instead of changing the volume, you might be able to time-shift the song.....but it would have to start at new start point.
John B.

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Rotate drop zones?

Is it possible to rotate drop zones or text?
I have some title text that I want flipped vertical running up the left hand side of the menu page, just wondering if this is possible in DVDSP or will I have to make up the title elsewhere and bring it in as a jpg or psd or whatever?

Not in DVDSP - you'll need to construct the menu in Photoshop and bring it in as a TIFF or PICT file. BY this, I mean create the entire background and not just the vertical text (although you could also do that and use a drop zone to position it).
FWIW, keep away from using JPEGs in your menus as these don't always compress nicely when you build your disc. TIFF or PICT are better as they use 'lossless' compression and convert to MPEG2 much better, IMO.

Motion 5 / FCP X - Frustrating Drop Zones

I've been (trying) to use Drop Zones lately on a number of projects and while I've been able to kludge things here and there to get them to work properly, they sure have frustrated me. The projects I'm working on need snippets of properly timed video floating around the screen, usually within the opening sequence for the video. The trouble is I've never been able to really figure out the timing for these things.
1) Initially, the logical thought was (for me, at least) to set at least an in point for the video before dropping it into the Drop Zone in FCP X. That certainly didn't work because it appeared as though FCP X totally ignored my clip's in point. I wanted that clip video to start exactly at the beginning of that drop zone.
2) Since that didn't work I did some Internet research and someone posted that Drop Zones ignore clip in points. They said that when selecting the clip for the drop zone to place the cursor on the exact frame where you want the video to start before applying it to the Drop Zone. Well, that works to an extent.
Here's what I found after doing some experimentation in both Motion 5 and FCP X (latest versions of each). First, I created a video with timecode in it so that I could accurately track where the video really started on the first frame of the individual Drop Zone. The video starts with 10 seconds of color bars followed by 5 minutes of burned in timecode, then another 10 seconds of color bars. I created a simple Motion Generator with four Drop Zones - upper left, upper right, lower left and lower right. Each Drop Zone was placed exactly 10 seconds apart. So, for example:
For the first test I placed each Drop Zone within one Group in Motion. Drop Zones start at the following timecode for each location as follows:
UL: 00:00:00:00
LL: 00:00:10:00
UR: 00:00:20:00
LR: 00:00:30:00
After publishing the project, I loaded it into FCP X. I used the same timecode video for each Drop Zone starting it at timecode value 00:01:00:00. Now, one would think that each drop zone window, having been placed exactly 10 seconds apart, would show timecode values for the inserted videos also each 10 seconds apart. But they don't! All four Drop Zones show exactly the same timecode value. They are acting as if all four were placed within the Motion 5 timeline starting at 00:00:00:00. But they weren't.
So, I thought, what would happen if I placed each Drop Zone in Motion in a separate Group? I created four Groups, each one holding only one Drop Zone. It didn't make a difference. The timecode videos in each window were still in sync with one another.
The only way I can get this to work properly is to offset the beginning of each clip by -10 seconds. Unfortunately, if there's not enough "preroll" in the clip to do that, I'm out of luck.
But it gets stranger! Further experimentation leads me to believe that all of the Drop Zones within a project reference themselves to the very first Drop Zone within the project. I picked a new point within the timecode video - in this case, the 2 minute point (00:02:00:00) and dropped it into the UL drop zone. I did the same then for the other three and now they all track based on that 00:02:00:00 point within the video!
But it gets even stranger!!! I tried one more experiment, this time loading the Drop Zones in reverse order. That seemed to work. But still, why should I have to mess around like this trying to sync drop zones in some of weird order?
The question is, why do Drop Zones work this way and what can be done to fix this problem? However I select the first frame of video for a particular drop zone should be what that drop zone references when rendering. Ideally it would be great to be able to use an in point on the clip, but I'm also happy with just moving the clip's cursor to the first frame. It's easy enough to do. Hopefully the software team working on these apps can come up with a solution that makes sense. Thanks.
John

I've had this too and the fix then was to delete my project render files (FCP that is).
Russ

Video in drop zone breaking menu transition...

this seemed simple.
i have a drop zone on my main menu with a quicktime in it. no interactivity. also on the main menu is a text button. that button triggers a custom transition/wipe that i built in motion. eveything worked fine, until i placed the drop zone with the quicktime: what happens is that when the menu button is selected, the drop zone clip jumps to a different point, then applies the transition and goes to the track. but that's not all. when going back to the menu, the drop zone clip will go to somewhere in the middle of that clip, then go to the head...
the menu length is set to the length of the qt in the drop zone.
if i delete the drop zone, the trans works fine.
any ideas?

Hi:
The transition in your final disc will be a MPEG-2 video file, it will not be created on the fly while playing. That means that DVDSP will use a frame from your menu as starting point to create the transition "to the movie" video file and another one to create the "from the movie" transition. The same happens when you use a movie as background in your menu.
I don't know what rule uses DVDSP to select what frame to choose to build the transition, but you cannot expect that your transition will start in the frame that you are seeing in any moment. Do you know what I mean?
Alberto

Travel Theme Drop Zones

I burned a dvd with the travel theme main menu, and had about 5 or 6 drop zones. Filled these in with pictures (2 were background pictures), looked great. Just one month later, and no change in software, I am now creating another dvd, but this same travel theme now only has one drop zone. A lot less motion as well. I know I didn't make up the previous theme. I can play it back on my DVD. Any ideas how I get to the longer, more-drop-zone Travel theme menu? Thank you!
Message was edited by: Ken Hainsworth

Thanks for the reply. I wish I could show the larger drop-zone travel main menu to everyone. About 4 photos go by, with the red dotted lines swirling around, and then a stamp comes down to ink a passport stamp next to the final photo. This is bizarre: I have no idea why I can't find it just a month or two later. Does everyone else have a 1 drop-zone travel main menu?

Scripting video in drop zones? possible? necessary?

is it possible to have different video play in a drop zone when a viewer returns to the menu. is this something that can be scripted? Or do i have to create a separate menu for each diferent piece of video in the drop zone and assigne that menu as the return point for the next menu with a different video in the drop zone at the time of returning from the end of a chapter? what do you think?
-trevor

You can target loop point from the track and the drop zone will be the same length in - in other words lets say the drop zone is a 30 second clip and you set the loop point in the menu to 20 seconds into the menu if you target the loop point via a script as a return the drop zone will play from 20 seconds on (as will the rest of the menu)
But it is really not very elegent nor does it sound like what you want - each drop zone will have to be timed
The script is
Jump Menu :: (Loop) //loop is a checkbox option in the inspector

Drop Zone Delay?

I've made my DVD menu in FCP and have added a video transition attached to the front (so I can have the sound). The problem I have now is this, is there a way to delay a Drop Zone so that it doesn't pop up during my transition? Right now my transitions are about 5 seconds, and the drop zone appears in the middle of the transition. Or will I need to create them in Motion?

You'll definitely need to create them in Motion or any other compositing app, I'm afraid. A drop zone is simply a specific space on a menu for you to add other content. You can't delay the arrival of that zone into the playback - so you'll have to build it elsewhere and bring it in to DVDSP as an asset.

Not able to Render more than two asset type in a drop zone on page

Hi All,
I have created two different assets by making two different flex family.
I need to render these two assets in a single drop zone on a page.
Can some one tell me how is it possible to make a drop zone on page which will be able to take two different type of assets because while creating Page attribute when i select page attribute of type asset there is no option through which i can select more than two asset types.
Thanks & regards,
Ankur Bhatia

Hi Rodney,
Thanks for ur Reply.
While creating page attribute on admin site,when we select attribute type as "asset" a dropdown list comes just below through which we can select only a single asset.
how to use a list option here or how can we create it so that it can be used with various asset types.
Also in avisports site there is no drop zone which can contain more than one asset of different type.
The Drop zone contains here all the assets of same type.
Thanks and Regards
Ankur Bhatia

Editing a picture to fit into theme drop zone

I have cropped a picture in iphoto to remove a damaged portion and to reposition the important part of the picture to show in the Memories theme in idvd but the original photo keeps appearing.
I have several questions.
Can I move a picture in the drop zone in a theme like Memories that is horizontal to better show the important part of the picture rather than the midpoint?
Why does my original photo and not the cropped photo appear in the drop zone even when the picture I see shows the cropped picture?

This is where DVDSP out performs iDvd. There is much more latitude (literally) within apple's pro apps for exactly this type of work. It is possible within iDvd also (to a marginal extent). But there's only so much i-apps will offer when compared to apple's pro apps. Hence the need for a graphics editing app (ie, PhotoShop).
It actually becomes a bit frustrating without the additional features / tools to do the work that's needed to customize your iDvd in this respect. It's almost as if one is at the mercy of the software along with it's built in limitations. It is a shortfall IMO, even though it is intended as a consumer app.

Drop Zone with Audio

Is it possible to create a video Drop Zone for a template in FCP that plays with audio. I am doing a 16_9 Background with 4_3 Drop Zone, but when I use it in FCP and drop the video it plays without audio. Am I missing some preference or is it just not possible to create this?
Thanks

That's a real shame: having to edit the audio separately beat the convenience of the drop zones in templates.
Thanks Andy.
Enrique

Drop zone video playing too fast

I am building a Motion title sequence with a drop zone for video. I placed it into FCPx as a connected clip (purple timeline box), and associated the video under it to the drop zone. It all works except the video dropped in plays super fast, far out of sync with the audio below. Not sure why.
My FCPX timline, source footage and motion file are all the same frame rate, 23.98. Any ideas?

Where can you place a marker en set the project loop end. Because can place a marker and then go to edith marker. But i see no list as above?
1. Deselect any objects in the Timeline. Select Mark/Markers/Add Marker. If that menu item is not available, make sure there are not layers selected in the Layers window.
2. A timeline marker will be created at the playhead. When the playhead is on that marker, the Edit Marker menu item will become available.
3. Select Mark/Markers/Edit Marker. This brings up the dialogue where you can Name, Comment and select the marker type. Choose Project End Loop from the Type menu, then click OK.
4. Drag the Marker to the end of the timeline.
Adrie, I have not encountered your problem with freezing drop zones. In the past I have had many drop zones playing simultaneously, so it should work. If you suspect that you have a bad install, you should probably reinstall it before troubleshooting any further to eliminate that possibility. I am running a fresh install of 5 on a system that has never had 4 on it.
Where did you find that tutorial? do you have a link.
Ripple Training - Motion 5 - Rigging and Publishing

Template Drop Zone

Let's say your adding data to a template. The template has two drop zones (square box with arrow).
You have added the text in the appropriate text fields but you do not want to add any content (photo/video/whatever) to the drop zones.
*However, the drop zones remain in the template which of course you do not want to see in the final canvas.*
How (if possible) can you eliminate the drop zones entirely from the template. Can it be done in FCP (control/filter/motion tabs) or do you need to round trip the template to Motion and back for you to eliminate the drop zone boxes from your template?
Thanks
Dan

Tom
I was meaning templates found in the 'Effects' tab in the FCP browser.
At any rate, I know what you mean about removing them in Motion, Tom.
As a side note : I just dragged some freeze frames into the drop zones. I figured: why not?
Sometimes you just want a totally minimalist look. And I love deleting things to get to that level.
My living space looks that way. Spare, clean, cold, white. A major turn off for many.
Anyway, I like my video projects to look the same way.
.....but I digress.
Dan

Quality Issues with Drop Zones - Newbie ALERT!

Hello!
First post for me here...
Just started working with Final Cut Studio 5.1 and I have some issues that I have been running into. In DVD Studio, I am grabbing a menu template (Panes Blue) and I am creating a simple text animation in Motion (720x480) NTSC and saving the Motion file then importing the Motion file into DVD studio and setting up the drop zone asset to my motion file. When I preview, the text quality is very poor! At first I thought it was just the preview, but it still looks horrible on the TV when I burn.
How do I get the best quality when creating an animation in Motion that I would like to use in a DVD studio Drop Zone?
Please let me know if you need further info!
Jason

here's the issue:
DVDSP doesn't encode progressive scan. it doesn't matter what your encode settings are. I've done extensive testing on this issue. here's what happens:
I made an element that fits perfectly into a specified drop zone. the menu Background image or movie is rendered progressive scan (not interlaced). I drop the element into the drop zone and hit Simulate. Since the Drop zone and it's element need to be encoded to Mpeg2 in order to play properly, DVDSP interlaces it to make it work. Result: bad image compression and the drop zone area is badly interlaced while the rest of the image isn't.
This was something that frustrated me for weeks while i was trying to find a solution. As far as I know there is only one solution; Since DVDSP uses Compressor to encode files on build, there must be a way of intercepting the process and changing the settings that DVDSP uses to encode it's files. There is no preference for this and since the encoding takes place in the background, there is no way of changing this without getting a programmer to figure out how to do it, and even then, i don't know if it's possible. If someone can figure out how do do this, there'll be a lot of Happy people wanting it.

Changing Drop Zone Template

I am using DVD Studio Pro 4.0.3 and I'm relatively new to it. I am working on a project and realize that since I do not have motion yet, I cannot edit templates. I am trying to use the template "Wedding" and having some trouble. I like how it looks (i need the project to look professional) but when I drag my content to the three drop zones that are on the cover page, I get run into a problem. I need the three items to be in color and the left and right items are not. When I change the style of the drop zone I get a color image, but now when the template starts the animation, it is in front of the line that draws across the page in the first 6 seconds.
I see there are two solutions to this but I do not know how to do it and I have tried to find out on the discussion boards here.
Solution 1: I find a way to change the inherent properties of the imagine from black&white to color.
Solution 2: I change the beginning of the slide to take out the line drawing across and instead use the wedding template slide transition from the QuickTime movie that is set to "first play".
There are other possible solutions but the first one I have layed out would be the best. If anyone could please help me I would be able to get this project finally over. Thank you.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6) DVD Studio Pro 4.0.3 Academic

Brian,
The carousel one as featured here?
http://idustrialrevolution.com/component/option,com_sobi2/sobi2Task,sobi2Details /catid,2/sobi2Id,15/
Or is the the other slightly diferent one? The Moments1 template has been released as you can see from the above & got a good testing/bashing, so I know it works!!
Its a bit late here, so give me a few hours on Monday & I will test the Moments2 if you say its that one.
Peter
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Dropping Video into a drop zone...

Is it possible to put video in a drop zone without losing any qaultiy? I have video clips that I insert into drop zones that are over 1GB, but once inserted, the file size of my project only says 256MB. I would like that video clip to be uncompressed for best quality.

If your working in DVD SP, all video assets are converted to Mpeg2, if not before bringing it into DVD SP, then during the build by compressor 2.
If your exporting out of FCP, using QT conversion, STOP! You should be using "QuickTime Movie" as your export, (first option in FCP 5 export.) You should also, to save time, uncheck the self contained movie option, this creates a reference movie that compressor can use and take a fraction of the time to export.
Using QuickTime conversion just adds a whole new layer of compression to your video, using the QT Movie export doesn't and references the source footage, (no loss of video quality. This file is then used by Compressor 2 to create the Mpeg 2 file for DVD SP.
PS: don't remove any of the FCP render or source files, till Compressor is finished creating the Mpeg 2 file. The Mpeg2 file that is created, doesn't need any of the source footage to work in DVD SP, (like the FCP footage and reference movie does.)
Using Compressor as a stand alone App, gives you far better control over the quality of the video asset, than letting DVD SP automatically use Compressor during the build, plus it save time during the build, due to the fact that all assets are already in Mpeg2 format.

Possible To Delay Drop Zone 1 & 2 To Coordinate With Audio?

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