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Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0: DVD From the Timeline Tutorial series, Part 5 By Charlie White

In this tutorial, you?ll learn how to create DVDs right from Premiere Pro's timeline. If you want deep interactivity and plan to create complex DVD menus, you'll definitely want to go into Adobe Encore or another DVD authoring package to accomplish that. However, for a lot of editors, to be able to just get something off the DVD to a client, or create something simple using one of the included templates, everything you need is right here, without even leaving the timeline. It's surprisingly easy to use. Come along and I'll show you how it's done.

For this tutorial, create a simple four-clip sequence on the timeline. First, let?s just do a simple dub to DVD, where the DVD will have just a title page, or you can choose to have it autoplay with no menus at all.

Go to the Window menu, select  DVD Layout, and a template window will open. What you see here is the simplest of templates, where there's only a title and the Play Movie button.

If you would like for this to be the only menu, with the only command being Play Movie, you're almost done. Double-click on the title, and type in whatever you would like for your title to be. If you click the Preview DVD button, it will simulate what it will be like to play the DVD. Click on change template, and then you'll see a window that gives you either a choice to autoplay the DVD with no menus, or apply template for a DVD with menus.

Take a look at all the different themes from which to choose. There are 25 of them, and they are all professionally designed. Choose one to your liking, and then we can go ahead to the next step.

At this point, you can simply select Burn DVD, and you're presented with the final step of this process, which you will use no matter how simple or complex your DVD authoring needs. You're presented with the option of either printing directly to a DVD or creating a DVD image. Since this routine uses the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder, you're able to set your encoding settings just like you would in Adobe Encore DVD. It's about the most straightforward way to get your sequence onto a DVD in existence. 

Let's dig a little deeper into creating a slightly more elaborate DVD menu. To do this, we'll first need to go to the Premiere timeline and add markers for our DVD menus. If you want to create chapter points at specific places on the timeline, all you need to do is right click on the ruler part of the Premiere Pro timeline, and then select Set DVD Marker.

Wherever your cursor is parked on the timeline will be the point where a marker is placed, and subsequently a scene is placed on your DVD interface. An even easier way to put a marker at each scene is to select Auto Generate DVD markers in that same drop-down menu. You can choose to place a marker at each scene, at every designated number of minutes, or you can designate a certain number of markers. If you don't like what you've done, you can click Clear Existing DVD markers and start all over again. For this exercise, select At Each Scene, and click OK.

Then you'll see a series of DVD markers in the ruler area of the timeline, small shiny little gray orbs with blue arrows at the bottom, marking the beginning of each scene.

Double-click on each marker, and an edit menu will open, where you can name each marker. These titles will be the ones used for your chapter buttons. Type in a title, click Next, and then type your title for the next chapter. Continue doing that for all of the clips and then you'll have all of your chapters named and ready to go.  Click OK, and then go back up to the Window menu and select DVD layout.

Click on Scene Selection and you'll see that all of your scenes are there, just as you marked them on the timeline. If you want to change any of the titles of those scenes, double-click on one and the same dialog box will open that you saw when you were naming these clips on the timeline. Here, just as you could before, you can choose a motion menu, choose which frame will show as your poster frame on the DVD menu button, or any of the other parameters you'd like associate with that button. Click OK in the DVD Marker window, and then click Preview DVD, and you'll see a simulation of what your DVD will be like once you're done.

Even though this is a template, you can still modify it, using it as a jumping off point. If you go back to your DVD layout window and go to Premier?s Effect Controls, you're able to make a number of changes there.

Here in the Effect Controls window, you're able to change the font or anything else you'd like. You can also select Apply This to All Text Items, and you will affect a global change throughout the design.

There's more. If you'd like to make a motion background, in other words, if you'd like to have a movie playing in the background instead of a still, drag one of the clips you have in the project panel directly to the DVD layout, and you'll see that movie playing in the background when you preview the DVD.

This DVD From the Timeline function has been greatly improved and enhanced with Premiere Pro 2.0. It gives you a good amount of flexibility, and might just make it so that you don?t ever need to use any other more complex or time-consuming DVD authoring software. Of course, if you want to create a lot of menus and buttons, you?ll run out of gas with this tool from within Premiere Pro. But for authoring most quick DVD projects, it has just the right amount of power and flexibility.

Looking for the other parts of the Premiere Pro 2.0 Tutorial Series? Here they are:

Part 1:  Premiere Pro 2.0: Clip Notes, The Editor's Friend

Part 2:  Hot Shots with Premiere Pro 2.0: Multicam Editing

Part 3:  Living Color: Premiere Pro 2.0 Color Correction Made Simple

Part 4:  Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0: Three-Way Color Correction

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