Using showcase with videos

Showcasing a video

Watch this menu on YouTube.

The -showcase option for todisc can put any video you like in a DVD's main menu, front-and-center. Other things you can showcase: images and nothing.

This article fully describes the process and command that created this DVD menu. At the same time, animated chapter submenus were created since they cannot be made separately (it's all or nothing with todisc). However they deserve their own treatment. So, this article addresses the main menu, and another article addresses the submenus.

Generating command

The generating command in its entirety is:

$ todisc -files amateur.mpg caliendo.mpg monkey.mpg poppin.mpg 
  -titles "Amateur" "Frank\nCaliendo" "Code\nMonkey" "Korean\nBreakers" 
  -menu-title "A Few Great YouTube Videos" -menu-font SudburyBasin3D 
  -menu-fontsize 31 -title-color '#0010c3' -stroke-color '#90b3ff' 
  -thumb-font SudburyBasin3D -thumb-fontsize 24 -thumb-text-color '#0010c3' 
  -bgaudio poppin.wav -showcase poppin.mpg -showcase-seek 0 
  -ani-submenus -submenu-titles "Amateur by Lasse Gjertsen" 
  "Frank Caliendo on Letterman" "Code Monkey music video" 
  "Poppin in the streets of Korea" -submenu-title-color '#0010c3' 
  -submenu-stroke-color '#90b3ff' -submenu-audio batida-urbana.mp3 
  -out GreatYouTubeVideos

But this article only describes this portion:

$ todisc -files amateur.mpg caliendo.mpg monkey.mpg poppin.mpg 
  -titles "Amateur" "Frank\nCaliendo" "Code\nMonkey" "Korean\nBreakers" 
  -menu-title "A Few Great YouTube Videos" -menu-font SudburyBasin3D 
  -menu-fontsize 31 -title-color '#0010c3' -stroke-color '#90b3ff' 
  -thumb-font SudburyBasin3D -thumb-fontsize 24 -thumb-text-color '#0010c3' 
  -bgaudio poppin.wav -showcase poppin.mpg -showcase-seek 0 

Basics

In addition to the basic options todisc has, it also offers special options unique to -showcase. Using these options gives you a lot more power over the look and feel of your DVD menus. See for yourself what these standard and special options can do:

Comparing -showcase styles

Simplest possible	This example
Well, it's ok. (I guess...)	oooh! Pretty!

Main menu

All together, the options that controlled the main menu's look were:

$ todisc -files amateur.mpg caliendo.mpg monkey.mpg poppin.mpg 
  -titles "Amateur" "Frank\nCaliendo" "Code\nMonkey" "Korean\nBreakers" 
  -menu-title "A Few Great YouTube Videos" -menu-font SudburyBasin3D 
  -menu-fontsize 31 -title-color '#0010c3' -stroke-color '#90b3ff' 
  -thumb-font SudburyBasin3D -thumb-fontsize 24 -thumb-text-color '#0010c3' 
  -bgaudio poppin.wav -showcase poppin.mpg -showcase-seek 0 

Breaking this down, the commands look like:

Background

Tell todisc to use a background audio track for the main menu. The audio file was taken from an existing video (the Korean breakers music video).

-bgaudio poppin.wav

Large, bottom title

Set the title.

-menu-title "A Few Great YouTube Videos"

Set the font and its properties.

-menu-font SudburyBasin3D -menu-fontsize 31 -title-color '#0010c3' -stroke-color '#90b3ff'

Thumbnails

Tell todisc which files to use on the DVD. These are the source videos for the thumbnails as well. These files do not have to be DVD compliant beforehand. If todisc sees that they aren't, it will ask you if you'd like to encode them.

-files amateur.mpg caliendo.mpg monkey.mpg poppin.mpg

Set the name for each thumbnail. Notice these are given in the same order as -files and notice the newline characters '\n'.

-titles "Amateur" "Frank\nCaliendo" "Code\nMonkey" "Korean\nBreakers"

Set the thumbnail title font and its properties.

-thumb-font SudburyBasin3D -thumb-fontsize 24 -thumb-text-color '#0010c3'

Showcase video

Tell todisc to showcase a video. The video was an existing video (the Korean breakers video).

-showcase poppin.mpg

Tell todisc to start the video from the beginning. This will make the background audio match the video. NOTE: If you want to use the audio track from your showcase video, you don't have to supply it explicitly like it was done here. Just give -showcase VIDEO and leave -bgaudio AUDIO out; todisc will ask you if you'd like to use the showcase video's audio in the background.

-showcase-seek 0

Submenus

The command that made this main menu also made animated chapter submenus, but that description is outside the scope of this article. Jump to read about the submenu process.