well i had first made a motion menu for dvd architect that lasted the full 1:37 sec of the audio track i chose. but it became clear that encore did not work the same way as dvd architect. so i remade a new motion menu it lasts 15 seconds at which time it should go to the static menu. it starts out by fading in. then several elements including the 3 text buttons animate in or fade in. i researched it quite a bit last night. and there are a few workarounds but none that made me happy. lol. so i found that the solution is to have the motion menu as a timeline and then have the end action link to the static menu. but there will be a 2 second black screen in between. not gonna cut it for me. and then there were other solutions which i cant recall just now but i did not like the sound of those either. encore would be great if not for this 1 flaw that seems like it should be standard in any authoring tool.video menus should be standard is all i am saying man. i dont know ash if you know how to get from here to there let me know because i really hate to reboot my machine right now. but dvda is looking like my best bet for achieving a descent animated menu. thanks for the response.