So I've spent a lot of time designing menus for my custom discs that you can find on sites that rhyme with Finemageddon, Dinematik, Faragarga, and DryPeen. Not that I've successfully designed them, I've just spent a lot of time doing it. I've tried sort of middle-of-the-road software because I need more than just a basic menu, but I don't care if it's a motion menu. I've mostly used TMPGENC DVD Authoring 4 and DVDStyler. They both have benefits but while I'd prefer to use TMPGENC because it compiles functional DVDs, it's also limited with the number of audio tracks (2), button use flexibility (it predetermines what the buttons will do), the inability to specify which audio track chapter selection correspond to (annoying for someone who often adds full soundtrack options), and a very fixed design and hierarchy of the discs.
DVDStyler is much more open in your choices, but it's extraordinarily buggy, including a major problem where it won't spit out a functioning DVD that has chapters, unless you want to reduce the quality of the video by running it through another transcode. Recently, I've also discovered that when you do finally get a functioning disc (and it won't work on every DVD player), the button and background images within the menu pulse on screen as if they were supposed to be in motion or trying to focus their eyes. It's very difficult to look at. The designer of the software is aware of these problems, as most people with the patience to use DVDStyler have experienced them, but each new version of the software fixes small issues or adds a trivial feature (rotating buttons!).
And after finally giving up (for the third or fourth time) on DVDStyler, I figured I'd better finally learn DVD Lab Pro. It's certainly fancier but mostly intuitive. However, certain things make me grind my teeth and want to throw the keyboard, and this is coming from someone who is very good at internalizing rage and not exposing it to the world. I spent an hour trying to add a button on a menu page and all I got was a number (1) that was attached to the background image. I can't type anything that the button will show and I can't move it without moving the whole background. I consulted the very detailed help manual and it doesn't seem to anticipate how frustrating this might be and how it doesn't give you any ability to actually have a reasonable looking page. I thought maybe I could just import the menus I made for DVDStyler (some of which you can see below) but I realized the buttons wouldn't be active, and then I'd have the same problems with adding buttons that I had before.
I realized that you can import menus (not just the images) into DVD Lab Pro in .mnu and .stm files, though I have no idea how I would create those types of files. I'd like to learn this software if I can, but if someone has something they use that would be appropriate for someone with a B+ level of understanding of DVD Menu design, I am listening.
