Menu Screen

This forum is for questions/discussions about the now sold out first DVD box set by BMG / AnotherUniverse.
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Pedro
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Menu Screen

Post by Pedro » Dec 5th 2002, 12:05 pm

I got my set yesterday and I love it! I really do, but one thing that kinda bugs me is the menu screen...

Don't get me wrong, I know I shouldn't moan cos some people still don't have the set and we're INCREDIBLY lucky to have this released anyway - so please no attacks!! - but I was wondering if there was any way I could maybe take the discs somewhere and change the menu screens? I know it's a long shot, but I was just thinking.... :D

Still am soooooooooo happy to have them on DVD - wow!

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fnordboy
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Re: Menu Screen

Post by fnordboy » Dec 5th 2002, 12:21 pm

First...we agree on something! :D

The menus blow...plain and simple. A chimp and a commodore 64 could have designed something better. In this day and age, and for the cash we dropped on this, we should have gotten some NICE looking menus. Hell i would be happy even if they werent animated. Just look good!

Second, well short of ripping the info off your dvd and making your own and reburning, i don't think you could do it. I doubt anyplace (if a place like that existed) would do anything about it, simply because it is copyrighted material etc.

So for all intents and purposes we are all stuck with looking at the ugliest menus in my 400+ dvd collection <sigh>

Pedro wrote:I got my set yesterday and I love it! I really do, but one thing that kinda bugs me is the menu screen...

Don't get me wrong, I know I shouldn't moan cos some people still don't have the set and we're INCREDIBLY lucky to have this released anyway - so please no attacks!! - but I was wondering if there was any way I could maybe take the discs somewhere and change the menu screens? I know it's a long shot, but I was just thinking.... :D

Still am soooooooooo happy to have them on DVD - wow!

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MadMichael
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Post by MadMichael » Dec 5th 2002, 6:10 pm

Getting back on-topic here...FWIW, the menus are consistent with the original 2000 release of Ep1-3. I ordered an Ep4-19 set, and the only differences in the menus are a slightly different transition between screens (more 'pixelated' in the current release), and in the original release, the DVD credits roll plays against a black background.
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Post by higgy » Dec 6th 2002, 10:11 am

MadMichael wrote:the only differences in the menus are a slightly different transition between screens (more 'pixelated' in the current release), and in the original release, the DVD credits roll plays against a black background.
I quite liked the original release, but these are much weaker. The backdrop used to kind of "colour-cycle" - now it's just static. Also, the video clips are far less distinct and the images of Claire look rougher.

That said, these are way better than some menus I've seen. Anyone who thinks they're the worst ever should look at the way Universal has dumped some TV shows on the UK market.

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GaryEA
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Post by GaryEA » Dec 7th 2002, 1:51 pm

About the menus; Yeah, they're rough, but they're a minor distraction between you and watching the show.

Indeed, they could use a ton of improvements, and it can be said that it detracts from the value of whatever price we paid for them, but my impression is that whomever made them wasn't using high-end equipment.

If I was going to do the menus and I wasn't privy to the equipment that the big boys get to use, then I'd be a minimalist; A clean background (no wacky color movements), with a shot of a vacant Liberty High School hallway or lockers, with dialogue "whispered" in the background (a loop of favorite lines of dialog), the logo and the selections. No transitions between pages, just jump from one to another.

Simple, sort of like the early menus - circa 1998.

About computers; All this talk about the good old days of computing makes me want to dig out my Timex Sinclair, or perhaps something a little more recent, like a round of "Rise of the Triad"... :D

-g

(edited)

Pedro
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Post by Pedro » Dec 8th 2002, 6:58 pm

Can we please stay on topic here??

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GaryEA
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Post by GaryEA » Dec 8th 2002, 7:19 pm

Sorry Pedro! :oops:

To further answer the question, I'm not sure that you can create new menus once the discs are authored, and I've never heard of any facility that will replace menus.

There are places that will create them for original content owned by the client, but I'm 99.9999% sure none of them would take on a project that could get them into legal hot water.

-g

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So-Called Loon
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Post by So-Called Loon » Dec 10th 2002, 5:06 am

GaryEA wrote:There are places that will create them for original content owned by the client, but I'm 99.9999% sure none of them would take on a project that could get them into legal hot water.
Sounds right. But technically if one had the equipment to rip the video and create a new DVD and did it on the QT just for oneself (whether strictly legal) it would be possible, yes?

Though i suppose going without the original tapes the picture quality might suffer even further... i don't know where i'm headed with this.

Without gazillions of $$ in equipment could one keep the video the same (i.e. not decode and recode degrading the quality further) but write it to a new DVD with menus made by oneself? Or would it require mucho $$?

Not that i'd personally attempt such a thing. :?
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Post by kez » Dec 10th 2002, 7:55 am

you could probably re-do the menu's quite easily with a decent PC, and a DVD burner

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fnordboy
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Post by fnordboy » Dec 10th 2002, 11:53 am

kez wrote:you could probably re-do the menu's quite easily with a decent PC, and a DVD burner
Yeah for the most part. Alot of menus you will see on DVDs are actually designed and animated in Flash. The only thing i dont know is how the actual programming of the on-screen buttons/remote control buttons comes into play here. There must be a third party software or plug that you use for that, and that is where i am lost.

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Mold E. Peaches
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Post by Mold E. Peaches » Dec 12th 2002, 11:56 pm

Pedro wrote:Can we please stay on topic here??
this IS a DISCUSSION forum chill out! :roll: ....who cares if we were having a little fun remembering the good ole days of early computer systems. I still have an Atari 7800 with a whole lotta games. You know the Atari's and Commodores are going for a BUNCH of money on ebay...you should check it out sometime...I guess everyone wants to go all retro or something....I think mine's neat anyway....lol.....

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Sascha
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Post by Sascha » Dec 13th 2002, 7:32 am

Mold E. Peaches wrote: this IS a DISCUSSION forum chill out! :roll: ....who cares
Yes, but this is a discussion forum about the MSCL DVDs and it makes things easier for everyone if you try to stay on-topic. It's not the end of the world if a thread sometimes slips into off-topic, but we should try not to carry it too far. Maybe some other community members would like to talk about the good old days of computers (former Amstrad CPC 464 owner here ;-)) but they would never search for it in a topic titled "Menu Screen" in the DVD section. And other users interested in DVD menu details could be disappointed when they have to read through lots of unrelated information... you get the idea.

For that reason we created the "Off-Topic Forum". I splitted now the "computer-retro"-topics from this thread into a new thread into the "Off-Topic" section. You can find this new thread here.

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