Personalize iDVD Movies with Themes

with Don Schechter

Transcript: Personalize iDVD Movies with Themes

Hi, I am Don Schechter for About.com Computing. Today I will show you how to use themes in iDVD.

Setting up in iDVD

Open iDVD and select Create New Project. Then give your project a Title. In iDVD you will see different themes or templates you can apply to your DVD menus.

Choosing an iDVD Theme

Scroll down in the right sidebar to see different themes. Some have music that plays along with the menu but you won't hear it until the theme is applied to your project. To see older themes, click the drop down menu at the top right and you can see themes dating back to before the 4.0 version of iDVD.

Choosing your Theme's Aspect Ratio

Some themes are set to widescreen, so if you apply one, you will be alerted that the aspect ratio will change from widescreen 16:9 to 4:3, the standard TV aspect ratio. If I click Keep, the aspect ratio will be still be 4:3 but it will be blown up so that some of it may be cut off when viewed on televisions.

Fitting your iDVD Theme to a Standard TV

Go up to View and click Show TV Safe Area. Now I can see how much will be cut off. Now I will choose a standard-sized theme and double click on it to apply. The TV safe area is still on which is helpful for me to know what the menu will look like on a standard TV.

Multiple Themes for Chapters & Extras

If I click on the arrow next to a theme, more will drop down that you can use for chapters and DVD extras menu. Click the Menu button at the bottom right side. Here you can control the loop duration and the menu volume. If you don t want any sound in your menu, bring the slider all the way to the left.

iDVD Drop Zone Themes

You can also personalize your drop zones. Drop zones are the areas in the menu that contain your content, whether it is pictures or video.

To choose content to put in your drop zone, click Edit Drop Zones. Here you can select Audio, Photos, or Movies to add to your menu. I will click on Movies and click on Don's Movie. To add it to your drop zone, click and drag the file to the gray editing bar and into one of the drop zones. To delete a drop zone, select the media in the editing bar and press delete, or click and drag it outside of the editor.

Alternate Ways to Add Drop Zone Content

Another way to add content to your drop zones is to click Autofill, which will automatically fill in all the drop zones with the files that you may have already imported into iDvd. You can also click on the Media button, and select audio, photos or movies, in the same way you did with the Edit Drop Zones button.

Completing Drop Zone Personalization

After you fill the drop zones, don't forget to change the title text. Double click so the text is highlighted, then you can type in your text. In the Menu window you can change the font, style, size, alignment, and color.

Changing iDVD Themes

If you decide to change your theme, click the themes button and double click on a different theme. All of your drop zone content will carry over. However, if you choose a theme that already has audio and you have already changed the audio in the last theme, you may need to drag that back in.

Removing the Apple Logo

If you want to get rid of the apple logo on the bottom right corner of the menus, go up to iDVD on the toolbar and click preferences. Under the General tab, deselect the option that says, Show apple logo watermark.

Once you choose a theme, it's easy to design the rest of your DVD menu. Thanks for watching. For more information please visit us on the Web at computing.about.com.

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