Personalize Your DVD Projects with iDVD on Your MacBook

By Mark L. Chambers from MacBook All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

You can easily make changes to the iDVD default settings provided with the theme you chose. iDVD offers all sorts of controls that allow you to change the appearance and behavior of buttons, text, and the presentation of your content.

Personalize your DVD menu background with iDVD

Hey, Uncle Morty might not be a supermodel, but he has birthdays and anniversaries, and iDVD is more than happy to accommodate you in documenting those milestones! Follow these steps to change the background of your DVD Menu to Uncle Morty's picture:

Click the Inspector button.
Get an image using one of the following methods:
- Drag an image from the Finder and drop it into the Background well.
- Drag the image directly into the Menu display.
- To use an image from your iPhoto library, click the Media button and click the Photos tab, and then drag the desired image into the Menu display.
iDVD updates the DVD Menu to reflect your new background choice.

Add your own titles to DVDs with iDVD

The one tweak you’ll probably have to perform in every iDVD project is changing titles. Unfortunately, the default labels provided by iDVD are pretty lame, and they appear in two important places:

Menu title: Your large main title usually appears at the top of the DVD Menu.
Button captions: Each Submenu, Movie, and Slideshow button that you add to your Menu has its own title.

To change the text in your Menu title or the titles below your buttons, follow these steps:

Select the text by clicking it.
Click it again to edit it.

A rectangle with a cursor appears to indicate that you can now edit the text.
Type the new text and press Return to save the change.

Change buttons on your DVDs with iDVD

Customizing Movie buttons? You can do it with aplomb! Follow these steps:

Click Buttons.
Click any Movie button from the DVD Menu to select it.

A slider appears above the button, which you can drag to set the thumbnail picture for that button in your DVD Menu. (Naturally, this is only for animated buttons, not text buttons.)

Enable the Movie check box to animate the button.
To create a Movie button with a still image, drag a picture from a Finder window or the Media pane and drop it on top of the button.
To adjust the properties for the button, click the Inspector button.

Button Settings You Can Customize
Movie Button Property	What It Does
Label Font	Changes the label font, text size, color, and attributes.
Label Attributes	Specifies the position of the label and whether it has a shadow.
Custom Thumbnail	Drag an image to the Custom Thumbnail well. For Slideshow buttons, drag the Thumbnail slider to select the image that will appear on the button.
Transition	Determines the transition that occurs when the button is clicked (before the action occurs).
Size	Adjusts the size of the button. Move the slider to the right to increase the button size.

Give your iDVD creation motion

What about using an animated background for your DVD? You can use any QuickTime movie from your iMovie library (including those you’ve taken with your MacBook’s iSight camera) to animate your DVD Menu background!

Keep in mind that your background movie should be a short clip; 20–30 seconds is optimal. A clip with a fade-in at the beginning and a fade-out at the end is the best choice because iDVD loops your background clip continuously, and your animated background flows seamlessly behind your Menu.

Follow these steps to add a new animated background:

Click your old friend, the Inspector button.

Make sure that no individual objects are highlighted so that the Inspector window displays the Menu properties instead.
Drag a movie from the Finder and drop it into the Background well.

You can click the Movies tab in the Media pane to instantly display your iMovie collection.
Click the Motion button in the iDVD window to try out your new background.
Click the Motion button again to stop the animation cycle.