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Editor’s note: The following tip on bit budgeting for the web in DVD Studio Pro 4 is excerpted from Apple Pro Training Series: DVD Studio Pro 4, Second Edition by Martin Sitter and Adrian Ramseier with JemSchofield, published by Peachpit Press.

Maintaining the Look of Menu Graphics

From: Authoring Professional DVDs in Final Cut Studio 2; pgs. 232-233

Creating graphics that maintain their visual appeal in video can be tricky. Common problems when transitioning from computer to video displays include the thinning or stretching of graphics, the flickering or bleeding of colors, and the unreadability of text.

The graphic requirements for a video display are not always explicit. For example, NTSC DVD-Video uses a frame dimension of 720 x 480 pixels (720 x 576 for PAL). But, that's only half the story. When this 720 x 480-pixel video frame is displayed on a standard television, it is horizontally squeezed, which means it displays thinner on a TV than it does on a computer monitor. The reason? Computers and video display pixels differently.

Graphics applications use square pixels, whereas standard definition video uses rectangular pixels. When designing graphics for video or DVD menus, you need to account for these nonsquare pixels so that your artwork looks the way you intend it to. If you don't, your images will appear stretched on your DVD. Circles will become ovals, and squares will become rectangles.

Fortunately, applications such as Photoshop, After Effects, and Motion all include presets that account for these differences and can preview your graphics as nonsquare pixels. For this reason, you should always begin your design process by creating documents using a preset. For 720 x 480 DVD menus, the NTSC DV preset is the one to use. Also, make sure you are previewing the correct aspect ration so that you can see your design the way it will be viewed on a television.

The following are some additional suggestions for creating graphics that will look best on a television set or video monitor. Since video is restricted in tis use of colors (graphics applications, such as Photoshop, have a much broader palette) and image resolution, you need to consider some basic design principles for motion design work before creating your menus and overlays:

- Avoid text that is smaller than 18 to 24 points, depending on the font.
- Use sans serif fonts whenever possible.
- Design your overlays without any soft or feathered edges.
- Make all of the lines in your graphics at least 3 pixels thick. Since most video still uses fields instead of progressive frames, this lines will appear to flicker or buzz on an interlaced display.
- Be wary of any colors that are shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, since they tend to flicker, especially in thin graphics.
- Avoid heavily saturated colors (particularly bright red), which tend to bleed and look bad on a television screen.
- Because TV colors are not as rich, vibrant, or precise as computer colors, be wary or subtle shades of red and blue, which tend not to reproduce accurately.
- To avoid problems with bright colors interfering with the audio on older TV sets, keep your primary color levels (red, green, and blue) to a value of 235 or lower. You should also make sure your primary color values are 16 or above so that all colors are broadcast safe.
- Make sure you apply a broadcast safe filter to your graphics and video assets to make sure they stay within the broadcast safe range of 16 to 235 for RGB values.

Excerpted from Apple Pro Training Series: DVD Studio Pro 4, Second Edition by Martin Sitter and Adrian Ramseier with Jem Schofield. Copyright © 2008. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Peachpit Press.