Types of discs and menu options

Using Premiere Elements and your disc burner, you can create discs: auto-play without menus or menu-based. The first step in creating a disc is deciding on the type you want to create.

If you want an auto-play disc, you can simply create your movie, export it to a disc format, and burn it to disc. If, however, you want to create a menu-based disc, add menus to your movie using Premiere Elements menu templates.

Premiere Elements menu templates are predesigned menus that come in a variety of themes and styles. The buttons on the templates automatically link to menu markers placed in the movie. The menus are created dynamically based on the markers you’ve placed, and additional menus are added if needed. You can add, move, or delete menu markers after choosing a template. Alternatively, you can add menu markers in the Expert view timeline before you select a menu template. Premiere Elements automatically adjusts the menus to match the markers.

Auto-play discs

Auto-play discs contain no menus and begin playing when inserted into a disc player. They work best for presenting single movies that you want to view from start to finish. They are the easiest type of disc to create. You simply export the movie to a disc.

If you want to use Next and Previous buttons on the player’s remote control to jump to specific points in the movie, set menu or scene markers to specify the chapters, or jumping points. Because an auto‑play disc does not distinguish between main menu markers and scene markers, you can add either type of marker for the chapter points.

Make sure to preview the movie and ensure that the markers are in the right locations before burning to disc.

Menu-based discs

Menu-based discs work best for presenting long movies or a set of movies meant to be played from start to finish. Menu-based discs are also useful for presenting movies that contain scenes you want to access from a submenu. From the main menu, you can choose to play the movie or go to a scene selection submenu. There are two types of menu-based discs:

These are best for presenting single long movies that play well from start to finish, but that also contain scenes that you can access from a submenu. From the main menu, you can choose to play the whole movie or go instead to a scenes menu. The scenes menu lets you navigate to scenes within the movie. You generally set up the project so that each scene represents an interesting point in the movie. However, it is possible to start a scene whenever a certain amount of play time has elapsed, or anywhere else.

These are best for presenting a set of individual movies that you don’t want to combine into a single movie. For example, in a wedding disc, you might want to present the preparations, the ceremony, and the reception as separate movies. Each will have its own button on the main menu.