"Disc menu lost replacement backgrounds" seems to have targeted specifically Premiere Elements 9.0/9.0.1 version. The history on this matter can be found in the Adobe thread "PE9 Menu Background" dated November 2010. The thread has 68 entries and extended from November 2010 to September 2011. To date (February 10, 2014) no Adobe patch has been seen for this situation. Back in 2011, we uncovered and described an "Audio Fix" workaround for this situation. The workaround can be found in my post numbered 47 in the Adobe thread.
"AUDIO FIX" WORKAROUND
Preface
In post 45 of the PE9 Menu Background thread, Robert J. Johnson (a known innovator in Premiere Elements workflows) wrote in May 2011
I dropped a WAV file on the audio placeholder and that was enough to keep my background image from disappearing from the scene menus. That was the Fun menu. Did somebody already try that?Post 47 of the PE9 Menu Background thread contains my reply to Robert J. Johnson's post 45. My reply details my "Audio Fix" workaround which was found before Robert J. Johnson posted question.
PE9 Menu Background Thread, Post 47 dated May 2011, Excerpt
Robert J Johnston
I am in the process of writing up my latest findings on Premiere 9 Menu Background and other Premiere Elements issues related to these menus for DVD and Blu-ray and had intended to post them some time over the extended holiday weekend. But your post has motivated me to respond to your question sooner than later in an abridged sort of way, giving you and others a preview of where I am currently going on this..
As per one of my earlier posts in this thread (post #10)
General/Fun, "This problem does not occur for main menu, but background replacement GONE for scene menu."
General/Aquarium, "Background replacement GONE for both main and scene menu after burn to disc."
With the Fun Scene Menu...The Fun Template, as designed by Adobe, comes with Main Menu audio and no Scene Menu audio. That is done via naming the one music file in the program files/theme folder Fun_mm_bg.mp3. If you wanted Scene Menu audio as well at this program files level, you could include in the Theme Folder a copy of the supplied audio, but name the copy Fun_sm_bg.mp3. However, for the problem in discussion you do not have to involve going into the program files to do that.
If you insert any audio file (.mp3 or .wav) for the Scene Menu in the Disc Menu Section of the program, you will see your replacement background in the playback of the DVD-VIDEO format on DVD disc. If you do not really want music for the scene menu but you do want to see the replacement background in your final product, then you can create a "Stock Muted Audio" .wav file to access and use from the Disc Menu section of the program. (Audacity is a quick tool for creating the "Stock Muted Audio" for this purpose. Digressing, there you could also lower the gain if you think that your menu volume is too loud.")
Now with regard to the Aquarium Main and Scene Menus..There is no music file at all in the Theme Folder in the program files.
So, if you insert any audio (.mp3 or .wav) with sound or muted into the main menu or scene menu in the Disc Menus section of the program, your replacement backgrounds will be seen in the playback of the DVD-VIDEO format on the DVD disc.
I caught onto all this while I was recently looking at comparison of Premiere Elements 4, 7, 8.0/8.0.1, and 9/9.0.1 with regard to quality in the burn to Blu-ray for my new Blu-ray equipment. Originally, this comparison was done for Quality purposes, not directed at the menus replacement background issue. What I ran into in the final Blu-ray product at its playback was main menu play button working, great quality video, but clicking on the scene button did nothing, often froze the player. After extensive checks and cross checks, the answer was to add an audio file to the scene menu!!!! This situation existed for some menus but not all. A list of the dos and don'ts will be supplied at a later time. The menu that started all this was the Wedding/Romantic one that was included in versions 4, 7, 8.0/8.0.1, but NOT 9/9.0.1.
For those who would inject computer OS/video card or other factors into this mix, I add that my findings were repeatable from November 2010 until today May 29, 2011 and repeatable using Windows XP Professional SP3 32 bit (NVIDIA) or Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit (Intel HD Graphics). And, the resolution of the files used for the replacement background was NOT at the core of this matter which has all the ring of an Adobe programming matter. In the studies with the Wedding/Romantic theme and other of these matters, the prognosis for the burn to disc typically could be learned ahead of time by seeing the burn to startup as Encoding Menu 1 of 1 instead of Encoding Menu 1 of 2.
So far here I have not mentioned any involvement of the project preset which directs the program to establish what it considers an appropriate choice from the s, w, and hd sets in the program files. Often you see projects with HD project presets using s menu set rather than the w menus. But that is a whole other story.
ATR
BACKGROUND INFORMATION PRIOR TO "AUDIO FIX" DISCOVERY
In My Premiere Elements 9 Daily Discoveries thread, post 8 dated November 2010, Excerpt
PE9 Main Scene Menu Replaced Background Lost On Burn To Disc
More and more reports are surfacing regarding the loss of replaced background for main and scene menus for the Premiere Elements 9 DVD Templates after the burn to disc process.
It looks like this problem also impacts webDVD where these DVD Templates are used to produced the flash files with DVD Menus.
I am currently involved in a discussion of this issue at the Premiere Elements User to User Forum at Adobe and have been posting my findings on the matter there.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3256833#3256833
(IMPORTANT UPDATE July 17, 2011...please check out post #47 in this May 2011 link...it contains a fix for the matter via inserting muted or non muted audio into the menus in the Disc Menu Section customization area of the program.)
It is an important topic so please keep up to date on the matter in this thread or by following the entries in the thread at the above link. If you are experiencing this problem, please post your own new thread in the Premiere Elements Forum here. Be sure to say what specific DVD Templates are involved, whether main and/or scene menu is affected, and whether they are SD or HD menus.
Thank you.
ATR
Add On
Recently a Premiere Elements 9 user was in a time crunch to get out a wedding DVD-VIDEO widescreen for which he wanted to use the Wedding/Elegant DVD Template. The workaround that I suggested for this problem is as follows.
In this instance, there were two problems:
a. NEW…in spite of the fact that the user had a DV Widescreen project preset, the main menu was presenting as if it were standard while the scene menu was presenting, as expected, as widescreen.
b. ORIGINAL ISSUE…the replaced background for main and scene menus displayed properly in the Disc Menus Section Preview Window after application of the menu to the project, however after burn to disc the replaced backgrounds were gone from main and scene menus, TV displaying the backgrounds designed by Adobe.
Workaround 1.
If you have a Premiere Elements 9 DV Widescreen project and want to use the Elegant DVD Template as is (no customization of main and scene menus), then
a. Go to the Premiere Elements program files
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Elements 9\DVD Templates\Common\Wedding\(V) Elegant
And remove the elegant_pal_w_mm_bg.swf file from the Elegant Folder.
Workaround 2.
If you have a Premiere Elements 9 DV Widescreen project and want to use the Elegant DVD Template with customized background for main and scene menus, then you are going to have to modify the .psd for the main menu and the .psd for the scene menu at the Program Files level, using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
This user had a 1920 x 1080 image that he wanted to use as a background in main and scene menu. The following is the detailed instructions that I offered and that he reported worked for him.
1. I cropped by source jpeg image to 1027 x 576 pixels in Photoshop Elements 9 and saved that cropped image to the computer Desktop.
2. Then I went to the Premiere Elements 9 program files
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Elements 9\DVD Templates\Common\Wedding\(V) Elegant
and made copies of
Elegant_pal_w_mm.psd
and
Elegant_pal_w_sm.psd
and pasted these copies to the computer Desktop. For each of these files, I right clicked the file, selected Properties, unchecked Read Only, followed by Apply, then OK. I re-named the files
ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd
and
ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd
At the Desktop, I created a Folder which I named Modified Elegant and in it placed the above renamed .psd files. From there I opened the ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd into Photoshop Elements 9.
a. Collapsed all the Layer Groups so that I saw just the Layer Groups and not their contents. Clicked on “background” Layer, right clicked it, clicked on Delete to get rid of the original background layer.
b. Then, File Menu/Open and opened the 1027 x 576 photo in Photoshop Element 9…at this point, I had the 1027 x 576 image on screen and the ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd file could be seen in the Project Bin….with the Move Tool active, dragged the on screen 1027 x 576 image from there into the ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd in the Project Bin.
c. At this point, I saw the photo inserted into the Layers Palette for the .psd file (in this process the photo is now in a layer named Layer 1)…I.clicked and dragged Layer 1 to the bottom of the Layers Palette and rename it background…for reference, the graphic Layer Group should be directly above this background layer.
d. Looked on screen…if you see that your image is not filling the right and left edges of the template (transparent right and left edge there) hold down the Alt Key and click and drag the bounding box of the image until the left side and right side transparent spaces are filled with the image. Holding down the Alt Key will get both edges done at the same time…only a very minor adjustment is needed here….NO MATTER WHAT YOU SEE ON SCREEN DO NO MORE THAN THAT, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CORRECT WHAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE DISTORTION.
e. Save and close the modified .psd for the main menu.
Did a similar procedure for the scene menu.
3. At this point I had
ModifiedElegant_pal_w_mm.psd and ModifiedElegant_pal_w_sm.psd in the Modified Elegant Folder on the Desktop.
4. Then I placed the Modified Elegant Folder in the Wedding Folder in the DVD Template Folder. The path was
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Elements 9\DVD Templates\Common\Wedding\
5. Then I opened Premiere Elements 9 with a project preset (new project dialog) = PAL or NTSC DV Widescreen and, when in Disc Menus, I selected and applied the menus in the Modified Elegant category and exported (burn to DVD) with the preset for PAL or NTSC DVD-VIDEO.
In My Premiere Elements 9 Daily Discoveries thread, post 26 dated May 2011, Excerpt
Premiere Elements 9 Menu Replacement Background: Latest News
Please refer to the following Adobe Premiere Elements User to User Forum thread and the latest developments on the issue of lost replacement menus in the Premiere Elements 9 burn to disc.
I had intended to present my detailed work at the Premiere Elements Forum here in the next few days, but posts in the Adobe thread made me decide to preview some of my results there to answer a current important question.
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/747429?tstart=0
Remember, keep those Adobe Feature Requests and Bug Reports going to Adobe to help in the cause of gaining resolution what appears to be a complex and widespread issue.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform...?name=wishform
Thanks.
ATR
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September 03, 2014 Add On
Also see blog post
PE: Disc Menu Folders/Files Locations
http://atr935.blogspot.com/2014/09/pe-disc-menu-foldersfiles-locations.html
