Having assembled your sources, let's get down to business with DVD-lab. Once you start up DVD-lab, you'll note that the main window is divided into three parts: On the left you have the various elements of your project: Connections (that's what defines the navigation between content elements), Movies (video content), Menus and Slides (slideshows). At the bottom of the window, you'll have your assets. All audio, video and image files are assets. To the right of the assets, you have a preview window to preview assets. The main part of the window is used to create and edit project elements.

To get started, you have to import all your assets. You can simply drag and drop all your files into the assets window.

It is possible to import multiplexed assets, rather than separate audio and video files as shown above. In that case, DVD-lab will ask you to demultiplex the file. It is generally a good idea to start with elementary streams (meaning separate audio and video), so let DVD-lab demultiplex any multiplexed sources you might have. If you import an MPEG audio file that is not specs compatible, DVD-lab will propose to transcode it to the proper format, which is also a good idea (alternatively transcode it to the proper format using a tool like BeSweet).

Then you must set project preferences:

Having imported your assets, the first thing to do is create movies. Movie elements in your project contain the actual video. Note that an animated menu is not a movie, even though it contains video. Double click on Movie 1 in the project window to bring up a window in the main part of DVD-lab where you can configure the movie.
Drag and drop your first movie file from the assets window to the initially empty movie window. Then do the same with the audio file.


DVD-lab shows a number of thumbnails from the video, a timeline above the video and the audio track below the video thumbnails. Using your mouse, you can move around the video. The red vertical line over the thumbnails represents the actual position in the movie, you can move it using your mouse. The actual frame will always be shown in the preview window, including the actual position.
If for some reason audio and video should not match up, DVD-lab can correct audio delays. To do this, select Tools - Audio Delay...


All you have to do is enter the desired delay value in the Add/Remove Audio Delay field, and press Process. DVD-lab will graphically show the effect of your entered delay value (it can be negative or positive). If you're using this function, make sure you use the proper mp2 audio file and add it to your movie track.

Then if you want to create new chapter point you have to move the position marker to the appropriate point, then press on the + sign to create a chapter point:

Another option to set chapters is the audiochapters function. To access it, select Movie - Auto Chapters... under File folder

Auto chapters works via scene detection. DVD-lab will scan the movie for scene changes, and create chapters at those positions. The Sensitivity parameter can be used to set how sensitive DVD-lab is to scene changes. The higher the number, the more chapters will be created.

You can use the Add X chapters in whole movie to control how many chapters are going to be added in total. Alternatively, you can check Find all possible chapters, and then enter the Minimum space in minutes (that controls the minimum distance two chapters must have from each other).

Press OK to get started, and you can abort the process at any time pressing the Stop button.

There is yet another option: DVD-lab supports multiple chapter list format. So, if you have a chapter list for somewhere, you can import it into DVD-lab by right clicking in the movie window, and selecting Import Chapters...
There are two more options concerning chapters. The first is chapter Lag. As you might know, chapters must start with an I-frame. The frame you've chosen for your start position might not necessarily be an I-frame, thus the chapter won't start at the exact position you've chosen. It might be that your chapter starts too early because DVD-lab picks the closest I-frame to your chosen position. Now, rather than to try and move the chapter position, you can set a chapter lag, for one or all chapters. Chapter lag allows you to adjust the actual chapter position and advance it by ±1 second, be going to the right click menu as before, then selecting Set Chapter Lag...
Last but not least we have the Frame_index All Chapters function. DVD-lab can index your video file to get more accurate chapter positions. Without indexing, chapter positions are accurate to up to 0.5 seconds, with indexing, the accuracy is improved by a factor of two, thus to maximum 0.25 seconds different to the actual position you've set in the movie editor. Indexing will take a while, and after it is done, your chapter positions will now be shown as green diamonds. In addition, your video asset will have a green diamond in the logo as well.

If during asset import you find that your project is too large, you might want to trim the credits of a movie. To do that, you don't have to cut the video using an external cutter. DVD-lab already includes this functionality. Just move the slider to the position where you want the cut to start, then right click and select Trim End...
DVD-lab will show you a graphical preview of the cut, and you can select a name for the trimmed file.Also check Add the result to Assets and Replace Current Movie with trimmed, so that you won't accidentally forget to replace the untrimmed movie with the trimmed one.

Having set up the first movie, let's add another movie. Right click in the project area, and select Add Movie. Then double click on the new movie item and repeat the procedure described above to add video and audio, and set chapters.

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