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Making a movie or slideshow play before the main menu appears

You can have a movie or slideshow begin to play as soon as a viewer inserts your DVD into a DVD player, before the main menu appears. Such a movie or slideshow is called an “autoplay” movie or slideshow.

After the autoplay item has played, the main menu of the DVD appears. However, you can also set the autoplay item to loop, which means there is no need for any menus in your project. Instead, the autoplay movie or slideshow plays continuously in what is called “kiosk mode.” This is great for creating presentations to be used in a kiosk or for making simple projects that require little viewer interaction.

To create an autoplay movie or slideshow:

Step 1

Click the Map button (A, below) to open the DVD map.

If you are just starting a project that will consist of an autoplay item only, you can ignore the default theme that opens in the iDVD window. Autoplay DVDs have no theme because the autoplay item is the only element in the project.

Image of the Map button
Step 2

Click the Media button to open the Media pane, then click Photos or Movies.

Step 3

Drag a movie, a photo album, or even a single image from the Media pane to the project icon (shown below).

The project icon is the first icon in the DVD map. You can also drag images or movies stored elsewhere on your computer or a connected server.

Image of project icon from map view
Step 4

To turn on looping for the autoplay movie or slideshow (a single image is also considered a slideshow in this context), select the project icon and then choose Advanced > Loop Movie or Loop Slideshow.

If you added a movie that includes audio, the audio of the movie is retained so the viewer hears it during autoplay.

If you added a movie with chapter markers (from Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express), these chapter markers can be used for navigation. The viewer can click the Next or Previous button on the remote control to advance or return to a chapter, even though iDVD doesn’t create scene selection menus for autoplay movies.

If you added a slideshow or a single image, you can double-click the project icon to open the slideshow editor. There you can add a single audio file or a playlist as a soundtrack, rearrange images, and set other slideshow features, such as slide duration.

Step 5

Click the Preview button (shown below) to see how your autoplay movie looks.

This opens the iDVD remote control. Because the autoplay movie begins to play immediately, you don’t need to click any buttons on the remote control. If you want to preview your entire project, use your pointer to click the buttons on the remote control.

Image of the Preview button
Step 6

When you’re finished, click the Exit button on the iDVD remote control to return to the iDVD window.

As with any other media you add to your projects, autoplay elements increase the size of your project. If the Project Info window indicates that you are short on space for your project, you might consider reducing the size of your autoplay item. If it’s a slideshow, you could, for example, remove some images from it or delete its soundtrack. If it’s a movie, you need to shorten it in the program it was created in, such as Final Cut Pro, and then drag the new, shorter file onto the project icon in map view.

Related Topics

Viewing an iDVD project in map view

Editing in map view

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