First off, I know I haven’t had any in depth posts in quite awhile, but if you’ve been reading, I’m sure you know that I’ve been busy moving. I hope to get back to posting my thoughts and ideas on various topics, so without further ado…
What’s up with the menu music on DVDs? On every DVD that I can think of, the music is about a 15-20 second long clip that is repeated over and over again until you either play the movie or mute the damn thing.
Seriously, it has to be one of the most annoying things ever. I don’t know about everyone else, but when I pop in a movie, I don’t sit there and wait for it to come up to the menu. I usually run to the kitchen to make a snack and get something to drink. It doesn’t take long before I start hearing the same short tune over and over again.
Most DVDs today are packed with special features, which I’m sure take hundreds of hours of work create and test. Producers (or whoever works on the DVDs) spend all of this time and they can’t come up with a full song to play while on the menu? Is it a standard now because it’s been done this way for so long? Or maybe I remember all of the annoying main menus and never notice when there is actual music or even silence.
Does this bother anyone else? If not, put Kill Bill: Volume 1 in your DVD player. Once it gets to the main menu, I bet you can’t leave it sit for more than 5 minutes.
Nick Momrik 
I also have noticed that…i also like the ones that will play two clips from the movie and they are the same quotes recited over and over again. The most annoying though is just like you are describing. They should do something about changing it, just put a little more work into it!
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I am very annoyed by that as well. I don’t have a TV in my bedroon, but I do have my powerbook, so often I will go to sleep with a DVD playing on the computer. I hate it when I have to wake up in the middle of the night because the darn menu music is playing and it wakes me up! I have ONE DVD that doesn’t have this problem, so I end up playing it for the noise of the movie to help me sleep but doesn’t then wake me up again later.
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Not me. I love the music from the DVD menu of Kill Bill 1.
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It may be a good song…but not when they keep playing the same part over and over again like a broken record. I remember a very distinct shreiking noise that made me jump every 20 seconds when it replayed.
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I also find the music that repeats on the menu screen of DVD’s. You would think that they could think of something better to do then having the same 4 measures of a song repeat over and over and over and over again. I guess they are so smart that they don’t think about making something better on the menu screen but that. Oh well, what are we going to do about it?….
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I produce DVD menus and bonus features for a living. The reason why the clips are so short is that with all the additional material on the disc, we have to keep the menu video loops to a minimum. Also, creating longer audio means creating longer video. That costs more money than most studios want to spend.
Another reason why this is is that we also need to localize DVDs including the menus into as many as 35 different languages. So keeping the menu video loops to 30 seconds (the norm) cuts down on a huge amount of work when we localize everything for the rest of the world. I agree, hearing the loops over and over is annoying but we assume that most people use the menus as a user interface to get to where they want to go. That said, most people do select an option and leave the menu within a few seconds.
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Thanks for the insight Mitchell. Very interesting.
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I think Mitchell is right. DVD menu’s aren’t ment to be watched (and listened to) over and over again. It’s just a little “nicety” they have sound effects and stuff.
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HEy, what if I happen to like some particular menu music, and want to rip it. Is this possible?
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I would think that if there is a way, it’s not worth it for the 20-30 seconds that you get. There are other ways to get music that would save you a lot of time. 😉
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does anyone know what the song is?
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Hey i am trying to make Dvd And am putting musi con it so its gfonna be a full songh
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With older DVDs the menu music was limited to 30 seconds. Now you can put entire songs on the menu, i’ve done it, but you are there to watch the movie, not the menu, that’s why its only a short clip.
-Fern
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how would someone go about finding the title of the menu song? On the Casino DVD theres a really catchy tune in the menu and i want to know what it is.
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I have literally scoured the internet for about 2 hours now looking for some software or SOMETHING that will either A) Disable the dvd menu music, or B) Kill the software or dvd or music after the movie has finished. The reason I want this is like someone was saying earlier, watching a dvd in bed at night is the most obnoxious thing in the world if I fall asleep to it, I get woken up whenever the dvd ends because not only is the music obnoxious because it repeats so much, most dvds have the menu music twice as loud as the freakin dvd sound, so it ends and makes me jump up in bed. I HATE IT and I’m amazed nobody has found a solution to it.
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This absolutely drives me batty as well. I would GLADLY give up all the extra bonus features if we could have at least one entire 3 or 4 minute song instead of that maddeningly repetitive 30 seconds.
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lol its rather strange i found this thread because i used to take great delight in falling asleep to the Master and Commander dvd menu music. I know, i know, yeah i agree its pretty wierd and stupid. However i used to love watching the film and drifintg off to sleep throughout it with dreams on voyaging and fighting away running through my mind then it would end up at the menu music and i would finally slip off to sleep with that repeating through my mind. Subsequently i would wake up throughout the night and generally stay on the rather less comfortbale couch simply to be able to listen to the repeating music. I actually found this clip as i can’t sleep and want to see if i can find it somewhere on the web to download as i do not have the DVD with me at my current local lol.
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Try turning the volume down until you are ready to watch the movie. Don’t you do that when a commercial comes on?
Monkey.
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I tell you one that is reeealll annoying. Knights tale. I couldnt agree with you more, you think they could spend just a little bit more time on that menu screen…
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dvd menus loop because the longer the menu, the more space it takes up on the disc. if u put a whole mp3, it then has a 5 minute or so clip sitting on the disc. so they do it to save space. i found that out when i added whole mp3s to my dvd menus and suddenly my projects wouldnt fit on any DVDs lol.
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