Alternate sequences of the same chapters

BrianStanding wrote on 1/4/2005, 1:32 PM
Forgive me if this has been covered before. I did a search on this forum on "end actions" and couldn't find what I needed. Please point me to the appropriate thread if it's here and I missed it.

I'm using DVDA 2.0c. I have a 73-minute movie, in one large MPEG-2 file, with approximately 17 chapter points. I would like to create two completely different sequences of these 17 chapters, so the user can choose between two different versions of the same movie. I also want to fit this all on one disk.

Here's what I've tried so far, and the results:

1. Dropped the MPEG-2 file into the project, and then created a standard scene selection menu. Copied and pasted chapter buttons into a separate submenu in the desired sequence. Then I tried to edit the "end action" for each chapter button to automatically play the next button on the menu. RESULT: I can only go back to the submenu and have the next button highlighted, but cannot make the button play automatically with no user input.

2. Copied and pasted a chapter button into a new submenu. Then I edited the "end action" to link to a new chapter in the original MPEG-2 file. RESULT: The clip automatically goes to the specified chapter, which is fine. However, when that next chapter ends, the MPEG-2 file continues playing in the original sequence, and I'm stuck.

3. My next step is to re-encode each chapter as a separate MPEG-2 file, then create a music compilation to create my original sequence. I already know that creating a second music compilation will cause DVDA2 to duplicate the media files, which, in this case, will overrun the disk. OTOH, if I copy and paste the music compilation, can I then re-arrange the sequence without doubling up the media files?

Before I go through the trouble of re-encoding everything and starting from scratch, I wanted to check in here and see if I'm on the right track. Will this work? Is this the only way to get what I want, or is there some "end action" trick that will let me get there with my single MPEG-2 file?

I apologize for the long post, and thanks in advance for the help.

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/4/2005, 3:03 PM
Since it appears you can handle the potential for not having a seamless transition between chapters...

What I'd probably do is render each chapter as it's own file. Create a main menu with 2 sub menus - one for each sequence.

Get into the first submenu and pull all 17 movies onto it. I'd probably also look at renaming these movies in the tree view so that I could keep easy track of sequence 1 vs. sequence 2. Navigate into each individual movie and set the end action to point at the appropriate next movie.

Go to the other submenu, pull the 17 movies in again - and rename them in the tree to reflect the second sequence. Navigate into each movie and set the end action to point to the correct next chapter for this sequence.

Oh, I'd delete the background for the submenus, change the movie buttons to be just text and then delete the text. On the end action for the menu I'd specify that the command would "activate button", set the tiimeout to 0 and set the button to activate to be the first chapter. That way when each submenu is selected you jump right into the movie.

Also, on the movies you'll want to set the Remote Buttons/Menu Button to be Link to the Main menu rather than the most recent menu. Same with the end action on the last chapter - you want to link back to the main menu rather than most recent.

--Scott
BrianStanding wrote on 1/4/2005, 6:38 PM
Perfect! I just tested it out and it looks like it should work! Thanks -- I knew there was a way to do this.

One minor problem. I can't seem to set the timeout to 0, it defaults to 29 frames and I can't make it any lower. Can I fix this, or should I just live with it?