Hmm...I have three players I tested my discs on. Sony, Panasonic and my friends Hitachi. The next button is disabled on all commercial discs, on the last chapter.

In DVDA, I have End Action set to Main Menu. If the last chapter ends by itself, it goes to Main Menu. This is fine.

But if I manually press Next button, the DVD players skip to the Next Track, instead of the menu.

So basically my only choice is to order the titles like this...
This makes it jump to INTRO when pressing button on Last Chapter.
1. main title track (movie).
3. main menu intro video (which jumps to Main Menu)
4. other stuff

Or Like this...Then button doesnt do anything on last chapter. It finishes chapter than returns to main menu.
1. other stuff
2. intro
3. main menu
4. Main title track (movie)


DVDA doesn't list the Main Menu in the Order DVD Titles window. So you can't make it jump directly to Main Menu, if you press Next button on last chapter.

I am going to go onto the DVD Lab forums and get some confirmation on this functionality. I shouldn't have to order the tracks like that. I want it to go to Main Menu, not the Intro again.

I'll mention here that i am absolutely disgusted when any functions are disabled on a disc. It's MY viewing experience, and if i want to jump around then i'm going to. If my only choice is to 'fast forward' by leaving the room for a couple minutes and then come back when a future portion of the video is playing, then i'll do that rather than sit through something i don't want to watch. Quite possibly, i'm more likely to put the disc away and not watch it again.

Please keep that in mind when deciding to limit some of the players functions.

Chienworks, I only want this on the last chapter. All commercial discs are like this. At least on the 3 players I tested. I can't even get it to go directly to Main Menu. It goes to the Intro, because that is the next track.

Why should I have to put the Main Movie as the last thing on the disc to get this functionality? Most discs have the main movie on the first track.

> i am absolutely disgusted when any functions are disabled on a disc. It's MY viewing experience, and if i want to jump around then i'm going to. <

Hear hear! Agreed fully.

> Why should I have to put the Main Movie as the last thing on the disc to get this functionality? <

Might there be a way you can help people to navigate your DVD by how the main menu is organized? I have a similar situation with my current DVD project. There's a main menu and four sub-menus underneath. If the user hits Next while watching the last chapter of an item in a sub-menu, it goes to the next section on my Mitsubishi DVD player. I'd prefer it to go back to the upper menu, but it's not the end of the world either. I think most people understand they can use the Menu button on their DVD remote to get to the menu above.

--Ethan

CoolBlue, if it's that important to you, add a chapter point immediately before the end of the movie. That way, if the viewer hits the Next Chapter button during the second to last chapter, it will skip to this dummy chapter. Then, when it reaches the end of the movie naturally, your end action will be honored.

Rob

Here is what I did to work around the problem of Ordering the Tracks. Doesn't fix it entirely, but now I can have the main video on the DVD as Track 1.

1. Create a dummy blank video file.
2. In DVDA, open up the Order Titles window, and set main video as Track 1.
3. Set this dummy file after the main video as Track 2..
4. Set End Action of it to Main Menu.

It still doesn't Disable the Next button. But I now can order the files properly on the DVD. Otherwise I had to set the main video as last Track. Because otherwise it would play my other fade-in and intro tracks.

Leaving aside the question of disabling the Next button, I'm curious as to why the order of the tracks on the disc matters. It won't be apparent to the user.

Mike

The order matters on the discs I create because I am using some tracks for motion transitions between menus.

For example:
If the user presses the "next/skip chapter" button the remote, while on the last chapter...Most DVD players will skip to the next track on the disc, instead of going back to the main menu.

Now, if the last chapter ends by itself, without the user pressing a button, then it goes to main menu.

So if I add the blank dummy track after the main video, and have it point to main menu, my problem is solved. It will always go to main menu, instead of playing the next track which may be a transition.

I really shouldn't have to do this, but DVD Architect is missing the featureset to do this properly in the first place.

DVD Lab Pro by Mediachance allows you to draw connection points between objects. This allows you full control over what happens when the disc is played. This is the feature I want.

We ended up doing the same thing (re-ordering the tracks).
We could not figure out how to limit the ability to jump forward to the next track. We didn't want to disable the button, since we wanted people to ba able to jump around WITHIN ONE TRACK.
This was a live performance DVD where we wanted viewers to be able to jump from song to song, but not jump to the 'behind-the-scenes' or suddenly find themselves watching the FBI warning again.
It would be great if DVDA added an option to turn off jumping between tracks...