Arrgg!! DVDA 2.0 and Main Menus

ScottW wrote on 9/17/2004, 10:04 AM
I just got bit by the main menu issue that DVDA 2.0 seems to have. Built a simple project for a customer; main menu with 2 movie clips on it. Previews as expected, that is first up is the menu and you select the movie clip you want.

Customer player - insert disk; plays first movie clip, *then* goes to the main menu.

What a PITA. So many nice features with 2.0, yet it creates stuff that won't play correctly.

If my customer will cooperate I think I'm going to waste a couple of DVD's and nail this bug dead so Sony can fix the dang thing. IFOedit, here I come!!!

--Scott

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 9/17/2004, 10:53 AM
I think that there are issues with how many DVD players play discs with multiple titles. I don't know whether this is a bug in DVDA 2.0's logic, or is just the nature of the beast. When you put multiple MPEG titles into a menu-based compilation, DVDA creates separate titlesets for each MPEG file. Some DVD players insist on going back to the menu rather than to the next title.

A workaround is to insert a Music Compilation into your menu-based project, and then put your MPEG files (and their associated audio) into the Music Compilation. The MPEG files get treated as one Titleset, and the each is treated as a separate chapter. The only downside is that you can't put extra chapter stops inside of each MPEG file.

You could also merge the files, prior to putting them into DVDA, using a tool like MPEG Wizard from Womble.
ScottW wrote on 9/17/2004, 11:46 AM
Actually, I'm more inclined to think this is a bug in DVDA 2.0; other folks have reported that the same techniques used in 1.0 didn't have this problem (nor did I ever encounter this issue with 1.0).

I suspect it's a combination of the name change of the IFO files (the menu now sits in _0 with 2.0, rather than _1 as it did with 1.0) along with some incorrect jump commands in the first play title.

My in-house players don't exhibit this behavior, so now that I may have access to a customer player that has the problem, I'm pretty sure I can narrow down the offending action.
dand9959 wrote on 9/17/2004, 12:03 PM
Please keep us informed Scott! Especially if you find a workaround for now. (In addition to John's, that is.)
ScottW wrote on 9/17/2004, 1:24 PM
One work around - if your combined clips are less than 1GB in size.

Create the main menu and then a submenu for each clip; the clip is then specified as the background A/V for the submenu.

Since DVDA seems to still know how to navigate around the menus (since they are all contained within the same title set) this may be an option for some folks.
SChadder wrote on 9/22/2004, 6:14 PM
I'm glad its not just me running into this.