If it's doing that during preview, there's a good chance that the intro media either has some black at the end or there's something wrong with the video file. What format is it and where did it come from? (DivX files are especially likely to give DVDA fits.) Can you check the last bunch of frames in an editor to make sure they're not black?

The preview is generally pretty seamless since there's no hardware to slow it down. Even if you fix this so it's seamless in preview, you'll probably still get a delay on actual DVD players. The player has to move the laser after it finishes the intro to find the menu.

Rob

I have checked the videos asn am sure that there is no black between them. All of my files are *.avi. Also, this problem is happening between some of my menus. I think the problem is that many of my sub menus arn't directly in the menu that links to them because I am using media to transition between them. Is there a way to add submenus and media within a menu (if this is the problem) without it showing up on the actual menu as a button? And when does DVD Architect 3 come out?

If you want something in the project but not on a menu (so you can link to it via end actions), just drag it to the root directory (the disc icon at the top of the Project Overview window). Or what some people do is actually create a "menu" there without linking to it from any other menus. Then you use that menu's folder as a repository for "orphan" media (items that don't have any buttons but are used in your project.

DVDA3 is expected to be announced Monday and will probably be released then as well. Unless Sony's changed their spots, though, you'll have to buy Vegas 6 to get DVDA3.

Rob

There is a problem with the ac3 renderer such that the ac3 audio file a few frames LONGER than the original and LONGER than it's partner mpg video file. I have reported this twice to SONY, but I keep getting canned references to "Here's what an AC3 file is..." #$@!&$

I suspect your problem is precisely what I've been encountering. When you bring your ac3 and mpg into a menu or first play, DVDA takes the longer of the two, which is the audio. Since it doesn't have video for the extra time, you get a black flash.

If you want to see exactly how long the video and audio clips are (and prove that they are indeed different lengths) you can create a playlist and drag them both in. The playlist will show the precise length of the clips. I suspect they will be slightly different.

Since SONY refuses to even acknowledge that a problem exists or take the time to try the simple test case and see there is a problem, I'm not holding out much hope that it will be fixed in V6.

The workaround to this is to force your ac3 renders to be a few frames shorter than your video. You can do this by setting a render region (I know... a pain...). It doesn't have to super accurate. Having a few milliseconds more video than audio is much better than having a few milliseconds more audio than video. (Heaven forbid that it would correctly be the same length...)

If you verify this is indeed the case, please open a problem report with Sony. Apparently if less than 50 people report a problem, they ignore it.

2G

I encountered the same problem and tracked it down to the same cause as 2G (took me quite a while).
Though this behaviour is obviously most annoying on looped (background) media it occurs on the actual video sequence too (you will notice black frames at the end of any video playback before returning to a menu page), which means you will have to adapt the length of *every* ac3 media to fit to the corresponding mp2 media.
Another workaround for looped background media is to manually specify the length of the media and set it a little bit shorter then the ac3 media length (which is reflected by the automatic calculated media length).
Since this is a Vegas bug I will file a bug report for it.

Andreas

Apologies for bringing this up again but i still have problems with the looped media versus audio in DVDA (3C)

I can get an "almost perfect" loop but the moment i add either ac3 or wave the loop is gone and gets a couple of extra black frames. Have made the audio a little bit shorter but it never gets near good as the looping motion menu without audio.

Has anyone else found this behaviour and/or a workaround or is this simply a bug as suggested above?

Rudi

I had this problem in DVDA3b and haven't tried it since, but mine was with menus not intro media as the intro transistioned just fine. It only did it on one project and I extended the last fram of my video out just a tad further than my audio and it fixed my problem.

I've had this crop up once or twice. I didn't spend the time to nail down why it was doing it but just worked around it by decreasing the length of the loop by 1 frame. I did this on the time line and just moved the out point left 1 frame. If your sound is critical (mine wasn't) this may not work.

Plus, as was mentioned, the loops and transistions are never really seamless. In some of those instances though, I think it is mainly due to slow processors on the DVD players more than any type of bug in DVDA.

Thanks - the idea is to use the same looped media for the intro media and menus and looping until a user selects an option.

DrLumen: what exactly do you mean by 'critical sound'?

I realize loops and transistions are never 100% seamless but as said the 'looped media' without audio got me near satisfied. Will continue to do some more adjusting and see where we get.

By critical I mean that it was important that the sound exactly stay in sync at the time of the loop, ie. beat matching at the loop point. If this were the case, dropping a frame or two at the end may not be desirable for you as there would be a "jump" or "stutter".

Personally, if I'm using music in the menu, I have the volume do a quick fade in at the beginning and then pick a good break point, like the end of a chorus, and have it fade out near the end of the loop.