BR Disc - Main Menu loses highlighting

EricLNZ wrote on 12/2/2014, 4:10 AM

Just doing my first serious BR disc, a nearly full one so preparing and burning are an exercise in patience!

DVDAS 5.0 Consumer Version Build 186, which is the latest update.

My project consists of a main menu with three buttons linked to sub menus.

The sub menus contain thumbs for individual videos plus a Playlist button for all the movies on the page, plus a button to return to the main menu.

All works well except if I play a movie then want to stop it and return to a menu I have a problem. Pressing stop or pause on my Panasonic BR player remote, then the remote's "Top Menu" button (it has no "Menu" button), brings up my main menu. Great, but none of the three buttons are highlighted so I cannot play anything or navigate. It's the same if I press Top Menu whilst the video is playing.

I only have one commercial BR disc, a BBC one, and this behaves okay. My remotes Top Menu button returns me to the menu I came from with the highlighting intact.

I've tried experimenting with short test projects, changing end actions, highlighting, but haven't touched any of the Remote Buttons settings as Top Menu" is by default On. My test projects work perfectly with the main menu appearing with highlighting intact.

Any ideas anyone?

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 12/2/2014, 5:27 AM

I wonder if your problem is related to a long standing problem affecting at least some older Panasonic players. If you use DVDA to make a BD consisting of a top menu with a subordinate scene menu, you can play the movie directly from the top menu and skip between scenes (or chapters) using the player's remote control. However, if you access the sub-menu at least once, then the skip buttons no longer work.

I presume that when you test your BD during the authoring process, everything works properly. Is this so?

If yes, then I suggest that you try your BD on another player, that is not Panasonic, to see if it is player specific.

videoITguy wrote on 12/2/2014, 1:19 PM

I cannot be sure, but if I read and interpret the OP post correctly then he is indeed experiencing the submenu next event play bug.
There are several alternatives - 1) test on a multitude (5 or more) Blu-ray players of most recent vintage - If none will do what you expect. Then scrap your project and start over.

Recommend never creating a submenu with buttons that link to next event media or chapters. Restructure your authoring so all the next activity can take place at the main menu level only. Totally different independent events can be structured to a submenu if you want to do that..then just program a return to main menu button at submenu levels.

EricLNZ wrote on 12/2/2014, 7:16 PM

Thank you Peter and VideoITguy for responding. Interestingly I don't get problems with supposedly less sophisticated DVD projects.

Peter - my Panasonic player is two years old with firmware updated this year when it gave problems starting up.

I have no scenes or chapters. My media consists of separate videos. As for testing during the authoring process I assume you mean with DVDAS's preview. The answer is it doesn't work and I don't rely on it. If in Preview I navigate to a sub menu then play a video and then pause, pressing the menu button results in a small blue circle with a line through it in the top right corner. I assume this is a "sorry, cannot do that" message. Using Stop takes me to a blue screen with circles and no buttons respond other than Play which reloads the main menu with highlighting.

As for trying other BR players unfortunately our club players are Panasonic and the very few people I know with BR players are all Panasonic.

VideoITguy - you have given me food for thought. Instead of sub menus use extra pages to my Main Menu? Link these pages appropriately to Page 1 so that effectively Page 1 is my main menu and the other pages sub menus but actually all are at the same top level. I'll give it a try and report back in a few days.

I don't quite understand your last sentence. Could you please expand on it. Thanks.

videoITguy wrote on 12/2/2014, 9:26 PM

Attention EricLNZ - if you are suggesting that you think DVDAPro Ver 5.0b + cannot be trusted in the preview of your project - THEN That is just plain incorrect. The Preview mode is nearly foolproof in that checks for complete conformity to optical disc standards. Ignoring an error at that level would be your certain peril and you simply cannot author correctly until you trust it.

What is the problem is firmware, manufacturer, and design of set-top players. And what you may witness is that later firmware patches can ruin an otherwise good performing player. Generally though you are to trust firmware in Blu-ray past the date of September 2012. Not perfectly but better than it was.

As for your interpretation of menu pages being different than submenus - yes that is true - and does offer you a way to do some things but sometimes awkwardly for an interface to novice users.

When we speak of authoring we suggest you think of media assets. Importing one asset is possible that can be broken into chapters. When broken into chapters - it gives you some special handling properties. As you stated DVD authoring does not meet exactly the same criteria as Blu-ray authoring and that is by design. Unfortunately SCS has left one little bug in the Blu-ray - per Peter - that indeed will never be fixed by SCS.

EricLNZ wrote on 12/2/2014, 10:05 PM

Thanks videoITguy. Actually I only have the Consumer 5.0 version.

My non reliance is in respect of actions like stopping and returning to menus because the remote buttons in the Preview do not correspond with my remote. It is unlikely they correspond to many remotes as that would be expecting a lot! Navigation and end actions to movies I check thoroughly and do trust DVDAS.

videoITguy wrote on 12/3/2014, 12:46 PM

EricLnz - your post above is even more puzzling than the previous - I think you are composing and writing in shorthand which probably leaves out some critical thinking.

Your set-top player remote looks nothing like the DVDAPro simulation screen because remote design is all over the place by manufacturer. This is in the comment previously established. The simulation is to conform to the optical disc standards, not what remotes look like. Once you appreciate that - everything that can be checked for authoring errors is validated by the simulation.

Playing on a specific firmware/hardware is another matter.

EricLNZ wrote on 12/4/2014, 1:01 AM

Success.

Reorganising my project so all pages are following pages of one top level menu, thereby doing away with sub menus, has solved the problem. Thanks guys.