Thanks Dave,
What do you suggest if not a playlist for playing a handful of files back to back, including the ability to NEXT and BACK between them, and create a chapter select menu. I'm manually done it so that one loops to the next, but the buttons don't function.

Be forewarned about the following issue with prev/next button review:

If you use the built-in create chapter selection with scene change you can ONLY make that work properly if all buttons for that choice are on the primary menu page 1- THIS WILL NOT properly work on many set-top players if you bury it on sub menu.

Prev/NEXT function would get you from separate video to next separate video in many (but not all) cases of set-top players and when not necessarily confined to main menu page. However, your resulting control will be erratic- because a quick second-press of the prev/next button can skip the next logical expected choice or produce some other erratic behavior depending on the firmware of the set-top player.

Would suggest you take using prev/next button off your mindset and if you are distributing to others - try to give them fair warning that they should not be thinking of deploying it in their personal viewing of your work.

Using separate videos with button-specific links is recommended for your authoring plan. You can use in/out points as means of importing one long video that can be segmented into these kind of specific links as well.

for reading in study:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=22&MessageID=818394

If you create an Music/Video compilation your clips will be converted into a single title with chapter points automatically placed at the boundaries. You can then create a chapter menu that will behave as you desire.

Thanks :) I tried a compilation before and something didn't work with it, but I just did it again and got what seemed like good results in the preview. It almost doubled in size of the project, making me have to drop to about 10Mbps. I'll do a test render and see how it looks. I just deleted the buttons from the old project, so I'm not sure if the media is still stuck in here somewhere. I don't see it in the tree. I just see my compilation and chapter select.

EDIT: I never took the tracks out that I had used to create a playlist, so they were in there as well....removing them brought the size down so I was able to get up to about 22Mbps.

Hi Everyone,
It seems that the NEXT and BACK buttons don't work in my compilation. Insert Chapter is greyed out too. This is really weird. I don't know why this is so difficult to get working. Does anybody know how to force chapters in a compilation? Thanks

Do the Next & Back buttons work in Preview? The chapters are created automatically at clip boundaries. You cannot add more chapter points.

Jay, see my earlier post in this thread. Don't know about what choosing compilation wizard is going to cause. We have been referencing prior menu based wizard for setting up your authoring plan.

Keep in mind, that the preview functions in DVDAPro screen are mouse based actions and truly cannot represent a performance QA experience with a set-top player which uses firmware to interpret the authored disc.

So author your disc, then let us know what the peformance based QA is in a set-top player connected to a TV screen.

Thanks again ITguy,
From your previous post, you mention something about this breaking when using multiple menus for my chapter select. Would this work if I cram all my chapters into a single menu? I've now tried this two ways with the same results:

1. Add my 14 chapters to a playlist. Create a "Play All" button with every chapter, then a submenu (2 pages) with 7 chapters per page, each end action going to the next chapter.

2. Add my 14 chapters to a compilation, then use the "Insert Scene Selection Menu" with 7 chapters per page.

Both of the above produce the same results...the video plays fine, and I can chapter select fine, but NEXT/BACK do nothing at all on my Panasonic BD player.

PS - I don't know if this is important or not. But my discs are very sensitive to the player. They won't play in most players. When I made my first project 2 years ago, I went to Best Buy and tested it in a number of their players before finding the cheap little Panasonic that would play them. I bought it on the spot because I was so excited that it played, but could this be a problem, and is there a setting that makes them easier to play on the majority of players? I am rendering in 1440x1080 29.x fps in .mt2 files directly out of Vegas 11 Pro. Thanks!

Reread my first post above very carefully. We want to get away from playlists and don't create scene/chapter wizard except will work on first menu only.

You indicate that your Panny is cheap and sensitive. I would suggest you have go to get back to square one with:
1) Taiyo yuden /JVC or Verbatim dvd blanks only - Use only DVD+R for your finals - DVD-RW can be trial mode only but may be problematic as well as their reflectivity is more sensitive
2) Disc sensitivity can sometimes be improved by firmware upgrade of the set-top players. NOTE firmware upgrades are dangerous - no way to undo kinds of operations.
3) Disc sensitivity can indicate your burns are weak because of poor conditions in your burner - if the unit was cheap and old - I would recommend replacing it.
4) Begin trialing your burned discs in five or more different DVD players - actually preferably new Blu-ray players now - preferably at the $100 price point US retail.

Hey ITguy,
Thanks for the response again. I will be monitoring this thread most of the day today, so I appreciate your input. My original panny didn't play discs, until I bought the cheap panny from Best Buy. It was a $100 unit when most were $200+, but it played my disc. I only use Verbatim discs for authoring (currently using http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00471HK0Q/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00 )

I was thinking of upgrading my firmware, but I don't know if that alone will fix the NEXT/BACK issue I'm having. You recommended not using playlists or a compilation. What do you suggest? I created a project in Vegas of all my rendered output, making essentially 1 single long file for DVDA. Chapter markers didn't come over with them, but I read that's because I didn't pull my .sfl(?) file over to DVDA. That'll be what I try first when I go back at it this afternoon. In all honesty, the NEXT/BACK thing isn't a huge issue...I would just like this functionality as it's the last thing to make my disc perfect.

Firmware will not make Prev/Next function work on most players unless it is possible the manufacture date of the original player is newer than Sept 2011 and firmware for the unit is even newer. Not a likely scenario to help you.
Disks are ok.
Your burner could be sick
Prev/Next function will generally be a lost cause for you other than Menu 1.
You should use the DVDAPro wizard to introduce an authoring plan that is "menu" based...this method requires you to establish a manual link for every video asset in you import. Lots of work to do it.
Your marker file is only established to begin with inside of the VegasPro render - their is a little tickbox to check that option - the default is off.

Thanks again :) I've always suspected my burner (LITE-ON) as being the culprit for not playing in many players. As far as the menus, I don't use a wizard and didn't know that there was one. I just did this manually as that's what I did before. I will look for a wizard (using DVDA 6.0) now and start a new project. As far as my single file test, I checked the correct box, but then didn't bring over the .sfl (I think that's the extension) file into DVDA, and read in a related post that this file is needed for DVDA to see the chapter markers. I will try a few things out this evening and report back tomorrow with my findings. I really appreciate the help with this. I've been working on this project for almost a year now, and it is so close to functioning 100% :)

Hi Everyone,
I may try doing this again using multiple playlists for each chapter selection button, though I'm not 100% sure this will work either. Here's what I have currently, which is working for everything EXCEPT NEXT/BACK chapter selection:

Single Compilation of 12 rendered Vegas files in .mt2 format and chapter selection menu from "Insert Scene Selection" function.

I was told (I think by videoITguy) that I should create a single project in Vegas and render it with chapter selection markers in place. I tried this but the chapter selection didn't even work in the preview (which is does for the compilation above). I may return to this and try it again, but am not sure.

I'd love to have the NEXT/BACK chapter selection buttons work, but they don't for some reason (except in preview) and I'm running out of time, so I might just stick with the compilation I created. I just wish this functionality worked, as it did 3 years ago for me. Thanks for all your help and suggestions everyone, and if you have any more, I will definitely listen as I have a few days before this needs to be finalized. Thanks and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! :)

DVDAPro Version 3.0 (a very long time ago/?) was the last version of this app that had different underlying code for some features.

I made my last one on DVDA 5.0 ...wasn't using Pro at the time, just standard Vegas Movie Studio 10....NEXT/BACK worked back then, but isn't now for some reason...very weird :)

I may try the single Vegas file again for "fun", but am not sure :)

You need to be clear, especially, in this forum and thread, what software you are dealing with. You have never said...and you frequently jump topics leading me to believe that you are moving back and forth between DVDArchitect Studio and DVDArchitect Pro applications. These are different animals and very different version changes among them.

I HOPE you remain with the full-featured sets of VegasPro (version?) and DVDArchitectPro (either version 5.0b or version 5.2).