The way a DVD navigates between separate videos is controlled by more than one setting. Almost everyone trips over this.

You probably already know how to control which video plays next when the current video is finished playing: end actions. For each separate video, you first select the video from the project list on the left side of the DVDA screen, and then select the End Action property on the right side of the screen. You then specify for the End Action which video will play next.

But, you say, I already did that, and yet when I press the chapter button on my remote, the stupid DVD skips to some random video, rather than the one specified in the end action.

Yup, that's right.

The reason for this is that the "end action" only specifies what happens when the video file ends, hence the name. However, when you press the chapter button, most DVD players (and this is unfortunately dependent on the DVD player) don't look at the end action flag, but instead simply go to the next titleset. And -- this is the key thing -- the next titleset is simply the next numbered VOB file. The reason for this is that you can have multiple playlists and many different ways in which you can take exactly the same set of VOB files, and play through them in a different order. Thus, you can have one button that plays through the video file in one order, and another button that plays through them in a different order, even though there is only one set of VOB files. However, as soon as you press the chapter advance button, the player will simply look for the next numbered VOB file.

So, the trick is to get DVDA to number the VOB files so they match the order of the end actions you specified in your main playback area. Fortunately, starting in DVDA version 4, this became quite easy. You simply use the "Order DVD Titles" option in the File menu and change the order of your video files to match what you have set for the end actions.

The emulator built into DVDA seems to follow end actions and therefore is not particularly helpful in figuring out what is going on, i.e., when you press the next button in the playback emulator, DVDA will go to the next video based on end actions, not on the titleset numbering order, even though most players operate as I've described above.

So the fix is simple: just make sure the title order matches the end actions order.

So, the trick is to get DVDA to number the VOB files so they match the order of the end actions you specified in your main playback area. Fortunately, starting in DVDA version 4, this became quite easy. You simply use the "Order DVD Titles" option in the File menu and change the order of your video files to match what you have set for the end actions.

Rats, this is not available in the Studio version. I could have used it.

that's a HARD way. ;) (but still works) What DVD's you buy in the store do is much easier: at the very end of the video, put an extra chapter as close to the end of the video as possible. So if you have a movie with 10 chapters, there's an 11th @ the very end. Put the end action on that one.

Why? Because when you're in chap 10 (the end as far as anyone knows), hitting "next" goes to 11. Because there's a fraction of a second there's no time to skip it & the end action is run.

Works perfectly every time. :D