Have you used DVDA before or is this your first time?

Do you have the .sfl sidecar file in the same folder as the video file? You must not rename either file, since the video file name is contained inside the .sfl file.

You need to make sure they are timeline markers too. I just finished working on a DVD and this time I used media markers that I created within the Trimmer in SVP 12. I did this so the markers would stay with the scenes I filmed. Before rendering to mpeg2 via the DVDA 24p widescreen template, I promoted the media markers to timeline markers by selecting the event on the timeline and using the script that ships with SVP 12 under Tools...Scripting. After rendering the video and audio separately, the chapter markers were automatically shown in DVDA 6.0 when I brought in the video.

As long as you've rendered with the option to include markers - which is usually the default - you shouldn't need to 'load markers' in DVDA. And if you haven't ticked that box, they're not there anyway. The only time I use 'load markers' is if I've replaced the video file with a different one. As mentioned above both the rendered file and .sfl file must have the same name and be stored in the same folder. It's this file that contains all of the relevant info.

Firstly many thanks to all who responded. This is not my first time to use DVDA, but I am on a learning curve with VP12. The answer was indeed to make sure the option is selected to include markers in the rendered file ... I must have switched it off during my initial messing about when learning about creating custom render templates.

Strangely the .sfl file doesn't seem to matter much ... as well as that, I notice that the batch render script in VP12 annoying creates files with the render template name appended, meaning that if you want DVDA to automatically find your separately-rendered video and audio, you have to manually rename them after render. As a newcomer to VP, this is confusing because it would appear that in earlier versions, this was not so (?) and many tutorials refer to the ability of DVDA to "automagically" find the corresponding audio file. I have a few coasters with no audio as a result ....

Just an update to this, following some further research.

As far as I can determine, there is no way to batch render files in VP12 and be able to load them, audio in sync and markers intact, in DVDA (I tried DVDA 6.0, but I don't think this worked in 5.2 either). Contrary to my previous post, the .sfl file seems to be where the markers are stored, and without this no markers are available to DVDA. The problem is, if you batch render in VP12, the .sfl file contains no markers, and it doesn't appear to be possible to customise a template to include metadata. In addition, the files get the template name appended with guarantees everything is FUBAR.

So .... it would appear that the only way to get chapter markers from VP12 into DVDA is to manually render, so that (a) the files don't get renamed and (b) the .sfl file gets the markers written to it.

Perhaps it's time I got into scripting and had a look at the batch render script.

First of all back out DVDAPro Version 6 - the current build is defective in many ways.
Return to DVDAPro 5.2 or 5.0b even better.

Think you are mistaken about what batch render does - but not sure where you are coming from and on what version of VegasPro that it works properly.

There are many tools for batching include scripting and third-party tools that will help you out. But again not sure why you might be pursuing this tact - it is really, fairly said, to be unnecessary to a productive implementation. I myself render on a server farm with many SCS threads running and this is because of high-level of business production requirements. Most people don't need this.