The results I'm referring to are with a burned DVD. By the way, each clip also had chapter marks.

To reiterate, if clip 1 is played, the remote's "next" button moves through all of clip 1's scene marks, and then continues with clip 2, and so on. Once the last chapter/scene marker is reached, the "next" button does nothing. Clip plays till finished and then returns to main menu.


Brian

I've been using DVDiT! for a while, and recently bought the Vegas + DVD package. As for Vegas, I must say it is a great product. However, DVDA seems to lack MANY features. Unless of course, that I'm doing something wrong.

I'm simply trying to duplicate a simple process that I can do with DVDiT!

For example, I have 3 video files. Each file is totally unrelated. Therefore I want them handled separately from 3 different menu pages.

All I want is a main page menu with three buttons where I can then select which page to go to. I don't want that main page to play the video, I only want it linked to another page. On the pages that then come up based on which button I press, I want one button to "play" the video file I want played and then another for "scene selection".

I seem to be able to manage all of the above so far. Now, here's where things get strange. If I am playing clip one and use my TVtop player remote's "next" button, I get the next scene from the clip. (this is fine). However, once the last scene from clip "1" is reached it continues over to clip "2" and so on.

If you remember, I mentioned that the 3 clips are unrelated. I don't want a person to click "next" on the remote and end up viewing the other clips. Can I stop this from happening? I simply want the last scene of a clip to be last. For some reason, DVDA just continues on jumping to scene after scene, video after video.

I know with DVDit!, I just tell the program "go to" a certain button after clip is done. From that point everythings seems fine.


However, with DVDA am I missing something? Or is this another lack of capability on the part of DVDA?

The results I'm referring to are with a burned DVD. By the way, each clip also had chapter marks.

To reiterate, if clip 1 is played, the remote's "next" button moves through all of clip 1's scene marks, and then continues with clip 2, and so on. Once the last chapter/scene marker is reached, the "next" button does nothing. Clip plays till finished and then returns to main menu.

I would appreciate some feedback.

Thanks,

Brian

Here's the method that works for me that does basically what you want.

1. Drag and drop video anywhere to the main menu.
2. Double click on it which should open the video with a timeline below.
3. Move your cursor along the timeline setting your chapter points.
4. Click the the up arrow (back to parent)from this window once done with #3.
5. Right click on your video on the main menu page, select insert scene selecton menu.
6. A new thumbnail appears, move it slightly out of the way, delete the original thumbnail.
7. Click preview, a second page should have been created with all the chapter points. If you have 12 chapter points and you limit thumbnails to 4, then 3 sub menu pages will be created.
8. Close preview, Select this newly created sub menu page (or each in turn)from the drop down menu at the very top. Adjust size, space of thumbnails, size title as needed.

Repeat steps for each sub menu you want to create. Each video will act as a seperate video. Clicking on the thumnail from the main page will drop you to the first sub menu page. Any thumbnail on a sub menu page should play the video from the chapter point selected to the end of the video. There should be NO link to other videos.

I thought I'd done this and it didn't work as expected, but will reconfirm and let you know.


Brian

Your suggestion does not work.

Here's what I've got:

Main menu with two links. One goes to a submenu which in turn has its own menu with one link to play clip 1 and the other links to each chapter point.

The second link from the main menu page has the exact same submenu system. This one however is for clip number 2.

The problem I have is that when a clip is played from submenu number one and I use my remotes forward/next button, it moves to the next chapter. This is fine, however, once it gets to the end of clip number one, a subsequent "forward/next" button push ends up playing clip number two and then proceeds moving through numbers two's chapter point.

Without any action on my part the first movie clip with play fine and when completed go to the main menu. This DOESN'T happen if I use the "forward/next" button on the remote. It cycles through all chapter points for all clips. Is this the way DVDA is designed? I never had this problem with DVDit!.


Brian.

So far I tested 10 levels deep, regardless of the number of thumbnails the return button on my remote takes you back to the 1st sub menu page of the video you're viewing.

Perhaps some confusion comes from the terms we're all throwing around. Let be clarify what I mean by a main menu and sub menu page.

main menu: topmost menu, always the very first page you see when you start a project.

sub menu: is NOT the sub menu choice, rather a page DVD-A creates on its own AFTER you add chapter points to your vid and THEN do insert scene selection menu. THIS page or pages (if you have more chapters then you specify should go on a page) becomes which I'm referring to as the sub menu because it is where you get taken once you click on a thumbnail on the main page. After doing this you delete the first instance of the thumnail you dropped on the main menu from which you made chapter points. One of the reasons I find this clumsy.

Word picture:

Main Menu page. Each XXX is a thumbail for a seperate video.

Vid-1 Vid-2 Vid-3 Vid-4
XXX XXX XXX XXX

I drag a DVD compliant file to the page, let go, double click on the thumbnail, then add chapter points. Lets say I added 3 chapter points. Now select insert scene selection menu. Do NOT do this UNTIL after you entered your chapter points! Delete previous thumbnail.

Double click preview button at top right below tool bar. This should take you to the sub menu page that DVD-A just created.

Sub Menu Page

Chapter-1 Chapter-2 Chapter-3
XXX XXX XXX

What set top player are you using? I'll see if I can repro. Are you using version 1.0 or 1.0a of DVD-A? If 1.0, please install 1.0a and try repreparing your project and see if it still happens. Thanks.

I'm using 1.0a. The same scenerio happens with aad without patch.

My set top player is a Pioneer Elite model DV-C36.


Brian

One additional question... have you tried "resume" with commercial DVDs on this set top player and did it work as expected?

"resume" does what I expect it to. It "resumes" to the last point of when things were halted. In other words, it worked as expected.

I've burned many DVD's with other programs such as DVDit!, with the very same type of menu system it also works as expected. However, DVDA seems to not realise that separate clips are "separate".

I notice that my set top player has three display counters. 1) "Disk" - indicates what disk from the platter is being used. 2) "Title" - indicates what clip is being played. 3) "Chapter" - indicates what chapter is being played within the "title".

With a DVD burned with DVDA, the player reads the data on the disk as one continuous title. When I reach the end of, let's say for example, title 1, chapter 12, if chapter 12 is the last one, pushing the "next/forward" button on the remote takes me to "title 2, chapter 1". This should not happen. If I did the same thing with DVDit!, I don't get "title 2, chapter 1", the button doesn't do anything because the set top player realizes that it is on the last chapter, that there is no other chapter to move to. Once it finishes playing the clip, it returns to the main menu, or whatever the DVD tells it to do according to the way I burned the disk. As you may know, DVDit! gives control of such things. DVDA just does its own thing.

Please note that if I let the clip play with a DVDA burned disk, once the clip is finished it does go to the main menu. The problem only seems to occur when one scans through the chapter points using the remote.

Hoping you can visualize what is happening here.

Brian

My experience does not agree with yours. So far, using DVD-A I've burned 4 DVD's, each having several videos, ranging from three on one disc to seven on another. Under no circumstances does any button on my remote jump to the next video except of couse when you're selected WHICH video to start from the main menu page. See the tutorial I put up and follow the steps EXACTLY. Underless there is something weird with your remote you should get the same results.

Your example is exactly what I've done, unless of course I'm missing something. THe problem only happens when I browse through the chapter points by means of the set top dvd remote. The results are that it moves on from the first title's chapters and then keeps going through the second title and so on.


Brian