Thanks. Full version. All End Actions are pointing to the proper exact locations -I did this when the default was not working. I renamed because when I select a destination, I would see multiple copies of the file name, and when I checked the link, it would point to the wrong submenu.

The one thing I did differently with this DVD than from previous similar ones for other jam sessions: I used an existing session as a template, deleting the old files but leaving the structure.I had to modify it somewhat, different number of songs in the playlists/menus. But the design and process are identical. In the originals, I believe everything worked as expected, so perhaps by altering the links I have changed MPG files but left the default action links pointing to the same position as the original

The Layout looks like this:
dvd-jamsession.dar
Stingervs2: introduction media
Top Menu
top menu (Page1)
Performance Order
Performance Order (Page 1)
1: Link Playlist 1
2: media
3-12: media
13: link-top menu (Page 1)

2: Title Oder
just like Performance

3: Artists
Artists (Page 1)
1:Musician1
Musician 1 (Page 1)
1: Link-playlist 4 (his playlist)
2-n Media featuring the artist
n+1: link -Artists (Page 1)

2-12: Musician 2, etc...
13: Link: Top Menu (Page 1)

4: Link playlist 2
5: Credit reel-media

Playlists
pl1..pln

The structure is as self-consistent as I could make it. The Performance and Title menus are identical except for the order of tunes. The Artists' menu is a grid of jpgs of the artist, linked to another menu-based selector. Each video, linked from the menu, should return to the menu either when Next or Menu is pressed, or the end is reached. From a playlist, Next or End Action should move to the next playlist item, Menu goes back to the respective menu. All very standard. Menu and Command Destination links have been selected as well. When I did not do this, the selection would return to the wrong menu, or off into a black hole (no video, nothing but to return.) And as I said, it all works perfectly within DVDA. Is there a setting in the actual DVD creation functions that I might have inadvertently changed? I understand much of what I am doing, but the various codec and related options are a mystery, I rely on the preset settings of DVDA and Vegas, and it seems like this is where the disconnect may lie.

If you see something out of place, please note.

OTOH, maybe you're right, I may just need to update to a newer version, but I like Vegas 6.0, and I'm not ready to buy hi-def cameras...

I don't know about trying to bridge so many separate titles in dvda -- haven't tried it.

My approach would be to first render all my files into one long file with the appropriate chapter markers. Then it is a one-step import, and I can set the various menus with whatever buttons I want with chapter destinations and their designated end actions.

Hmmm. Never tried that. This has always seemed to work in the past, with 12 songs, 16 artists. I think I may just have to start from scratch to ensure proper linking, then I won't have to worry about bad or left-over cross-links...

End Actions are irrelevant if you are hitting the Next button on your remote / player.

The player reads and executes an End Action when it reaches the end of that media. But hitting the Next button, you're skipping the rest of that title. Well, specifically, the current chapter. But if you're on the last chapter, the player skips the rest of that particular media item. It never sees the end of it, and thus never reads nor executes the End Action assigned to it.

At any rate, the Next (and Previous) buttons are for navigating between chapters within a single title, not skipping between titles themselves. I wouldn't expect any consistent behavior for what you're trying to do -- not with DVDA or any other authoring app. Go with musicvid's suggestion -- you'll have better luck. That or drop your videos into a music compilation (renamed music / video compilation in more recent versions of DVDA).

Rob

Rob, thanks for that. This has always worked before, on 7 or 8 projects, so I didn't expect it at this time. I thought of Next as GoToFileEnd, as it seemed to behave that way.

I do want full control over the actions in the project, I haven't looked at any other ways to set it up. I'll check it out, thanks.

I have set End Actions for every video. If I added it as media, I set the End Action to return to the Most Recent menu, I aklso have tried setting to the specific menu and follow-on location (next vid highlighted.) At the suggestion from another site, I added Chapters at the end of the videos, so Next has something to point to.

I did the same with only one set of Media imported, and using Playlists for the rest. of the selections. I theory, I believe I have now tried every variation of File vs. Playlist, both setting explicit locations in one version and allowing Most Recent actions in a different version. With and without the Chapter markers at the end of the vids.

In theory, every video has a chapter mark at the beginning and the end, every playlist has a place to go. And it still is totally screwed up ( I can see no logic to the selections, thosugh they are consistent for a given selection.)

As I have made a number of these in the past, and THEY ALL WORK FINE, I simply am without a clue. I have become very frustrated at the result, please someone give me a suggestion.

I don't know how to make it work with one huge 4G video and chapter markers. How does the app know when to exit?

To reiterate: I have 12 videos. I want one menu with all presented in their original order of performance. I want a second menu with the same videos in Title alpha order. I want a third menu as a submenu, under which are 11 'Musicians' menus, each of which contains from one to 6 songs. As I said, I have a bunch of these that work, and no idea what to do with this one...

I don't know how to make it work with one huge 4G video and chapter markers. How does the app know when to exit?

You import multiple copies of the source video and set the in and out points so that they point at the individual (12) chapters. In practice DVDA puts only one copy of the video onto the disc.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. I just recompiled my 12 masters into one long file in Vegas 6, inserting chapter begin and end chapter markers, and losing a generation in the process. I imported into DVDA, and none of my markers were recognized. Must I re-create the entire set a third time? This really doesn't seem like a very efficient workflow, it seems to me there is something I am missing from the entire paradigm. I am about ti spend many more hours trying to fix something that should not be broken in the first place...

Philosophical perspective (I am not directing this at you, Mike, this just happens to be the post where I have run out of frustration vs. satisfaction quotient...) but I am hoping you may be able to give me an idea of where my thinking is jumping the track, obviously I am missing something fundamental about the process:

Since 2002, I have been creating music videos of our local jazz community from multiple sources - some from up to four different video cameras, mostly very different (Pana 3CCD, Pana 1CCD, a Kodak handheld tiny box and a Canon camera set to video. Sometimes other attendees have their own video sources as well that I incorporate. And then the multiple sizes of photos, again from many sources. There is no rational way to create a single 2-hour video from this variety that can be rendered 2nd generation (1st being the originals, of course.) A single file would need to contain nearly 100 tracks over a 2-hour period, or a minimum of a couple dozen to insure audio/video sync. This does not sound like something a professional would choose to do, it's way too labor intensive and lossy. I would not accept having to work this way in my music recording DAW, which is basically very similar, and the reason I use a computer...

And a big part of my current frustration is that this has ALWAYS worked before, on many projects, and the process seems totally logical from my admittedly limited perspective (20 years as a software coder, so I expect logic in my apps). So either all the posts saying it can't be done are really just saying, "I never did it this way,", or I have been very lucky (which I am willing to accept if there is a clear explanation...) The one thing that I had not been doing in the earlier work was inserting chapter end markers(but the DVDs worked fine anyway.) So (I think) I understand the need for the end markers now. Logically, If I create a chapter top and end for each individual video segment, they should, in my mind, always know what to do next if they have been told (End Action, Menu selection and playlist, what else is there?)

It keeps coming back to my mind that there is some master Option or Preference that I somehow turned around, though I could not find anything that looked relevant.

Last thought, based on the DAW experience - is there a way to re-render without recompiling and losing a generation? We go to great lengths to avoid this in music, where it is far less obvious to the ear than next-gen video is to the eye.

Thanks for any insight you (or anyone else) can offer.

I'm sorry to say that my ability to help is very limited as I do not use Vegas - only DVDA Studio.

Perhaps someone else can take this further.

Mike

As was stated earlier, the NEXT button will go to what is next physically on the DVD when used while a video is playing. In the past you said you built the project from scratch, but in this case you used a previous project as a template. This could be causing some of the problems. I am usin DVDA 4 which allows you an option to order the titles on a disk, I don't believe 3 does this but if I remember correctly, the titles are ordered on the disk in the order that you import the media. In the past you probably imported the media in the order you wanted the project to play. But since you used another project as a template, this logic was probably confused. By replacing files, and I am only guessing here, the file order was retained from the previous project.

If you want to avoid generation loss, use a lossless codec until your final MPEG render. Lagarith and HUFFYUV or both compressed/lossless codecs for building intermediary files. They work well and you suffer no generation loss.

Dave T2

TOG62, I tryied importing ne long copy with all the ins and outs set. DVDA lets me select when to START playing, but not when to end - it only lets me continue to the end of the video and does not recognise that it should stop at the next chapter marker. What am i missing? Do I need a different marker type? Didn't see a reference to this...

DaveT2, that's a great idea about using lossless codecs, but I do not see where to insert them into the system (all my rendering options seem to be predefined, the Custom settings do not allow me to select codec and the primary types don't show these either (MPEG-1, MPEG2, etc.). How do I use HUFFYUV with Vegas 6? The manual is no help - and I don't wish to work in ...

TOG62, I tryied importing ne long copy with all the ins and outs set. DVDA lets me select when to START playing, but not when to end - it only lets me continue to the end of the video and does not recognise that it should stop at the next chapter marker. What am i missing? Do I need a different marker type? Didn't see a reference to this...

With each clip in turn (except the last) on the timeline click on the marker for the next chapter and set that as the out point.

Mike