Hi and thanks for taking time to respond :)
Hope you remember me. We have discussed this before. I hope Sony has fixed that problem! It's not a bug that ruins everything, of course not; but the way version 3.0 deals with the NEXT button programming is totally wrong.
Greetz,
Mark

what's a "next" button? I have left/right/up/down/enter/play/pause/stop/skip chapter forward/skip chapter reverse/ff/fr & a varity of other buttons i never use on my dvd remote.

I believe the reference is to the "next chapter" button and its behavior in the last chapter of a title. People are complaining because generally the DVD player makes the determination of what constitues the "next chapter" when the button is pushed when within the last chapter of a title, and the end actions associated with the title are ignored, so you cannot have a link to some other menu or title that gets properly followed.

Since most DVD players appear to interpret "next chapter" when within the last chapter of a title as a command to skip to the next title, having the ability to change the title order (which DVDA4 appears to allow) should help somewhat. It still won't fix the issue where people want to go to a particular menu though - while I've not tried this, it can probably be worked around by having a short 1/2 second title of black video following each "real" title - the end action of the black title would specify to link to the particular menu in question. The end action for the "real" title would still be the menu, so that in the event people don't push "next chapter" they go back right to the menu rather than thru the intermediate title.

--Scott

Hope you remember me. We have discussed this before.

Yes, I remember. And I seem to recall that it was already pointed out that it's not something that can be "fixed," only worked around since different DVD players behave in different ways in the situation you described. There is a more common behavior, but it is not one that has been agreed upon by all DVD player manufacturers.

Let's say a director is doing a movie that involves attack dogs. He rents three trained attack dogs, but they were each trained by different people using different commands.

Dog A is trained to cease an attack when it hears the word Alpha.
Dog B is trained to cease an attack when it hears the word Beta.
Dog C is trained to cease an attack when it hears the word Gamma.

Trouble is, no one told the director which dog is which, and he has to be prepared for any situation.

In this analogy, DVD Architect is the director, DVD player manufactuers are the trainers, the dogs are the DVD players, and you're asking that Sony makes DVD Architect issue "the right" command that will work with every dog. Or, at least, whichever dog you usually have to deal with.

(Yes, I know trained attack dogs on movie sets come with a handler. Let's just assume the handler is really irresponsible and went off on a coffee break. ;)

Rob

i belive that black space is what retail dvd's do.

anyway... so what you're saying is that there's no way to specify what a dvd player does when it hits the end of a title (video/movie, aka the end of the last chapter)?

isn't that the destination & destination chapter settings? I've made DVD's with multiple titles & one button to "play all" (all titles straight through) & then the ability to play each title & go back to the menu (main or title chapter menu, whichever i choose). Those were also not in any particular order on the left , just whatever order i thrw them on. Infact, I have several dvd's (one open right now) where i tell the end action to go to another title then a specific menu.

Absolutely, you can specify what happens when the player hits the end of a title -- when it does so naturally. Meaning, the viewer sat and watched the movie, the movie finished, and the player finds that movie's end action and executes the intended command (ie, go to previous menu, or go to main menu, or go to Title 3).

What Mark is talking about is this: The viewer's watches a video, he's somewhere into the last chapter of that title. He decides he's had enough of this one, so he presses the Next Chapter button on this remote.

Because the movie doesn't actually get a chance to finish, whatever end action was assigned to that title is irrelevant because the DVD player won't even see it. So, what does the player do? Go to the menu from which they entered the movie? Skip back to the first chapter of that title? Skip to the first chapter of some other video on the same disc?

I don't know the DVD specs by heart, but either a) there is nothing in there that dictates what a player should do in this situation or b) DVD player manufacturers have somehow gotten away with ignoring the specs for this instance, because there is no reliable answer to the question I posed above. I believe that most DVD players are designed to skip to the "next" title on the disc, which is why DVDA4 now has a title reordering feature so that you have a little more control over the situation. But there are also players out there that are designed differently, so this is not a definite fix.

Rob

oh... ok.

then that is why most retail dvd's have 1/2 seconds of black asa chapter at the end (so you don't really skip that chapter).

but seriously, I took somse TV shows, edited out the commericlas, made chapters, etc. & a button to play all or you can go to each individual chapter. If I skip inside of the last chapter it still follows suit how i planed it out: always goes toeigther a) the menu if you just want to play that episode, b) the first chapter of the next title (show) if you hit the play all butotn, or c) the main menu if it's at the end of the last title of the play all button. (like TV shows on DVD, simpsons, etc)

I did this two different ways though (probley the first way is where this "bug" creeps in). Before I know about the stuff on the left, i would just have end actions directing from one cip to another, bypassing the menu's. This was kinda hardto get to work though.

I then jsut started dragging/dropping all my vid's to the left of the screen on the tree view, then i'd insert chapter menu's for each episode in the tree view, then i'd drop/drag those to the menu screen. I'd then make a button that runs a playlist, so it's not even using the chapter menu's.

But i've seen commercial DVD's with this same "glitch." On some movies, if you change the audio settings while playing & you started the movie from the "play" on the main menu, it goes back to the scene menu instead.

I've never really considered this a glitch just something to deal with when working with dvd's.

I've never really considered this a glitch just something to deal with when working with dvd's.

Precisely. :)

Rob

I think the confusing thing about this (at least to me) was that the preview in DVDA regarding NEXT behaviour didn't mimic real world DVD player behaviour. It wasn't until we got into this discussion thread on the forum about how players handled it differently that I was able to grasp how to do what I was trying to do and why the file order was so important. in the left pane I hope the NEXT in preview works more like the real world in DVDA 4. I think I caught a blurb somewhere that mentione that, but it's not in the release notes. I'm going todownload the trial tonight.

What would you consider "real world DVD player behavior" in this situation, and how does the DVDA preview differ? (This issue is rarely relevant to my projects, so I personally never really pay attention in such situations.)

At any rate, here's a thought. In addition to title reordering, I wonder if the new scripting features can help here. Never done any DVD scripting, but from what I understand you can set variables which get held by the DVD player itself, and recall those variables in response to actions. In this case, that action would be pressing the next chapter button, and the variable would hold the instruction for what to do (ie, don't go to the next title, but rather go to such-and-such menu). I imagine this is another way that "the big guys" handle the situation.

ScottW could probably explain how this is done in DVD Lab Pro. I haven't touched DVDA4 yet, so I'm not entirely sure how scripting is implemented or how much documentation Sony provided. Given how confusing they left theme customization, I'm not expecting a whole lot.

Rob

the preview in DVDA3 always matched what my PC DVD player & my settop DVD player does. I've never had a problem with that.

again, i don't see it as a bug, it's just the format. Like saying the tracking info on the bottom of analog VHS is a bug. It's part of the analog format. :)

Well, in DVDA 3 with a multiple video DVD, if you assign an end action to return to a menu on a video, if you hit NEXT during the final chapter, it will skip to the end of the final chapter and return to the menu in preview.

On my Ulead and Nero computer DVD players and on my desktop DVD Panasonic player, it will skip to the next video item on the list in the pane on the left. On another player, I believe it was a Sony, it just jumped to the end of the chapter and stopped.

That's what I meant by the preview doesn't follow what I've seen on other players.

Don't know if this helps but when I have chapter/section markers in a file I've rendered (and saved them with the render) clicking the next button on the player brings me to the next marker. You may be referring to adding multiple mpegs to the DVD menu, though, and this, of course, wouldn't have markers. Perhaps that's what Ulead & Nero do -- add markers between mpegs. Perhaps if you render as 1 big mpeg with markers?

When I want a DVD to continue following the order of my designated playlist, I put a dummy chapter mark right near the very end of a Title. So when the viewer hits the NEXT button in the final chapter of a Title, it jumps to that dummy chapter mark, then quickly finishes the Title and moves on to the next item in the Authored playlist.

HoHoooo... what a nice discussion around here! Sorry for my late reply...

ScottW:
]“I believe the reference is to the "next chapter" button and its behavior in the last chapter of a title. People are complaining because generally the DVD player makes the determination of what constitues the "next chapter" when the button is pushed when within the last chapter of a title, and the end actions associated with the title are ignored, so you cannot have a link to some other menu or title that gets properly followed.”

-I couldn’t have put it clearer. That’s it; thanks, ScottW. I still remember this issue has been discussed by ScottW, bStro and me…as I have stated right over there (above).

dStro:
“And I seem to recall that it was already pointed out that it's not something that can be "fixed," only worked around since different DVD players behave in different ways in the situation you described.”

-Fist of all, I would like to thank you for your explanations here. Thanks so much for taking your time with this.

-On the other hand, it seems I couldn’t make myself clear to some other users, I’ll try to do it now: I authored a DVD last year (with DVDA 3.0) and sent it to a friend, nicknamed Crusty (lol) who lives in Australia. He works as a Video Editor and authors DVDs for a living. I guess he is what one could/would call a “Pro”. Let’s see what he wrote to me at VideoHelp when he received my gift… (I stored my PMs so they make an excellent kind of guide for me)… nothing too private, therefore I can reproduce it here :-)

Crusty:
“I have never used DVDA so I cant comment on it I know the older version didnt work to well. The thing that I do know about these sort of authoring programs is that they work with abstraction layer technology i.e. almost everything inthe DVD spec is under a GUI to make thngs easier for general users. Even Maestro uses this technology which can be painful. Scenarist does not so you have access to the full DVD spec and complete control of your authoring environment. Back to your disk everything on it works perfectly fine and I hope I have this clear:
main menu folder ----intro1 (link to movie1) Yah Cool
movie1 intro2 (link to movie2) Should not be able to skip into movie 3
should return to menu with next highlight button selected.
movie2 intro3 (link to movie3) Should not be able to skip into movie 4
should return to menu with next highlight button selected.
movie3 intro4 (link to movie4) Should not be able to skip into movie 5
should return to menu with next highlight button selected.
movie4 intro5 (link to movie5) Should not be able to skip into movie 6
should return to menu with next highlight button selected.
movie5 intro6 (link to movie6) Should not be able to skip into movie 7
should return to menu with next highlight button selected.
movie6 intro7 (link to intro1, restart - no main movie) Link back to menu not intro (optional of course)
Once again this all optional and I am not criticizing your authoring but to me it just makes a cleaner DVD.”

-So, I guess this is the correct way to program the NEXT button on your remote control. That's its correct behavior. As ScottW has told me sometime ago, DVDA’s NEXT button should work according to the end actions… (if it was not you, sorry, ScottW... :-)

plasmavideo:
-You've got it, man! ;-)

GeorgeW:
-That’s very interesting your “workaround”, but it still is a workaround.

Cheerzzz folks, and have fun!
Mark

-So, I guess this is the correct way to program the NEXT button on your remote control. That's its correct behavior. As ScottW has told me sometime ago, DVDA’s NEXT button should work according to the end actions… (if it was not you, sorry, ScottW... :-)

Just to make sure we're on the same page. The issue is not with DVDA; the issue is that the DVD specification does not clearly define what a player should do when the next chapter button is pressed during playback of the final chapter of a clip. Any end actions that you specify in DVDA are essentially part of the video clip, if you skip out of the video clip by hitting next chapter, then those end actions cannot be executed.

There are 2 ways to resolve this:

1) Put a chapter mark almost at the end of your clip so that it will be unlikely that the user will have an opportunity to hit next chapter a second time and thus skip the end actions.

2) using DVDA4's new ability to order titles, place a short title after each clip and specify for the end actions for that title what you need.

Of the 2 solutions, #1 would seem to be the easiest to implement.

--Scott

In one ear and out the other...

Rob

Putting a bit of black with a marker in Vegas at the end of the clips is how I handled it after we discussed the topic months ago. The marker of course becomes a chapter marker in DVDA.

Also as mentioned adding the chapter marker in DVDA directly works just as well.

ScottW:
"Any end actions that you specify in DVDA are essentially part of the video clip, if you skip out of the video clip by hitting next chapter, then those end actions cannot be executed."

-Great, ScottW!

"There are 2 ways to resolve this…
1) Put a chapter mark almost at the end of your clip so that it will be unlikely that the user will have an opportunity to hit next chapter a second time and thus skip the end actions.
2) using DVDA4's new ability to order titles, place a short title after each clip and specify for the end actions for that title what you need.
Of the 2 solutions, #1 would seem to be the easiest to implement."

-Good! Thanks for the input….But ScottW, please note that you deduce that the user will not have an opportunity to hit next chapter a second time and thus skip the end actions.. So it's a deduction, isn't it...Hmmm. I guess what you're trying to say is pretty much like a picture showing an egg. You don't see the chicken, but you deduce there must have been one of them around there since you see the egg.. hmmm :-) So, what I mean is.. It is still a workaround.
Greetz,
Mark

Yes, it is still a work-around, but it has nothing to do with DVDA's abstraction layer as your contact down-under suggested. Instead it has everything to do with an oversite or interpretation issue of the DVD specification.

These types of glitches in complex standards are not uncommon.

As far as not being able to hit "next chapter" a second time, i'd hazard a guess that with 7.0/4.0, if you put a chapter mark on the last frame of the video (which you can now do), that the chances of having your end actions ignored are extremely remote.

--Scott

Good point Scott! Thanks for the input once again, even though a question remains... Does this kind of thing happen with Maestro and Scenarist?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Mark

One more thing please:
I've redone all actions inserting the chapters as it's been suggested. It works as a workaround :-) Thanks for the input.

Now, let's suppose we've got 5 buttons on the main menu. Let's suppose also that the button number 2 is highlighted. Hitting next, will make the DVD get back to the first button (at least prewing the project on DVDA). This happens because of the looping point. No deal.

I've also noticed that for each clip you've got a DESTINATION ITEM that can only be the start or the loop point (for the menu). So the Next button will not work as my friend from downunder had suggested. I mean, I wanted to hit NEXT, for instance, when button number 2 is highlighted and go to the intro (if there's one) or to the related movie clip itself, intead of getting back to the start point of the menu that will keep button number 1 highlighted.

I've thouhgt about a new workaround for this (at least not to have the first button highlighted). What about clonning the main menu for each of the 5 buttons setting an action such as activate button for each of the related buttons? Pfffffffffff ..That's difficult. Any ideas? Thanks in advance :)
PS: I hope this is not too confusing.