I also would like a certain menu to shop up if the user stops the video.

Stop the video how? By pressing Menu? Navigate into the movie and all relevant remote button options will be enabled.

Or by pressing Stop? You can't. Stop means, "Stop playing this disc. Period." That's how all DVDs are. You can set up a jacket picture (only supported by some DVD players), but that's all it is, a picture.

Rob

I agree that I should burn a test-DVD to be sure. But before that, I think everything should work in preview mode.

So my question remains unanswered:
What configurations need to be made in order to have a certain menu show up when I press the Menu button in preview mode?

This is not a property of the menu but of the media. When you press the menu
button you are playing media and must direct it from there.
Media Properites/Remote Buttons/Menu/Destination

As far as I can see it defaults to the most recent Menu but if you want a diff
page you can direct any media to a specific destination including a menu.

So my question remains unanswered:

Funny, I'm pretty sure I answered it when I said, "Navigate into the movie and all relevant remote button options will be enabled."

As xberk reiterates, if you want to control what happens when you press the Menu button while on a MOVIE, you need to navigate into that MOVIE in order to access its properties (including its remote button settings).

If you're trying to control what happens when you press the Menu button while on another MENU, you don't get to. That is determined by the DVD player.

Rob

Thanks to everybody, I found out about it, finally.
I am completely new to video editing, and the DVD Architect is also not the most intuitive app I have encountered.

Firstly, I was not sure what "Navigate into the movie" meant.
Secondly, I played my media as a menu's background video, which obviously is wrong.

Now I've got it working!

Ingvar

Secondly, I played my media as a menu's background video, which obviously is wrong.Yeah, be careful about using the video either as a motion background for a menu, or as a motion background for a button. If you want to do that, use Vegas to edit a short (30-90 second clip) and use that. If you don't, then you'll encounter one of the most common mistakes made by those new to DVD creation: not enough space on the DVD. What happens is that if you use the entire video for the background or button, it ends up getting used twice. Even if the resolution and bitrate is reduced (as it will be for a button), it will still take a huge amount of space. And, obviously, you don't need a ninety minute video (or whatever the length of your main video might be) for the background of a button.

As for the interface, each object in your project is shown on the left side. This includes the video and associated audio that are the core of your DVD, along with menus and scripts. The preview is shown in the center. On the right is the property inspector (or whatever DVDA calls it). Thus, when you double-click on something the in the project list on the left side, you can alter its characteristics with the tabbed list of stuff on the right side. Along the bottom are various tools. Some of these are an extension of what you can do on the right side, but for things that don't fit into a menu interface (such as putting markers on the timeline for your video).

As to whether it is a good or bad interface, you could talk to one hundred people and get one hundred different opinions. The one thing I can say for sure, without much fear of being contradicted, is that the interface for the most part follows the same conventions as Vegas. Thus, if you have learned Vegas, you will find that most things operate in the same way. At least for me, this made it easier to learn (since I had been using Vegas for quite awhile before DVDA was first introduced).

John,

thanks a lot for your comprehensive reply!
Being new to video editing, I am a seasoned PC user though. I have used Cakewalk Sonar more than a year, as well as Sony Sound Forge and dozens of VST plug-ins, iZotope, etc.

Besides of this, programming is my profession :-)
Usually, I am up and running on new software in a snap. When looking for the right video editing software, I tried several applications, and even threw away some hundreds $$ on Adobe Premiere, ULEAD, and "Acme Video" before I stumbled across Vegas.

Vegas is precisely what I was looking for, and I was up and running immediately. With good help from the people here in this forum, I have learnt even more. Sony Vegas just rocks, a great piece of software it is.

However, I maintain that DVD Architect, to me, is a somewhat awkward application.
Maybe this is just me, because I am used to think in a certain way.

I hav had problems with this:

- How do I have a button show up after a certain amount of time has passed? (Yes, I can make a copy of the meny and send it over to this when the time has passed, but then the background music probably will restart)

- How can I alter the highlight color for a selected button?

- How can I have a certain background music play during the menu phase, without restarting even when the user hops between menus?
Hm.. Maybe a property of the "menu folder", I am at work and cannot try it..

I have also not found any tutorial, a step by step guide guiding me through the process from A - Z creating a DVD that looks and behaves like the commercial ones, with animated buttons, sound clips etc. etc. Such a tutor would have saved me most of the time I now have to spend on learning it from the ground up.

Ingvar