DVD - Menu Highlighting can't be seen?

organism_seven wrote on 10/1/2002, 1:43 PM
Hi,

I know this is a bit off-topic for this group, but as a lot of you seem to be involved in DVD authoring your finshed Vegas projects, I was hoping you may be able to help me.

Like everbody else I fear the problem of my DVD-R discs being incompatible with DVD players. But I don't know if my problem is a compatiblity problem or a DVD authoring problem.

I have a Pioneer A04 and I am using Uleads DVD Workshop 1.2 to author my discs.
Everything works perfectly in my own Pioneer standalone player and on my PC (using PowerDVD). But on two other DVD players (a Sony and an LG), everything loads up perfectly, but the highlight navigation system is gone! It is still there, because if you press the play button a chapter will begin playing. You can select further chapters, but you are doing this blind because you cannot see what chapter/button you have actually selected.

Anybody have any idea whats happening here?
Can I do anything about it?

TIA
Regards

organism7@blueyonder.co.uk



Comments

nolonemo wrote on 10/2/2002, 7:06 PM
try asking in the authoring forum at vcdhelp.com. Very active & helpful site.
psg wrote on 10/2/2002, 9:56 PM
I wonder, could this be a issue of the highlight color that DVD workshop is using to indicate where you are on the menu. I noticed that with some my DVD's created with DVD Workshop the highlights look fine on using PowerDVD, but are not very noticeable on one of my DVD players. You might try changing the highlight color to something more that has more contrast. Just a thought.
organism_seven wrote on 10/3/2002, 4:56 AM
Hi,

Thanks for the feedback.

After some digging I have discovered that it is actually a bug in DVD Workshop 1.2.
It seems that using certain combinations of menus and buttons supplied in DVDWS cause some DVD players to be unable to interpret the navigation instructions. Nobody knows exactly what these combinations are either.
There is an update, apparently, to version 1.3. on the "ADS site". I don't know what or where this site is. Most users experiencing this problem have gone back to using Version 1.0 until an official announcement and fix has been released.

I recently supplied 2 DVD discs to customers, (yes, I do weddings!), and when this problem showed up on their players, I assured them that they need to consider getting new more compatible DVD players, to ensure the successful playback of DVD-R discs. I did this in good faith, believing this to be the true problem.

Thanks Ulead! With all the headaches of trying to ensure compatibility with DVD players that already exists, they supply software that makes matters worse!!
This has really put me off ever using this program again.

So I want to use some other user friendly DVD authoring software that actually does what it says it will. I have been looking at Dazzles DVD Complete.
Anybody using it? What do you think of it?.
Any info appreciated. Thanks.

Regards
Organism Seven

bcbarnes wrote on 10/3/2002, 7:38 AM
I'm using DVD Complete with videos created in VV3, and it works quite well. Great features for a reasonable price. They do have a bug currently with their motion background stuff, but a new release is supposed to be out soon. The auto-menu generation is Ok, but some things aren't editable (unless you are a programmer and like looking at scripting languages as a hobby...). I have heard that they are supposed to be enhancing this as well. You might want to download the demo and take a look.
nolonemo wrote on 10/3/2002, 10:33 AM
Apparently the 1.3 patch fixes this bug. The patch is at www.adstech.com.

Go to their support/downloads section & submit under category "USB products" and product "USB InstantDVD".
organism_seven wrote on 10/3/2002, 1:15 PM
Hi,

Thanks for the link.
But I wonder why this patch is not available at Uleads own website?
Perhaps its because the info says it "improves navigation compatibility".
Improves not fixes it!
Maybe this patch is just some sort of quick fix, not a proper cure. As such, maybe Ulead don't want to admit to it, or even offcially support it?

But I'll give it a try anyway. Not much choice!
How many other users of DVD Workshop are out there, that Ulead are keeping in the dark over this issue? Reading the forums they were informed of this problem at least two months ago. How many dud DVD discs will have been authored in that time?
Doesn't bear thinking about!!

Thanks again for the help and feedback.

Regards
Organism Seven


nolonemo wrote on 10/3/2002, 1:44 PM
And why doesn't Ulead's site even mention the 1.3 upgrade when the product has already been reviewed! I've never been able to get into the ulead forums, the site is always down or too slow. . . .