If I'm reading you right, all Page 1 does is play a video and then move onto to Page 2, which actually serves as a menu. If that's the case, why not just have one menu (with those two buttons) and add your "animated background media with music" as introductory media?

(Or even better: Render the animated background and the menu background to one file, set that as your menu background, and set the loop point between the two segments.)

Rob

The reason of two pages is the background photo on page 2 I definitely want to use.
The question is not why not make a one page menu, but why on some DVD players both pages are being ignored.

Scott, indeed I set the start flag on the first page.
Scripting I never done.
Maybe something in the DVD player set-up?

The reason of two pages is the background photo on page 2 I definitely want to use.

I guess I don't understand what you're trying to do. My suggestion above doesn't preclude you from having whatever you want on the menu page, photo or otherwise.

Rob

FWIW I think this is something maybe no one's encountered before because as bStro posted, just usually not the way it's done. That's not to say you shouldn't be able to do it. Maybe there's a problem in the way you've got it implemented, with the one player, or even something about the way DVDA writes the instructions to the player.

In DVDA 4 you set the menu to auto-activate a button after a set delay -- it's easy enough that it should only take a minutes or two to create a test layout using still backgrounds that you could burn to RW & give it a try in your player that's having problems.

If it works, then take another look at your media, media lengths, and so on. If it doesn't work, then perhaps your player has problems with DVDs auto-activating a button. In that case maybe you'd want to try installing a trial of DVDLab Pro or similar & duplicating your test -- If that works forward your experience to tech support.

Or... if you don't care why and simply want a solution, use the intro media feature. If you don't want to re-create your menu mpg2 in another program like Vegas & then import into DVDA, simply use PgcDemux to strip it out of your existing DVD layout, and import that as the intro media, with your desired menu page as the end action. Should take 5 minutes or less.

I am still digesting what you are suggesting.

But I cannot believe this menu sequence has not been used before. For me it's quite logic to play a short animated intro and automatically move to a second page where you can click away.
Timings, end-actions etc. are correct. In preview it works flawlessly.

Thanks, Dries.

"...it's quite logic to play a short animated intro..."

If it helps at all understanding the background behind the replies, everything on a DVD is mpg2 video -- whatever you create on a menu page in DVDA or another authoring app is going to be rendered to mpg2 video. [note: that's why I could suggest earlier just taking the rendered mpg2 from your 1st menu, and inserting that in a new version of your project, one without the 1st menu page.]

In my opinion most of the time advanced graphics are done outside of DVDA, often rendered to mpg2, and then imported that way. I know putting the video on a menu page as you've done has never occurred to me -- perhaps it hasn't occurred to many or any others reading this thread?

"In preview it works flawlessly"
FWIW, personally I suggest not trusting the preview 100%, but rendering any project to your hard drive for testing using the DVD Player software your viewers will likely use. Similarly I then test the 1st burned disc -- it can make a difference. Then I go to the players. But that's just general advice -- doesn't directly apply to your problem I think.

I played with DVDLab Pro2 to achieve what I want.
But as this program does not like some of the files I offer I still favour DVDA over DVDLab Pro2. E.g. if you want to feed a MP3 which is not 44.8 KKz, the program simply refuses to accept it, while DVDA accepts almost everything.
I also fail to find a project preview option. If it's there it's quite obscure.

However I wish DVDA would incorporate the way DVDLab Pro2 handles text and menu objects, which is superior over DVDA.
I guess I will be using both programs, depending on the project.
Would be nice if Sony would put some effort in the text and object enhancements of DVDA.
The same holds true for text handling in Vegas, which is downright disappointing.

Somewhat unrelated, but at least it may help you feel like you're not alone and not crazy ...

I had the first 13 seconds of an animation i'm producing done and wanted to see how it would look on a TV, since i generate progressive video i always want to make sure it looks ok on an interlaced screen before committing too much time to each project. So, i rendered it to MPEG2, then in DVDA i dragged the mpeg clip into the main menu frame, thereby creating a single page menu with a single item. I prepared and burned as usual. The preview worked, giving me a single item to click which then played. It worked in PowerDVD. It worked on one of my DVD players.

However, on the other DVD player, the video itself started playing immediately. No menu was ever displayed. If i clicked the menu or title buttons on the remote then the menu page would flicker for about half an instant, and the video would start playing again. Even stranger, when the video finished playing i would get a directory menu, where the DVD player was showing me the directories and files stored on the disc rather than a DVD menu.

*shrug* Strange things do happen with DVDs.

Did you ever play your DVD in the "odd" DVD Player before? Sometimes a DVD Player will automatically resume where you last played it (hitting the STOP button twice will sometimes "erase" that memory).

Regarding DLP -- it expects dvd-compliant assets because it doesn't have its own encoders (well, it can do some encoding, but for the most part it expects dvd-compliant assets). The reason DVDA accepts non-compliant audio is because it can encode for you.

Also, you did not miss anything -- DLP does not offer a real "Preview" of your full dvd. Although you can compile a "TEST" project to verify the menu navigations (it's alot quicker than compiling a full project (if your project includes long/large assets). You also have several "Report" options to show you your project setup/assets/navigations -- but it's not the same as a real PREVIEW (which is probably one of the top-10 wishlist items for DLP).

FWIW there seems to be a widening range of DVD player (& disc) quality & features. It might be interesting to see if this behavior is common to any particular brands/chipsets, or perhaps DVDA, maybe under some circumstances. Comparison would get easier if DVDA with it's current lower pricing becomes more popular, but I don't know that it's there yet.

I'd guess that showing a directory structure would indicate some confusion over the type of disc. If so, if DVDA was used to do the burning, perhaps something there is amiss? If not, & Nero or ImgBurn or similar were used, then maybe DVDA is doing something with the 1st play PGC that is within std but not totally common practice -- DVDA IMHO does seem to put in a somewhat higher number of dummy menus. Another thing that *might* be unusual, DVDA's placement of video in title sets seems dependent on their placement in the directory structure on the left pane of the window. I noticed this recently & haven't tracked it long enough yet to say too much more than it happens.

That said, I suppose that searching for a DVDA problem could be tilting at windmills so-to-speak, if the problem is due to the player or media it finds harder to read. I'm very far from expert on troubleshooting, but I've found more than once that coincidences do happen -- maybe it was a marginal disc(s) of a manufacture that the problem player doesn't like?

RE: DLP vs. DVDA... Personally I think it's apple & oranges... the programs take almost completely different approaches to authoring from a GUI standpoint. The 1st time I tried DLP I liked it -- the 1st time I tried DVDA I loathed it. In my experience DLP has more problems than DVDA4 importing mpg2 files with screwed up time stamps, & is a bit more difficult to set chapter points. DVDA takes longer setting properties (I do not consider the tabbed properties an improvement), & authoring a DVD isn't as intuitive or logical a process. DVDA has great sub syncing/handling - DLP does OK with subs, but adjusting their start time can be an obscenity-laden bear.

I consider importing a non-DVD compliant asset irrelevant to the more than casual user -- there are more than enough freeware or low cost apps to create/convert compliant media beforehand. Preview is nice to get an indication of what's happening, but personally as posted I don't trust it completely -- DVDA smart rendering of projects is absolutely great in that regard, letting you test your menus along the way.