DVDA3 audio selection

SimonW wrote on 5/17/2006, 5:59 AM
Yeah, I know this should be in the DVDA forum, but more people come here than there.

Has anyone here had any success creating sound setup and subtitle setup menus in DVDA3?

I can't seem to get them to work. For example, on a commercial DVD you can select, for example, English subtitles and the Dolby Digital or DTS track that you want. Then, if you select to go back to the main menu and then play the movie your settings are remembered.

However in DVDA3 if I make a setup menu, if I go back to the main menu before playing the programme it defaults back to the original settings.

Anyone got any solutions other than creating seperate versions of all the menus, menu fade out animations etc that all go to the selected subtitles and audio tracks?

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 5/17/2006, 6:15 AM
I did it with a parallel menu system. Two identical menus, one with subtitles on, the other with them off. Click on "On" and you are taken to the other set of menus, and vice versa.
SimonW wrote on 5/17/2006, 6:52 AM
Yeah, I thought of doing that. The only trouble is that it will become very full. I have all sorts of different menu transition animations which will all need to be duplicated. Then, if someone goes to the extras menu as well I will also need to create seperate links for them as well so that it remembers the settings when they return to the main menu.

How do commercial DVD's manage it?
johnmeyer wrote on 5/17/2006, 7:23 AM
How do commercial DVD's manage it?

Scripts.

There are registers in every DVD player that can be set to different states and then later tested. Advanced DVD authoring software has the ability to set and test these registers via scripting commands. You can look at the web site for DVDLab to get more info. I think Encore also has this.
bevross wrote on 5/17/2006, 8:11 AM
" ... look at the web site for DVDLab to get more info ... "

Does this mean that DVDA can't do any of these alternate menu settings then?
johnmeyer wrote on 5/17/2006, 9:09 AM
Does this mean that DVDA can't do any of these alternate menu settings then?

Yes it can, but only in the manner I mentioned in my first post.
kkolbo wrote on 5/17/2006, 10:01 AM
That is strange. The audio track choices are persistant. That means that they do not change unless you tell them to. I have made several DVD's with setup menus using DVDA3.

I do not go back to the first menu, but I do go back to menus that are root title menus. Make sure that you have 'do not change audio track' selected in all of your actions. Also make sure that you have coresponding audio tracks for all of your media.

I will do more checking, but I have never had to do what you have described.
kkolbo wrote on 5/17/2006, 10:10 AM
I have confirmed it. It is persistent. You must have matching media selections though. For example, if set-up changes things to the #3 audio track, all media must have a #3 audio track. The second you go to a media that does not have a #3 track it resets the audio track to 1.

I just built one using the setup off the main menu and have double checked the behaviour.
peter-sieben wrote on 5/18/2006, 12:20 AM
I also have good results using DVDA3. I recently made a dvd with 3 language main-menu's (Dutch, English and German), Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 audiotracks. And it has 2 subtitle tracks (English and German).

I looked how some commercial dvd’s in Europe set up the disk menu. What I did was making a startup-menu where you can choose your language. Choosing one of the 3 options set the default subtitle track to the right version (none, subtitle 1, subtitle 2), but always with the first audiotrack (5.1) as a default. Every startup menu-item also launched it's own main-menu in the required language.

The first menu I made (in Dutch) launched the feature movie (default subtitle=none, default audio=track 1 containing 5.1 audio). The other two language main-menu's where linked to launch-movie of the first menu. So you don't have to burn your movie 3 times on the dvd, but once. And as the dvd player remembers the selected subtitle track from the start-up menu selection, all 2 subtitle tracks (Dutch wasn't required) were inserted into the movie that was located behind start-movie button in the Dutch main-menu.
Each language menu also has a change audiotrack option. So there are 3 menu’s on the dvd (for every language) where you can change the audio to track 1 (Dolby 5.1) or track 2 (Dolby 2.0). These 3 audio menu’s jump back to their own language main-menu. So the subtitle selection made in the startup-menu isn’t changed.

When the viewer wants to change it’s previous subtitle selection (and main-menu language), they can jump back to the start-up menu from the 3 main-menu’s with a Change Language/Subtitle button. So they start all over again. The only disadvantage of this routing is that if a viewer selected Dolby 2.0 in for example the German language main-menu, the dvd-player defaults back to 5.1 audio after he returnsto the start-up menu making a new subtitle/menu language selection. But I can live with that.
SimonW wrote on 5/18/2006, 1:57 AM
I'll have to try that one. However, what about subtitles? DVDA doesn't allow a subtitle track for menus, so they can't all have one.
peter-sieben wrote on 5/18/2006, 12:45 PM
Hi Simon,
I'm not sure whether my info was clear enough (English is not my mother language).
I made three different main menu's in DVDA3 (a Dutch, English and German one), each containing buttons for triggering the feature movie, going back to the startup menu and changing the audiotrack (5.1 or 2.0). I had to give every menu it's own audio sub-menu, as I wanted DVDA to jump back to the main menu where the audio-submenu was launched from (i.e. from the English menu, you jump to the English audio setup submenu and after choosing your audiotrack you are returning to the English main-menu).
The feature movie has only been inserted in the Dutch menu, it has 2 subtitle track (English and German) and 2 audiotracks (5.1 and 2.0). After playing the movie, the dvd-player return to the menu where it was launched from (do NOT change the default end-action of the feature movie to a specific menu). From the English and German main-menu the buttons from the 'start movie' are pointing to the 'object' behind the 'start movie' button in the Dutch main-menu, so after playing the movie lauched from the German menu, the dvd-player jumps back to the German main-menu. (Making these buttuns in DVDA are a bit tricky, check the manual to be sure).
My dvd was given a set-up menu, having 3 buttons: Dutch, English and German. Every button triggers the corresponding main-menu mentioned above. But you can give each button a 'set subtitle track'-option, by setting this option to the number corresponding with the proper subtitle track that's behind the start movie-button of the Dutch main menu. The dvd-player remembers this number, until some other menu changes it, or until the viewer changes the subtitle track with his remote controller or otherwise.
So you don't have any subtitle tracks for menu's, you can set a subtitle track selection in a button that lauches another menu like I did.
Hope this is of any help.