End Actions -- I'm Baffled

dvddude wrote on 4/30/2004, 1:32 PM
End Actions are unquestionably the most requested feature in DVD-A v1; now that we have them, either I can't figure them out, or they don't do what I thought they would do.

I have a 90-minute video file with 20 chapters in it. I want a link to play the entire file (easy), and a menu of chapter links to begin play at various points to the end of the file (easy).

I was led to believe that with End Actions, I could further add buttons that would play a single chapter [of that same video file] and then return to the menu, in addition to the above. In the past, I had to duplicate the media files on disc to do this, but everyone said that End Actions would make that a thing of the past.

However, End Actions in DVD-A2 seem to be applied either at the Menu level (in which case, it's just a "timeout" activity) or at the Media level (which affects anything associated with that video file). NOT at the button-programming level.

So is what I'm trying to do possible and I'm just dense? Or am I really back to square-one and need to duplicate the media files like I have been? (Meaning I have to compress them twice as much.) I'm lost at the moment; this is why I upgraded, but I expected End Actions to be a kind of "script" applied at the button level, not at the 'target.'

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/30/2004, 2:11 PM
> I could further add buttons that would play a single chapter [of that same video file] and then return to the menu

You could have done that with DVDA1. (I did it all the time) Just adjust the in/out points of the chapter link and it will start and stop wherever you want. If you want two chapter links, one that stops at the end of the chapter and one that continue to the end of the file, just copy and paste the link and adjust the end point of only one of them.

You are correct that end actions will control what happens when you hit the out point of a Media file. In DVDA1, the end of a media file always returns to the top level menu (even when you were on a chapter menu). Now you can tell it to go back to the last menu that was shown (could be any one of several if you link to the file from different menus) or go back to a particular menu (i.e., the main menu) or continue to another Media file.

So yes, end actions are assigned on a file basis but you have much more control over where they go. What you want to do was always possible with DVDA1. Just copy and paste your buttons instead of adding the media twice. Of course, in DVDA2 you can just make two buttons and then link them to the same file and set their in and out points to two different places in the file and get the control you want.

(Edit: actually I just tried this in DVDA2 and it appears that you can add a file multiple times and set different in and out points and the optimizer is smart enough to just burn it once)

~jr
dvddude wrote on 4/30/2004, 4:58 PM
Thanks!!

I guess I misunderstood that aspect of the timeline; ehrn I move those markers, the project window at left suddenly shows a series of broken links, so I assumed the worst. I guess experimentation is in order.

(Sorry about the double post; I had written this, got my arm bumped (seriously) and I thought the page had been lost, so I wrote it all over again only to see now that both posts were submitted. My apologies!)
kameronj wrote on 5/20/2004, 4:53 AM
Although I haven't officially burned anything with the new end-actions yet....what you wrote about in your post I agree with JohnnyRoy could have been done with DVD1. I have definately done that with DVDA1 may o'time.

One thing that I would caution on - if I read the last line of JR's post correctly - you don't actually have to add the file multiple times. Just copy the item that is already placed on the DVDA screen.

With the second copy of the 'link' you can modify the start/end points until the cows come home. And DVDA doesn't see it as adding multiple files.

(NOTE...I just re-read the next to last paragraph that JR wrote....and he already covered this. So you can disregard my post in it's entirety. ) :-)
dvddude wrote on 5/20/2004, 2:32 PM

Thanks!

We worked through my problem in this thread:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=276957&Replies=13&Page=3

...and I'm a happy camper now!

I don't see how v1 could have done it without end actions, though, since each sub-section would have returned to the previous menu instead of jumping right to the next sub-section.
kameronj wrote on 5/21/2004, 4:45 PM
I could further add buttons that would play a single chapter [of that same video file] and then return to the menu

Glad you got it worked out. I think we were both going off the above sentence in your original post to go back to the menu. In DVDA1 when you started a clip (set different in/out points) it returns to the menu from which it was called.

So....no...in dvda1 you can not finished one clip and go on to the next without end-actions. That's the beauty of end actions.