All that should be necessary is to have chapter markers. It's up to the DVD player to decide what to do with the markers when the user hits the back/next buttons.

"..The back/next button is supposed to go the previous/next chapter. What did you want it to do?.."

Right. But the next/back function on the preview "remote" gives me a circle with a slash through it.

"...Do you have chapter markers or scene/chapter markers set on the timeline for each chapter? ..."

I created the chapters by dragging files into the Menu page, it automatically creates a chapter. The chapter markers are the orange flags at the beginning of the segment, correct? They all say the same thing - 1: Scene/Chapter

What you have created is a series of titles. Within each title you can create chapters. These are what the previous/next controls operate on.

You have to tell DVDA where you want the chapters, i.e. where the next/previous buttons should jump to.

Place the cursor on the timeline where you want a chapter and press M (for marker).

If you intend to have menus, each scene selected by the buttons on the scene menu are also chapters, and such markers are therefore designated scene/chapter markers.

If you want a chapter point only that does not link to a menu then you would use a chapter marker.

You can right-click on a marker and change the marker type.

If you want a chapter point only that does not link to a menu then you would use a chapter marker.

I think this applies only to the Pro version of DVDA.

"I created the chapters by dragging files into the Menu page, it automatically creates a chapter. The chapter markers are the orange flags at the beginning of the segment, correct? They all say the same thing - 1: Scene/Chapter"

The important thing to note is that it created a single chapter, Chapter 1, for each of those files. Since there's only one chapter there's nothing for the back/next button to do.

You need to understand the distinction between chapters and titles. It sounds like you have several titles, which are individual movies. But for each title, it sounds like you have only set one chapter. The NEXT/PREVIOUS function is designed to navigate between mutltiple chapters in a single title.


Dave T2

"..The NEXT/PREVIOUS function is designed to navigate between mutltiple chapters in a single title..."

Okay maybe I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the protocols. I have several separate mpeg files I want to have as my chapters.How would I get the next/back button to jump between files/titles?

"I have several separate mpeg files I want to have as my chapters.How would I get the next/back button to jump between files/titles?"

Create a project with a menu. Choose an appropriate background or replace it with an image of your choice.

Make sure that the audio and video of each movie (called a "title", not to be confused with the name of the movie which is also called "title") are located in the same folder. From the explorer pane of DVDA, drag each video onto the menu, which will become a button. Change the button appearance as desired.

By default, each movie will return to the menu after playing. To step on to the next movie, return to the menu and use the four-way rocker. You can change the end action of each movie to play the next movie instead if you wish, and you will then be able to use the next/previous button on your remote control.

The other way to go is to combine your separate movies into one file using Vegas and insert markers at the start of each part. Then create a DVDA project with a main menu and a scene menu.

"Okay maybe I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the protocols. I have several separate mpeg files I want to have as my chapters.How would I get the next/back button to jump between files/titles?"

Render a single MPEG-2 video file and AC-3 audio file in Vegas with Markers at your desired chapter points. Import the video file in DVDA. It's that simple. Job done.

I actually made a DVD with what I have, I found that the back/forward buttons work on the DVD player. They don't on the preview view within DVDA. Software bug?

Players vary in how these buttons perform, but the standard is to navigate through chapters. DVDA preview does this correctly. All this has been explained already.

You probably got lucky and have the titles in the correct physical order on the DVD. Normally, on a DVD if you hit next with several titles, it will go to the next physical file. sometimes these are in the correct order and sometimes not. And as was stated, may not work the same on all DVD players.

Dave T2

Players vary in how these buttons perform, but the standard is to navigate through chapters

??

I have yet to see a desktop player that does anything else but "navigate
through chapters" in sequential order.

I should probably clarify - I didn't say I've never made a DVD before - made dozens
of them with Pinnacle Studio 9, but the methodology is different.



...All this has been explained already....


If I find an alternate file sharing service I'll share some screenshots and you can tell
me if it looks to you like DVDA is doing it correctly or not.

In lieu of that, looking at the navigation pane to the upper left that shows the structure hierarchy, here's what
it looks like. Hopefully it stays lined up:

Note - all the text by the link icons shows up in green. The film icon on chapter 1 has a white star against a
purple background. The final chapter link icon has a ? over it.

Project Name
_ -(film icon) 1: Day 1
__ -(link icon) Link - Day 2(1:Day 2)
_ -(film icon) 2: Day 2
__ -(link icon) Link - Day 3(1:Day 3)

Etc. to final title 6

_ -(film icon) 6: Day 6
__ -(link icon w/?) Link - Most recent menu


The above reflects what shows up in the media properties box to the right looking at
the "End Action" fields - 1 thru 5 shows an end action of going to the next one except
for title 6 which shows the end action of going to the main menu. I put a Chapter
marker at the beginning of each title.

Based on this do you see any reason the << Prev / Next >> buttons on the preview window shouldn't be causing the project to go to the next chapter?

I put a Chapter marker at the beginning of each title.

This is what has been explained before (half-dozen times by my count).
You want one title with multiple chapters.
What you do not want is multiple titles with one chapter each. Just complicates things.
Neither the DVDA remote simulator nor many DVD players do it the way you are trying.
Best of luck.

Robert,

I don't know what version of Pinnacle you used, but the version I had would build the DVD on the timeline. You would add each video to your timeline and it would become a chapter.

In the world of DVD, Pinnacle would make one video with several chapters. It did all of this for you and you didn't have to change anything. DVDA is a more advanced program and as such, requires more input form the programmer. In this case, as we have explained, you have several titles with only one chapter on each title. Think of a title as a book. A book can have several chapters, if you want to jump to another book (title) you don't just flip the pages to the next chapter, you have to open the other book.

If you want the chapters to function correctly, you need to combine each video (title) into ONE title and add chapters at the beginnning of each segment which originally was an individual title. This is what Pinnacle did for you automatically.

Good luck.
Dave T2

I don't know what version of Pinnacle you used, but the version I had would build the DVD on the timeline. You would add each video to your timeline and it would become a chapter.

You can add chapters within a single file, at the beginning of a new file, take the same file, chop it up and put different parts of it in different places, put chapter markers anywhere.

What musicvid seems to be saying is that the ONLY way to make chapters in DVDA is to place multiple chapters within a single file. I appreciate the assistance, I assure you I'm not trying to annoy him or anyone else - this point was NOT clear to me from previous comments or from the help files and "show me how" videos within DVDA. They also show dragging multiple titles to the menu. That's one of the problems I have with typical "help" resources within apps, they're scripted in a sterile, clinical way and don't anticipate this kind of confusion. I've heard the Vegas products were very non-intuitive, I can see why people say this.

Further muddying the picture is that when doing it the way I've been trying to do it, it works perfectly fine in my hardware DVD player as well as Media Player Classic.

So, since it gives you the option, under what circumstances would you want to drag multiple files or "titles" onto the menu?

There is another way to achieve what you want and that is to drag all your clips into a Music/Video compilation. This will create a single title in which each clip becomes a chapter.

So, since it gives you the option, under what circumstances would you want to drag multiple files or "titles" onto the menu?

In some circumstances it is not necessary or desirable to have each clip play automatically after the previous one. This cannot be achieved with chapters.

I just made a large Blu-ray project (2 hrs) and since it was essentially in two parts, I rendered it as two parts and combined them in DVDA. Both parts also had scene chapters. I made the menus (main and scene) appear as though it had been made with one large file and the appropriate scene markers.

I was surprised when I played it in my hardware media player that it was not the same. There was a brief pause at the end of the first half, and the message "loading" flashed up on the screen before the second half played. Furthermore, the displayed elapsed time started back at 0 again. So the project was still two separate parts.

Moral: if you want a project to be an integrated whole, then render it that way.

"So, since it gives you the option, under what circumstances would you want to drag multiple files or "titles" onto the menu?"

I do this often. Many times i have a few short videos that i want to distribute together on one single disc. I want each video to have it's own menu with chapters. I create each video separate with chapter markers, then drag each to the main menu of the DVD. That way there's a link on the main menu to each separate video (title). When one is selected, a submenu for that video comes up with a menu for the chapters within it.

The next/back buttons move around the chapters within each individual video, but if you want to go to a different video you have to return to the main menu to select it.

A very typical commercial example is when you insert a Hollywood DVD and are greeted with a menu for Main Feature, Extras, Previews, etc. Each of those is a separate video title, and each contains chapters within.

"A very typical commercial example is when you insert a Hollywood DVD and are greeted with a menu for Main Feature, Extras, Previews, etc. Each of those is a separate video title, and each contains chapters within. "

Yes, but using <<- ->> during playback still doesn't take you to the next title, which was (is) the OP's original point of confusion here.

Right!

I thought i said that in the previous paragraph. ;)