How to?: Play audio on first visit to main menu, but not on second

prairiedogpics wrote on 5/18/2004, 6:01 AM
I have a DVDA2 project. The disk loads, plays some introductory media, and goes to the "main menu" (which has "Play", "Scene Selections", and "Extras" as the choices). A song plays in background for the Main Menu. All is good. However, lets say, as a viewer, I go to the "Extras" page, just to see what's there. Then I return to the Main Menu. The way it stands now, when the viewer returns to the Main Menu, the background song plays again. (Basically, the song starts anew EACH TIME you return to the Main Menu.)

Is there anyway I can make the background song NOT PLAY on subsequent visits to the Main Menu? In other words, I just want it to play the first time I visit the Main Menu. I don't know if there is a way to do this, and if there is, I can't figure out how to do it.

Thanks,
Dan

Comments

bStro wrote on 5/18/2004, 7:37 AM
*shrug* Pretty much every commercial DVD I know of has menus that play the same audio/video every time you go to it -- I don't see the problem.

But if it's really important to you, I suppose you could make an exact duplicate of the your main menu, but make whatever changes (e.g., remove the audio) you want to it. Then change any end actions that lead to the main menu to lead to your duplicate menu instead. Do this also for the "return to main menu" buttons on any submenus.

With this setup, though, if someone presses the Menu button on their remote, I think they'll go to your original Main menu. To remedy this, you could disable the Menu button wherever in your project you feel you need to.

Is this a lot of hassle? Might be. Is it worth it? I don't think so. But you might. ;)

Rob
prairiedogpics wrote on 5/18/2004, 9:14 AM
bStro,
thanks for the input. Yeah, I agree, every commercial DVD does the same thing. It may sound odd, but the music on the Main Menu on my DVD is funny the first time time you hear it. But with each successive listen it becomes annoying! That's why I want to disable it on future go rounds....

thanks for the advice. It never hurts to ask :)

Dan
bStro wrote on 5/18/2004, 10:30 AM
Makes sense. I know I've had my share of "funny the first time, then just annoying" moments (much to my wife's chagrin). You can try the method I described -- your viewers might appreciate the extra work you put in. ;-)

And there might be a simpler way or an easier way of doing my method -- someone will speak up if they know of one. Multiple audio tracks would be useful for your situation, but DVDA provide them them for menus.

Rob
johnmeyer wrote on 5/18/2004, 10:46 AM
I was going to suggest the same thing as bStro. Should work, and it should take up much additional space on the DVD.
prairiedogpics wrote on 5/18/2004, 8:27 PM
Well, I tried bStro's suggestion. Worked like a charm! I just "navigated into" my Main Menu, chose Edit>Select All, Edit>Copy, then Inserted a new page at the same hierarchy level as my Main page, pasted in the contents of the clipboard (basically all my buttons). Changed the end actions for all pages accordingly to have them go the the duplicate page that has no audio. Took me all of 5 minutes.
No more annoying audio!!!

Highly recommended solution.

Thanks,
DAn
bStro wrote on 5/18/2004, 9:52 PM
Sweet. Glad it worked out for you (and that it wasn't much of a hassle).

Of course, this doesn't stop the annoying music from coming back the next time you put the disc in. ;-)

Rob