Thank you for this in depth description!

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As a side note, by default in 1.0a, the "return" button functionality has been disabled for prepared DVDs. You can turn this back on in the preferences (Options | Preferences... > General > "Enable Go Up button in videos") but be aware that the timecode and chapter numbers may not display on some DVD players. It's a trade-off. You can have one or the other but not both. (Most commerical DVD do not support the "return" button when in a video.)
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Can you please be a bit more specific on this, I do not fully understand - sorry.
What does it mean if the functionality has been disabled and what changes if I reenable it?

Thank you
Johannes

When it's enabled the return button should work on your set top player, however, some set top players may not display the timecode and chapter number when playing a video.

When it's disabled the return button will not work on your set top player when playing a video but the timecode and chapter will be displayed properly.

doboyd,

What you are trying to do is not possible in DVD-A. Adjusting the in and out points of a video can effect which menu the video will return to when the end of a video is reached. It will not effect the behavior of the menu button(s). The menu button(s) will always take you to the uppermost menu.

Due to the flexibility DVD-A allows in layout of your DVD and limitations of the DVD spec, it is not possible to always have the "root" menu button return to menu the video was initiated from. In this version of DVD-A, the "root" menu button will always take you to uppermost menu.

I think everything has been said now.
Thank you to everyone for this interesting in depth diskussion. I have learned a lot!

Regards from Vienna/Austria
Johannes

BillyBoy,

You'll have to point me to the post. If you understood my description on how the return point is determined, you'll understand that deleting a link to a video from a menu can effect the menu that is returned to by the video. (This does not effect the menu buttons, they always take you to the uppermost menu.)

No. The video will not always return to the menu it was initiated from. The return point is the lowest menu in which it and its submenus contains all links to the video (title). Please read the excerpt from the following post carefully...

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In regards to the "return" button, the logic behind this is not obvious nor is it easy to explain and that's what is causing the confusion. The logic attempts to do the best it can within the limitations of the DVD spec. It returns to the menu it came from when it can. However, in many situations, this is not possible.

Why? A video (title) can only specify one return point.

Essentially, when you add the same video multiple time in DVD-A (or create a scene selection menu), you are actually only adding links to one copy of the video (title). We determine the return point automatically. Since it has to be the same for all links to that video, the return point is the lowest menu in which it and its submenus contains all links to the video (title).

When you change the in or out point, DVD-A considers that a separate copy of the video (i.e. different title). (Although, it uses the same video "data" so it isn't on the disc twice.) When it's a separate copy (i.e. different title), it can specify its own return point. So, you can have different return points by having different in and out points for the same video.
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http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=167381&Page=0

Dear SonicSDB,

You said "in this version it is imposible for the root menu button to return to the sub menu that it was initiated from". I hope this means that this will not be the case in future versions. Judging from the number of entries in this thread it appears to be of some concern. I know it is for me.

Thank you,

Wobbly Boy

I also hope that this will be changed in a future version?
This makes it impossible to make that kind of DVD with a menu structure that a user is used to steer. In fact it is, that when the user does not let play the current title till its end (and instead pressing some menu key) he allways finds him back to the very topmost menu - which is not what anyone would expect.

Johannes

Johannes,

I hope So Fo is listening on this one as with the exception of this problem I think DVD Architect is a great product. However, as long as we're wishing, I would also like a time out on menu function so selected video would play after so many seconds and an after play function that would allow going to another video at end of play.

I don't get it or I got lost on the way....

My first DVD with DVDA...."Menu" button takes me to uppermost regardless of where I am..."Return" button (even if pressed in the middle of a video )played from a sub-menu takes me back to the sub-menu..That's what I expect it to do...or should I be expecting something different???

Return does not work in some players. DVD Archjitect does not allow root menu to return to sub menu. What player are you using?

Playing off a Sony DVP S336 (bought in autumn 2000). So I'm one of the lucky ones???? The remote has 4 "navigation" buttons (apart from the numbers, play etc):

Menu: takes me to main menu
Title: not sure what that does-haven't used/tried it yet but will do...
return: takes me to same menu the vid on show is being played from...
Display: brings up player settings etc...

I confess I haven't tried with chapters yet, but if it works from a vid I suspect it will if chapters are added...

I knew that the world of DVD was confusing to put it lightly...certainly in the self-made dvd world anyway...Never realised that the set-top player world was going to add to the confusion....

Anyway, all I can say is that I am really happy with DVDA so far...and I haven't begun 5.1 encoding yet! BTW, does all audio on a single dvd have to be the same format? (ie. 5.1 OR AC3 OR PCM)

PDB,

The buttons on your remote are specified by the DVD Forum. All DVD remote have the same core set of navigation buttons. The action that those buttons take is up to YOU - the DVD Author.

I believe that DVD-A requires that all audio be the same type.

Playing on a Panasonic, the Top menu takes me to the top menu, the menu takes me to the top menu, return has no effect. In DVD Workshop, top menu to top menu, menu to sub menu, and return has no effect????????

Wow this thread is getting long. I haven't had a chance to look, has anyone found a reference to the specs to really see what should be happening? Or are there no specs that govern how a DVD remote is suppose to act.

I'm assuming there got to be a least some loose specs at least equal to what the W3C does for HTML and XML. Anybody find any such a reference so we can put this to rest?

I can't believe that it really is this willy-nilly with different remotes handling common actions differently or that you can or should be able to overide, that only leads to confussion if every time you pop a DVD in your player your remote can/does act differently depending on how the DVD was "programmed". I don't think so.

BillyBoy,
I agree entirely...but it does seem that remotes do act differently...how come? no Idea over here....but I hve been following this thread closely to the point I decided to try mine out...and as I posted, my DVD does seem to react as I would expect it to...
So my reasoning is that it is not simply an authoring issue: and up to that point, I give Sofo credit. My next reflection is that whatever I do in the authoring stage might work as I would expect it to (ie: according to my player) but who knows what might happen if I take it to my parents to show them...
But there again, I did go through the VCD gamble: Sony actually answered a mail I sent them saying my VCD playing DVD player would NOT play burnt VCDs. Well it does, if you burn it on the right media and with the right rendering settings. Similar issue with the +/- rw/r thing, and the media for that matter...

We live in a confused world...and my feeling is that the more confused, the happier the manufacturers (hardware manufacturers....)

There again, I don't make a living from this, and I do sympathise with those who do.

To really test this out you need to try chapters etc and try on the DVD player. Mine all follow wobblyboy's actions , including Ulead DVD MF2 and Workshop. Why do DVD's authore with Ulead appear to behave correctly and DVDA is different. Is Ulead looser in specs??, is DVDA too rigid?? Ulead behaves entirely as I expect, menu or DVD digest buttons (I have 4 DVD players, Apex(Hiteker) 1000, 5131, Singer SGD001 & Magnavox MDVD100) back to sub/scene select menu, Title menu back to Main menu, return no effect or same as stop/resume play. When I played around with SVCD's, the return button worked back to the sub/scene select menu. If type of DVD player determines DVDA's effectiveness this is also no good as it would amke sharing DVD's a little difficult (no problem with Ulead).

This inability to navigate has stopped me from using DVDA, as I have projects that all require this functionality, and Ulead DVD MF2 does that. I really want to use DVDA, but its useless when all I get is returning to the mani menu, and no end play options. As stated somewhere else, DVDA is very good, but falls down in some basics that most people want. I do this for a hobby, so have little need for AC3 etc, but its great to have and I will always use Vegas. But until I get control over navigation I will have to stick with DVD MF2 and maybe try DVD Workshop again. I should point out I do not generally use Ulaed products, but proof is in the puudding so to say, and they work.

My Singer DVD player also does not allow highlighting of play items, so will not play DVDA authored DVD's, again, what is SoFo doing different to Ulead???

This is getting like pulling a loose thread and unraveling the whole garment. I consider myself pretty good at locating resources on the web... being doing it for a long time, so I thought a half hour or so I would find what I was looking for; some solid specifications that lay out WHAT specific DVD menu structures are suppose to do. Well, its now an hour later and I've run into more dead web pages that I care to remember. Everytime I think I found a good site it was a dead link or just fluff.

Anyhow these few out of the whole bunch I looked at seems the be the clearest without getting into too much technobabble.

http://www-ti.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/deutsch/lehre/mmtpraktikum/media/DVDVideoFormatFeatures.pdf

http://www.calvid.com/dvd/menus_spec.pdf

http://www.dvdforum.org/RecommendationforDVD-A.pdf

It still doesn't really point to what I'm looking for, but none the less interesting reading.

I guess it's a good thing that we have both Sonic Foundry and Ulead products. I will use the one that is best for the project. If I am doig moving menus and want to preview them I will So Fo. If the project I am doing requires sub menu structure I will use Ulead.

I am also having jerky preview on MPEG files in Architect. Not fatal but annoying. I just heard back from So Fo that it is a known problem and will be fixed in a future version. The lack of ability to return to proper menu and not being able to specify play of next video are big problems. I hope they get it fixed soon as I would like to use Architect for all my work.

Billy Boy, thanks for your research, I will look into those websites.