Menu-based DVD troubles

RobT wrote on 7/19/2003, 9:48 AM

I have created a 1-hour instructional guitar video in VV4. The links I've created on the menu in DVD Architect are 'play entire video', which plays the entire 1 hour, start to finish. All other links include each song individually. This video features 17 songs. Is there a way to insert links on the main menu page that go directly through the 'play entire video' file? I'd like for people to be able to just click on a song title and go directly to the beginning of the lesson for that song. What I originally did was create individual files in VV4 that linked with each menu button. Rendered everything to MPEG-2 and the recommended WAV for audio. I did these separately. When I put everything together, it ended up far exceeding the space provided on a DVD. I then attempted 'scene selection'. I set the mark points in the entire video for each particular tune. Afterwards, when viewing the 'optimize DVD' screen, it said that all the 'scene selection' audio would require recompressing. Why would this be? It accepted the original video and audio from the entire video but won't accept snippets from that very same thing? I just need to know if there is a way to link menu buttons to one single big file with markers as opposed to each button having it's own files. I just want folks to be able to choose a tune and access it now. Sorry for the long-winded post. Thanks in advance.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 7/19/2003, 4:59 PM

You can safely ignore any yellow warnings that appear on the optimize screen. If you've used a MPEG-2 file as your source the audio portion of it will be recompressed. This is due to DVD-A following the specs which do not support a MPEG-2 audio steam for a NTSC DVD. In PAL land it does. Go figure.

I've written a simple tutorial on how to make a basic menu based DVD using DVD-A.

http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

For the type of project you've made having a single file is probably best. If that's what you created, open the file in DVD-A and insert chapter points at the start of each song. DO THIS FIRST!

The method to advance through the video is different in DVD-A than Vegas. Simply click anywhere on the preview (the one with the frames showing below) and while holding down your left mouse drag and it will advance your video backward or forward. For finer control frame by frame click on the timeline roughly where you want to be then use Alt and the keyboard arrow keys. When you get to the frame you want to start a lesson click on the clapboard icon. So in your case you would set 17 points.

Now return to the main menu, right click on the thumbnail your originally inserted. Select insert scene selection menu. Once the new thumbnail is created drag it over to the side, delete the original thumbnail, you no longer need it. Double click on the newly made thumnail and you'll see all the chapters you created in the previous step. Arrange the chapter icons and resize as you wish. Then test out your project.