minimum chapter length?

Wm wrote on 5/12/2010, 11:02 PM
I'm want to convert a Blu-ray project from Adobe Encore to DVDA. All of the video media was generated using Vegas 9.

I'm having a problem where DVDA is ignoring (not generating) a Chapter Marker if it is at the end of the track or less than some distance from the end (I believe 10 seconds but it could be less).

For example, there is one track that is 30 seconds long, with 3 chapters of 10 seconds each; at the end it loops back to the beginning. With Encore I had a 1/2 second chapter at the end of the track, and I could hit Chapter Skip on the remote at any time and it would go to the next chapter. Hit Skip while in the 3rd chapter and it skips to the "end" (the 1/2 second chapter) and loops back to the beginning, as expected. However, with DVDA, once you are in the 3rd chapter, the Skip Forward button is disabled! If I increase the length of the "end" chapter to 10 seconds then the Chapter Skip is enabled, but of course I don't want 10 seconds of blank video here.

Anyone know why DVDA is doing this and if there is a way around it?

Thanks,
William

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 5/13/2010, 12:18 PM
A couple of things -- don't know what you mean by "track." Do you mean a chapter, a title, a media clip? Be specific. I seem to recall your media clips should be at least 1 minute in length.

Second, DVDA can create chapter points only at "I - frames." If you put markers on other frames it will automatically choose the nearest I-frame as the chapter point.
Wm wrote on 5/13/2010, 2:09 PM
By "track" I meant what DVDA refers to it as a track, I thought that *was* specific! When I look at the Media Properties it says "Track Media". The media clips, if you prefer that, are generated by Vegas 9. Vegas is set to create i-frames for chapter markers so they should be there.

I'm not aware of any restriction that says a media clip has to be 1 minute in length. In any case there is another "track" which is 6 minutes long with 20 chapters, and the same thing happens in that one, once you get to the last chapter the Chapter Skip button is disabled.

Note that this all works when the project is done in Adobe Encore, and I suppose if I have to I can go back to using that, I was just trying to do it in DVDA instead so I could avoid installing Encore again. DVDA is doing something different such that the forward Chapter Skip gets disabled, and I don't think it should be.

Thanks,
William
Former user wrote on 5/13/2010, 6:42 PM
According to the help menu, markers must be at least 1 second apart. this may be unique to DVDA but it might be what is causing your problem.

Try making your last chapter 1 second.

Dave T2
Wm wrote on 5/13/2010, 7:38 PM
Dave, thanks for the suggestion. I tried 1 second, that does indeed work. It's a bit long for the purposes but at least it does work.

I've opened an incident with tech support and they are looking at it. It really seem like a bug, given that Encore can create a BR that works with only 0.5 seconds.
bStro wrote on 5/14/2010, 2:59 PM
By "track" I meant what DVDA refers to it as a track, I thought that *was* specific! When I look at the Media Properties it says "Track Media".

"Track Media" refers to the media that is on a track. In DVD Architect, just as in Vegas, a track is "line" in a project on which you place media -- be it audio, video, or subtitle data. Also, just as in Vegas, tracks don't really have a set length; they go on and on -- the only thing that "stops" is the media (or collection of media) that's placed on it.

So technically, no, you weren't specific. ;-)

Rob
musicvid10 wrote on 5/14/2010, 8:35 PM
Gosh Rob,
I was about to post an essentially identical response as yours. But I bit my tongue instead.

Thanks for affirming what I had questioned all along. From the original post, I couldn't even determine what type of DVDA project was being used!

-- Track Media in a Menu driven DVDA Project. Got it.

That being said, it is even more puzzling why one would want to put a chapter marker less than one second before the end of a title media. I guess he has his reasons.
Also, thanks to Dave for uncovering this somewhat obscure limitation in DVDA.
Former user wrote on 5/15/2010, 5:09 AM
Musicvid,

Actually he is being very clever. Right now if you hit SKIP chapter and there is no chapter to skip, nothing happens. As I understand he has bascially a FAUX chapter so when he hits skip chapter, he can link it to something else, in this case the beginning without actually skipping any chapters.

Dave T2
Wm wrote on 5/23/2010, 6:27 PM
Dave's right. If you're in the last chapter in a track (and that IS what DVDA calls it), the Skip Forward button is disabled on a BR disc. The project I'm working on has a set of short chapters on each track (call it a Title of that makes you happier). It's like a slide show, if that helps. Typically the user selects the one they want by skipping forward to it. If they get to the last chapter they want the Skip button to take them to the first one again.

The BR architecture allows chapters as short as 0.5 seconds, but DVDA currently has a minimum of 1 second. (I've requested a change)

After playing with this for some time, it finally dawned on me that there is a very simple "trick" that gets what I want - I added 1 second copied from the beginning of the first chapter to the end of the track with a chapter stop. Now when the user hits Skip forward it appears to go back to the first chapter again immediately. The End Action takes it back to the beginning 1 second later but they don't see that.

And for some of you, just because you don't understand why I want to do this doesn't make it wrong or silly. ..

William