Movie orphaned

Paul_Holmes wrote on 8/11/2005, 12:45 PM
I've authored several DVDs with DVDA3 and they've come out fine and worked the way I wanted them to.

One thing I don't understand is the "movie orphaned" caution I get when I author.

What I do for each movie is "insert media" until I have all the mpg and ac3 files in the outline. From these I set chapter points etc. Then I might drag one over for a motion menu, or I'll place a button and have it point to the movie. Although everything has worked fine I'm obviously doing something either "wrong" or questionable to get the "movie orphaned" messages.

Anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong, or why this is happening?

Comments

bStro wrote on 8/11/2005, 1:09 PM
Does the warning specify which item is orphaned? If so, is that item actually linked to anywhere? When an item -- be it a video, or a compilation, or a menu -- is "orphaned," it usually means that that item is in your project overview but cannot actually be reached by any buttons, end actions, or anything. It's possible that you're losing track of which items in your project are actually being used.

Would it be possible for you to put online a screencap of your Project Overview window?

Rob
Paul_Holmes wrote on 8/11/2005, 2:59 PM
This is probably a "read the manual" problem. What I guess is that I just got used to throwing the movies (could be 5 or 6 per DVD) onto the outline and then using some of them to create motion menus. On the other hand I notice that when I want a button pointing to a movie, I go into properties and choose the media off my hard drive. So, probably, although the final product demos and works as I want it I'm doing something unnecessary in dragging those movies into the outline. I've treated it as a necessary first step and either it is the right step but I just don't know how to link them from the outline (other than motion menus), or I should be building it a different way.

Edit: in answer to BStro's question all my movies always end up orphaned (the ones in the outline).
ScottW wrote on 8/11/2005, 3:54 PM
Normally, when creating a motion menu, you simply select the menu, then on the properties section, select background video, click the button with the 3 dots and then specify the video to use.

Dragging them into the project as you've described is likely whats creating your orphans, and its including them on the DVD effectively twice - once as the menu video and then as the orphaned movie.

--Scott