No chapter advance on finished disk

skinned_knee wrote on 1/23/2007, 9:38 PM
When previewing the project in DVDA, it works correctly - but in my DVD player, the "next" button does not work. "Prev" works (it takes you back to the beginning of the chapter you are in), but "next" does nothing - In the previewer, it takes you to the beginning of the next chapter.

My S.O.P. for burning disks is this:
First, I create each chapter as it's own DV-AVI file, then I use DVDA to build the menu page pointing to each AVI file.

It dawned on me tonight that this could be my problem - I'm not setting chapter points within each AVI file... but wait, it works as desired/expected in the preview - so.... Any ideas?

Comments

mikkie wrote on 1/23/2007, 10:31 PM
A DVD Player's Next Button can jump to the next title, or not -- it's more common to jump when using PC software rather than hardware players.

And yeah, you're creating a chain of titles. In a DVD layout you have separate titles, usually one for each separate video. The videos are in turn optionally broken up into cells or chapters. In your case you probably can get away with a playlist, which mimics chapt behavior, or a video compilation, where the videos are strung end to end.
skinned_knee wrote on 1/24/2007, 8:22 PM
so the correct way to do this would be to render my entire video to a single dv-avi, then bring that into DVDA and set the chapter points to places within that single file... Correct?

I'll play with it and burn a test or two to see how they react.
MPM wrote on 1/24/2007, 8:45 PM
"so the correct way to do this would be to render my entire video to a single dv-avi, then bring that into DVDA and set the chapter points to places within that single file... Correct?"

That would get your DVD working like you want it to. If you've already rendered to mpg2, and the settings match, there are utilities that should let you join them into one file.

In DVDA 4 (not 100% sure about v 3) you can also create a playlist using your separate titles -- clicking the playlist button will play the separate videos in order, & the Next & Prev. Chapt. buttons *should* work (I've had it not work occasionally -- it's not fool proof).

And if you create a compilation, this should put your titles all on the same timeline with chapt markers where they split, but you'll lose some of the menu options I think, and again I've sometimes had problems with the Next & Prev buttons.
skinned_knee wrote on 1/25/2007, 9:41 PM
I'm not worried about "fixing" what I have already done - It's just a group of home movies (as are most of the projects I work on).

I'm more interested in being able to make it work like I'm thinking it should (how's that for a line? LOL) for future projects.

I have been messing around with it a little, and I've got to tell you, this is waaaay different from what I have been doing.

What I am trying now is taking a single DV-AVI file into DVDA (Single Movie instead of Menu Based), using the timeline in the bottom right corner to set chapter points, then doing the "Insert Scene Selection Menu"... looking at the preview, this appears to be doing what I want it to do - does that sound like I'm on the right track?

Compilation sounds interesting too - but all I can find references music or still image compilations - not video compilations. I am on v3.0, so that might be the thing...

So... it looks like my best bet is to render the entire project as a single AVI file instead of breaking it up into a bunch of smaller ones - or keep doing like I'm doing, then rerender all of the little clips back into 1 full length file (HDD space is cheap, huh?) the habit of doing it like I've been doing I guess is a throwback to my beginning in Pinnacle Studio, which couldn't handle large projects very well.

thoughts? - oh, and thanks!
johnmeyer wrote on 1/25/2007, 10:46 PM
The playlist is the right idea, but don't use a playlist. Instead, if you are using multiple AVI or MPEG files (instead of a single file), then put them in a Music Compilation. They will then all go into one Titleset, and most DVD players will navigate the result exactly as you want. The problem, as already mentioned, is that DVD players do not have consistent specifications for what the chapter advance/previous buttons should do across titlesets. Usually they go forward, but not backwards. Sounds like yours does neither (other than going to the beginning of the currently playing titleset, which isn't really navigation across boundaries).