Play All strange problem

michaelb wrote on 9/10/2004, 9:20 PM

Hi all,

I followed one of the articles here to create a "Play All" button for my DVD. So basically, I have one set of media (lets say 5 MPG files) that I dropped in, made them into separate chapters. Then I made another menu, dropped the same 5 MPGs in, renamed them. Now the Play all button links to the 1st MPG in the 2nd Menu, and that MPG links to the 2nd MPG in that same menu and so on.
The problem is, however, that when I am in the "Play All" mode on my DVD player, and hit the "Next chapter" button, it repeats that chapter (or it looks like it goes to the other instance of the same MPG file, if that makes sense). Anyway, so when I Play All, and let it run - all the chapters play fine. However, when in Play All, and I hit the next button, it doesnt go to the next chapter, but repeats that chapter. When I hit next again, it THEN goes to the next chapter... weird.

What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance,

Michael

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 9/11/2004, 10:40 AM

Technically, you are actually creating new titles, not new chapters when you drop multiple MPEGs into DVDA. The specification for what the chapter advance button should do with respect to titles is not consistent from player to player. Some players will go to the next title, and some will go back to the menu.

Two things to try, in this order:

1. In the DVDA project list, double-click on the first MPEG file. In the Properties viewer for that MPEG file, expand the "Remote Buttons" branch. Make sure the Title Play is On. My guess is that you will find that this is already on, so this probably won't help.

2. Re-do your DVD as a "Music Compilation." When you do this, the MPEG files are merged together, and the chapter stops become real chapter stops. There are some limitations in doing this (e.g., the audio all has to be identical bitrate, etc.). This is one of the worst documented features of DVDA version 2.0. It is actually an extremely powerful feature, but by labeling it "Music Compilation," Sony almost guaranteed that no one will ever use it except for music. Quite frankly, IMHO it should almost always be used when you are combining multiple MPEG files into one DVD.

michaelb wrote on 9/13/2004, 7:39 AM

Thanks for that John,

That worked perfectly!
One thing though, the render (preparation) time was blown out from some 12 mins (for a 1.5GB DVD) to like 1hr15mins with the chapters and music compilation thing... so that was a bit annoying, but overall better than before!

Cheers,

Michael

johnmeyer wrote on 9/13/2004, 8:14 AM

the render (preparation) time was blown out from some 12 mins (for a 1.5GB DVD) to like 1hr15mins with the chapters and music compilation thing..

This is probably due to the audio not being exactly the same across all the MPEG files. In this case the audio must be recompressed. I think the video can be compressed at different bitrates and not have any recompression, however.