Possible Answer for Weird Behaviours

rsp wrote on 5/23/2006, 9:25 AM

Tom,

I've had some trouble with deleting and/or changing links or items, never found out what it was, only that the quickest way to continue was to rebuilt the project.
I can't recall the exact details but your story reminded me of those projects

Rudi

plasmavideo wrote on 5/23/2006, 10:32 AM

Well, either there is something I am totally doing wrong and misunderstand, or the problem goes a lot deeper.

I re-installed DVDA 3c.

I rebuilt the project and it seemed to work, although there was a problem with a media clip in the wrong order on the main menu. I dragged it into the right place on the list to the left and re-arranged the link position on the menu page and WHAM. Nothing worked right in a totally different way. So, I moved it back to it's original position order, and now it doesn't work properly in a completely different way!

Again, it looks fine in preview.

After wasting many discs, what I'm doing to preview it now is to prepare to a folder on the hard disc and then opening it either in Nero Show Time or the Ulead DVD player from the hard drive.

Does that have anythng to do with what I'm seeing?

I've even tried deleting that folder and redoing it to eliminate the possibility of anything hanging around in that folder to mess things up.

I'm going back to the manual and reread everything again just in case I'm totally missing a concept. I sure never had these types of problems with my Ulead software, although it doesn't have all of the features of DVDA.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/23/2006, 12:08 PM

This may or may not apply, but one of the subtle things about DVDA is that the order in which things appear in the project list determines the order in which your remote control will navigate the disc, regardless of how end actions are set. This can be confusing, and leads to behavior that is virtually never what you want. Why Sony doesn't tie end actions and remote control order together, I cannot say. I'd sure like to hear an explanation of why I would ever want it to work the way it does. Maybe I'm missing something.

The way to "fix" the problem is not easy. You have to drag/drop the assets in the left hand project pane until they have the proper order. Often the drag/drop operation doesn't do what you expect. You have to undo and try again.

So, in summary, I don't think the problem is moving things to the root, per se, but instead has to do with the order in which they appear in the project list after you have moved them. Re-order them, and things will go better, I think.

bStro wrote on 5/23/2006, 12:38 PM

We might be able to help you more if you were more specific about what kind of "quirky" behavior you're seeing.

Rob

plasmavideo wrote on 5/23/2006, 1:25 PM

John Rob– that’s what is making me insane. Let’s say I have 4 clips. I have put them into a menu folder and tweaked the menu.

I assign end actions to each of the clips to either return to last menu or return to the actual name of that menu. If they were somehow not added in the proper order, and I have to change that order I DO reorder the items in order as you say in the project pane, and when I burn the image and play back the DVD, the new order is maintained. However, the end action gets goofy. Sometimes when I hit Next on the remote control, it will play the next clip, but sometimes it will return to the menu instead, and sometimes the Next key is greyed out. It gets more complicated when I build a playlist. Lets say I have a playlist of clips 1,2,3 and 4. While playing the list (which has a return to menu end action) I can Next through the playlist. At the end of the playlist, instead of returning to the menu, it fires off clip number 2. I see absolutely no link that is set up to do that. And if I re-arrange anything in either the playlist or the menu it can totally change THAT action, even if I rearrange everything back to the way it originally was it will be entirely different.

Another thing that happens is this. Let’s say I have the 4 clips in a menu. I add a transition video to the root in the project pane and add a button to activate it from the main menu.

I build a playlist using the 4 clips, and add an end action to the transition video to go to the playlist. The playlist has an end action to got to the main menu.

I hit the transition button, the transition video plays and automatically the playlist starts at the end. So far so good. I run the playlist and at the end of the playlist instead of going to the menu, the transition video fires off again and I get looped back to the playlist. Now, instead of the playlist starting off with clip 1, it starts clip 2. At the end of clip 2, it goes back to the transition video and the playlist starts again at Clip 1 That’s what the heck I’m fighting that I can’t figure out.

I’m not at that computer now, but the structure looks like this from memory

PROJECT
ROOT

TRANSITION CLIP - END START PLAYLIST
|
|- - - - - - - -MENU 1
|-- - - - - - - - - - CLIP 1 - END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
|-- - - - - - - - - - CLIP 2 - END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
|-- - - - - - - - - - CLIP 3 - END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
|-- - - - - - - - - - CLIP 4 - END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
|-- - - - - - - - - - LINK BUTTON TO TRANSITION
|
PLAYLIST
- - - - - - - CLIP 1
- - - - - - - CLIP 2
- - - - - - - CLIP 3
- - - - - - - CLIP 4 - END ACTION RETURN TO MENU

The problems seem to happen whether or not I use the next key or let the video end by itself, although that's not consistent.

I still believe that part of it is my not understanding something basic, but I don't know what exactly. John, when you change the order, do you left mouse click and drag a clip to its new place, or do you right mouse click and move. I'm not where I can try that until later tonight, but that's just a thought.

I've made succesful DVDs that look great, but I've used multiple menus and scene selection menus - not so much multiple clips before, and this was the first time I've tried the transition video to a playlist, although the transition video is only a part of what's going on. I have not tried a total de-install and re-install, including registry entries, but before I do that I'm wanting to eliminate any wrong headed stupidity on my part!

I've also tried making "copies of the clips" and linking those in the playlist, and playing with their end actions in case it was something weird about linking the originals.

Thanks for the help, guys. I'm going to go over the manual again tonight and see if there is something I obviously missed.

T

Zulqar-Cheema wrote on 5/24/2006, 6:37 AM

You also may find the behavior is different for different players as i have found with play lists. In DVDA it works fine, in a Philips machine it does something different in the pioneer its fine

I to thought I was going mad..

Can I suggest using DVD-RW as I do now to just to check all is well before committing.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/24/2006, 8:10 AM

Just to expand on what I said earlier, as a way of answering your questions, end actions are different than chapter navigation which in turn is different than titleset navigation. All three of these behaviors are functions of the DVD specification, not DVD Architect. The way in which they are implemented is different between DVD players. This is especially true of titleset navigation. Titleset navigation is NOT required to be controlled by the chapter advance button and therefore only SOME players provide this feature. Let me provide more explanation.

End actions determine what happens when a particular file is played until it ends. It has nothing to do with what happens when you press the menu key on your remote, or when you press the chapter up/down keys.

Chapter navigation is the ability to move to the next chapter point in the same media file. However, if you put more than one media file (e.g., more than one MPEG-2 file) into DVD Architect, it will put each media file into a different titleset. If you look at all the files in the VIDEO_TS folder after DVDA prepares the project, you will see that you have one or more VOB files for each media file. For instance, here are the files that result when I dropped three media files into DVDA:

VIDEO_TS.BUP        34KB   BUP File              5/16/2006 4:15 PM                                    

VIDEO_TS.IFO        34KB   DVD Navigation File   5/16/2006 4:15 PM                                    

VIDEO_TS.VOB       232KB   ATI File Player       5/16/2006 4:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.BUP        24KB   BUP File              5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.IFO        24KB   DVD Navigation File   5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.VOB       250KB   ATI File Player       5/16/2006 4:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_1.VOB   172,066KB   ATI File Player       5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_02_0.BUP        14KB   BUP File              5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_02_0.IFO        14KB   DVD Navigation File   5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_02_1.VOB    68,794KB   ATI File Player       5/16/2006 4:45 PM                                    

VTS_03_0.BUP        14KB   BUP File              5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_03_0.IFO        14KB   DVD Navigation File   5/16/2006 4:13 PM                                    

VTS_03_1.VOB   121,064KB   ATI File Player       5/16/2006 4:13 PM

By contrast, here is another project that resulted from just a single media file:

VIDEO_TS.BUP          16KB   BUP File              5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VIDEO_TS.IFO          16KB   DVD Navigation File   5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VIDEO_TS.VOB         232KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:00 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.BUP         126KB   BUP File              5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.IFO         126KB   DVD Navigation File   5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_0.VOB       1,184KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:00 PM                                    

VTS_01_1.VOB   1,024,000KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_2.VOB   1,024,000KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_3.VOB   1,024,000KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_4.VOB   1,024,000KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:12 PM                                    

VTS_01_5.VOB     352,064KB   ATI File Player       5/23/2006 10:12 PM

Notice that while there are several VTS VOB files, they all have the same initial number and therefore are all part of one titleset.

Your DVD can have up to 99 chapters stops within each media file, and can have up to 99 different media files (titlesets).

Because titleset navigation is not standard amongst all DVD players, if you want the smoothest navigation, you should try to author your entire project in one large media file. Of course this is a pain in the neck, but you can still create your project as separate projects, and then use the nested VEG feature to render them all at once to one media file. Alternatively, if the MPEG-2/AC-3 files already exist, you can use an external tool, like Womble, to join them all together prior to importing into DVDA. Finally, you can use the "Music Compilation" feature in DVDA to join them together. This feature is somewhat mis-named because it works really well just for standard video. What it does is to "combine" the different MPEG-2 files together into one titleset. It is not a perfect solution to the problem, however, because while the beginning of each MPEG-2 file becomes a chapter stop, you cannot add additional chapter stops within each MPEG-2 file.

bStro wrote on 5/24/2006, 10:10 AM

That post is a keeper.

I was going to say something about how "behavior when you press the chapter navigation buttons varies from player to player," but there is no way I could've given such specific details. Thanks for posting that.

plasmavideo wrote on 5/24/2006, 1:19 PM

John,

YES YES YES. Thanks so much. I will absorb all of that tonight and I'm sure it will help my understanding immensly.

The best success I've had has been using one large media file as you say. It's just been since I tried to use multiple files and playlists that I've run into so much trouble.

Here is a post I was working on before I saw yours. It shows the different behaviors of "NEXT" in different contexts.

I'll absorb your post and go back to the drawing board.

Thanks

>>>>

I think what’s happening is not just one thing, but several that get into the mix.

First of all, the NEXT button does something different on different players. For instance, if I have a clip with an end command of Go to Recent Menu, on preview in DVDA it does exactly that. On the computer Ulead player, nothing happens when I push next. It only skips to the next chapter if there are chapters in the clip, but does nothing otherwise – no return to menu. On the computer Nero Player, instead of going to the menu, it goes to the next clip. So, with 3 different ways of previewing the event, each player handles it differently.

The desktop player I believe will behave more like the Nero player. I haven’t burned anymore discs until I sort this out. The suggestion to burn RW is a good one, however my Panasonic will not play RWs at all. I’m going to pick up a player that does.

If I create a DVD in the Ulead software with individual clips, hitting next takes me back to the menu on every player.

Now, another interesting observation after I discovered that.

If I create a 4 clip menu and then copy the 4 clips to a different menu to build a quasi playlist, here’s what happens.

In menu 1, the clips all have a return to menu. I add a link to menu 2 that plays the clip 1 copy.

In menu 2, the clip 1 copy’s end action links to 2, and 2 to 3, etc. The end action of clip 4 is return to menu 1.

In preview in DVDA, that is exactly what happens with either the NEXT button or letting the clip end by itself

In Ulead player, nothing happens when you push NEXT. If you let the clip end by itself, the end action occurs just like in DVDA preview.

In the Nero player, hitting Next in clip 1 will take you to clip 2. Hitting next in clip 2 will play the COPY of clip 2. Hitting next in clip 3 will play the COPY of clip 3, and hitting next in clip 4 will play the COPY of clip 4. Hitting next while playing the COPY of clip 4 takes me back to clip 1! I had to leave before trying in the Nero player letting the clips end by themselves.

So you see, nothing is consistent. That doesn’t explain some of the other actions I’m experiencing, but it does give me a starting place for understanding what’s going on.

For sure I know 4 things:

NEXT does something different in every player when the DVD structure is created in DVDA

Setting the NEXT button to OFF in the properties of clips changes nothing in this behaviour.

DVD structures created with the ULEAD OEM software are consistent in their NEXT behaviour.

What you se is NOT what you get using DVDA’s preview.

So, can anyone else who has either the Ulead player and/or the Nero player installed verify these behaviors?

Again, I’m burning these to a folder, not to a DVD or an image.

Thanks.

Tom

plasmavideo wrote on 5/24/2006, 1:26 PM

I just noticed your interesting comment about the music compilation "workaround". That I want to try while burning the midnight oil tonight.

I'll just throw another Classic Rock CD on the fire and stay up 'til 4 again!

My wife can't understand why I won't let a problem go until I've found the answer. "Just come to bed" doesn't work with me!

plasmavideo wrote on 5/25/2006, 12:51 PM

John,

Using a music comp worked well, but didn’t give me exactly what I wanted. There is no way within the comp to play only one of the clips and have it return to the menu automatically. I can create a link to a clip, but there is no way to assign an end action for an individual clip. I tried making several comps each containing 1 clip and assigning end actions. That of course worked, but if I want to have a comp that contains all of the clips and plays in sequence, it wants to add the media a second time, so a disc can fill up quickly.

So, knowing those facts I can see a quick and easy way of combining media as you say and that’s a bonus.

Now back to the original dilemma, and some interesting things.

In my original menu structure, I had a link to a transition video with an end action that played the playlist. As I stated, all manner of odd behaviors occurred with this approach in the various players.

As an experiment, instead of having a main menu lint to > transiton video > playlist, I put the transition video as item number one in the palylist, and changed the link on the main page to play the playlist link > playlist.

Holy cow – everything worked perfectly in a newly created project doing this! And in all players! So, I went back to my original project and rearranged everything to do the same thing. Guess what, the Nero player did not like this in an entirely different way than before – what the heck? It played things fine until it got to the end of the playlist, then it repeated clip 2 and skipped to 4 – this on its own without hitting “NEXT”

So, I went back to the newly created project that worked fine minutes before and rearranged the playlist order, and the order of clips to match in the pane on the left. I prepard this and took a look at it, and lo and behold everything got goofy again! So, I played around a bit and finally noticed that the end action I had assigned to the playlist somehow remains “attached” to the last clip in the playlist, so if I move the last clip around to a different spot in the playlist, somehow it tried to run the end action after that clip plays, regardless of what order the clips are now in. So I’m back to my original contention that there is a bug somewhere that remembers a setting inappropriately when a modification is made to clip order or location . At that point I had to quit and move on to other things, but at least I know what not to do in order to get this project completed. I wonder if it’s tied to Smart Prepare, and if I had made the order changes before preparing the first time all would have been well. Also, I’m going to blow out any temp files that DVDA creates and see if that helps.

Jeez, I'm finding out how litle I know and how much I assumed!

So, John drill a hole in my boat and tell me what else I’m missing : )

Tom

johnmeyer wrote on 5/25/2006, 8:52 PM

DVDA definitely does not rearrange end actions to match order of the clips in the project list, or in any other list. End actions are manually assigned, always.

Another "gotcha" I forgot to mention -- and which may apply to your "quest" -- is that if you add or delete chapter points on the timeline in DVDA, all hell breaks loose. Specifically, DVDA does a completely stupid thing in that it maintains references to the position in the chapter list rather than to a specific marker on the timeline. For instance, suppose you have four chapter markers on the timeline, and you have four buttons on a menu somewhere that point to these four chapters. Everything is hunkey-dorey, but you decide you want to add another chapter marker between chaper 2 and chapter 3. Let's call that chapter "Chapter 2a." Here's what happens:

Before

Button 1 --> Chapter 1
Button 2 --> Chapter 2
Button 3 --> Chapter 3
Button 4 --> Chapter 4

After

Button 1 --> Chapter 1
Button 2 --> Chapter 2
Button 3 --> Chapter 2a <--- Yikes!!
Button 4 --> Chapter 3 <--- Yikes!!

You probably created a Button 5 to point to chapter 2a, but look what happened to button 3 and button 4!! This is dumb beyond belief. I have argued with Sony that this is NEVER what a user wants, and confuses the bejeebers out of them. Thus, button 3 will always point to the third chapter on the timeline, so as you keep adding more chapters at the beginning of the timeline, button 3 will keep getting re-assigned to a different location in the media.

So, this may or may not be your problem, but if it isn't now, it will be in a future project.

BTW, I didn't just make up the above from memory: I actually just opened DVDA, created a project, and then copied exactly what I saw on the screen. This is exactly what it does.

plasmavideo wrote on 5/26/2006, 8:35 AM

Thanks John. That's one I had found early on.

OK, let me show you what I meant using this chart:

PLAYLIST

CLIP1 NEXT WORKS TO CLIP 2
CLIP2 NEXT WORKS TO CLIP 3
CLIP3 NEXT WORKS TO CLIP 4
CLIP4 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU - NEXT BUTTON DOESN'T WORK IN NERO PLAYER AND DESKTOP PLAYER AS THERE IS NO FOLLOWING EVENT, ONLY END ACTION ASSIGNED TO PLAYLIST

REARRANGE TO:

CLIP1 NEXT WORKS TO CLIP 2
CLIP4 NEXT TO CLIP 2 DOES NOT WORK CANNOT ADVANCE PLAYLIST MANUALLY
CLIP2
CLIP3 END ACTION ERRATIC DEPENDING ON OTHER FACTORS. I'VE HAD IT JUMP BACK TO CLIP 4.

Yes, the end action can be manually assigned, but as you see from this example, DVDA "remembered" to do something different after CLIP4, even when the order was changed, and seemed to "remember" that CLIP4 was supposed to be after CLIP3 and so played CLIP4 after CLIP3 even in itheir rearranged positions.

This may be similar in cause and effect as the problem you mention with the button assignment, although I believe the button links were correct. I also have a suspicion that the order of the buttons on a page - not just xy coordinates, but z coordinates as well - play into it. In one case, I had 5 buttons that showed up when I viewed the layer properties as layer positions 2 through 6. I had deleted a button from the menu earlier. The project was erratic. I redid the layer orders to 1 through 5 and bingo - the project again worked normally.

Well, back to work. I've got to get this DVD out in the next hour or so. I can make it work for now, but without a feature or two I wanted. This is an interesting, but frustrating problem, part of which is the very different ways that players handle certain commands, and part of which is directly due to DVDA.

Tom

johnmeyer wrote on 5/26/2006, 9:55 AM

An end action that goes back to the menu will definitely not produce consistent results when you press the next button on the remote. In other words, if Clip4's end action points back to the menu and, while playing Clip4, you press the next button on the remote control, many players will just ignore that. If you want to have the the next button take you back to the menu, then I would add a "phantom" Clip5 that is just a few frames of black. Have Clip4 point to that, and also make sure that this clip is arranged in order in the project menu so it follows Clip4.

Also, just to make sure we are talking the same language, when you refer to "clips" I assume you are talking about individual, separate MPEG files, and are NOT talking about chapter markers within a single MPEG file.

plasmavideo wrote on 5/26/2006, 11:57 AM

Yes, individual files.

Yes, the problematic return to menu is what I'm finding among players.

In the example, I'm saying that within the playlist you can normally push next to jump through the playlist. If however, I move clip 4 from the last position on the playlist to position 2, I cannot "next" to the next clip in order while playing it, so it seems to have remembered it's original position and retained some of the original position characteristics - namely the abilty to properly execute the next function. As you say, while it was in position 4, at the end, it will not go to the end action (in this case return to menu) and execute it when you hit NEXT.

Therefore, it looks like it retained part of THIS PROPERTY, the next function setting, when moved to position 2 so that hitting next won't go to the next clip within the playlist when you try to execute it while watching the original clip 4 which is now in position 2..

Hope I'm clear on this. I'm even confusing myself.

Thanks for the short clip trick. That would certainly help in these types of situations.

Thanks.

Tom

plasmavideo wrote on 5/28/2006, 8:31 AM

Well John, I finally have an answer to what's been bugging me about the inconsistancies and why things never seemed to be the same twice.

First, I got rid of any extra stuff, like a transition video or extra anythings and made a straight vanilla structure like this:

PROJECT NAME

- MENU FOLDER
- - MENU
- - - - BUTTON LINK TO MEDIA 1 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
- - - - BUTTON LINK TO MEDIA 2 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
- - - - BUTTON LINK TO MEDIA 3 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
- - - - BUTTON LINK TO MEDIA 4 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU
- - - - BUTTON LINK TO PLAYLIST
-
-
PLAYLIST
- - - MEDIA 1
- - - MEDIA 2
- - - MEDIA 3
- - - MEDIA 4 END ACTION RETURN TO MENU

First, I played the DVD folder back using the NERO player.

After picking an individual clip to play, if I hit NEXT during playback, it would go to the next clip on the menu and play it. If I allowed the clip to end by itself, it would return to the menu.

Next I tried the playlist. Here are the results.

Let the playlist run without hitting NEXT at anytime, the playlist will sequence MEDIA 1, 2, 3, 4 and Return to the menu as advertised.

MEDIA 1
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 4
MENU

If you hit NEXT while MEDIA 1 is playing, MEDIA 2 will play, and when it ends, it will repeat MEDIA 2. If you do not hit NEXT, MEDIA 3 will play at the end of MEDIA 2, then MEDIA 4 will play and at the end of MEDIA 4, it will return to the menu.

MEDIA 1 NEXT
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 4
MENU

If you let MEDIA 1 play through and sequence to MEDIA 2, then hit NEXT while MEDIA 2 is playing, MEDIA 3 will play, and then MEDIA 3 will repeat, then go to MEDIA 4 and back to the menu.

MEDIA 1
MEDIA 2 NEXT
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 4
MENU

If you let MEDIAS 1, 2 and 3 play and hit NEXT during MEDIA 3, then MEDIA 4 will play twice and return to the menu.

MEDIA 1
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 3 NEXT
MEDIA 4
MEDIA 4
MENU

If you NEXT quickly through the list, and let MEDIA 4 play normally, at the end of MEDIA 4, MEDIA 2 will play, then MEDIA 3, then MEDIA 4 and back to the menu.

MEDIA 1 NEXT
MEDIA 2 NEXT
MEDIA 3 NEXT
MEDIA 4
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 4
MENU

Incidentally, turning off the NEXT button in Menu Page Properties/Remote Buttons has absolutely no effect on the NEXT behavior in Nero player.

Playing the folder using the ULEAD DVD player, the NEXT button does not function at all in the playlist, nor does it allow me to use NEXT while playing an individual item to go to the next individual item on the menu. So. it seems to do more of what the DVD specs call for, if I'm interpretting them correctly.

My Panasonic desktop player behaves exactly like the Ulead player. Another one is sorta like the Nero player.

With this configuration and this menu and playlist structure, preview in DVDA is correct and matches the Ulead player and the desktop Panasonic player. In other configurations it does not preview correctly compared to the final burn. Something else for later.

So, I think that you are absolutely correct that the best way to author using DVDA is to have one giant media file with chapters, and navigate to clips using chapters, as any other way produces inconsistent results if you want to do as I wanted, which is to be able to play individual clips, or one large clip with navigation using NEXT for the media clips. NEXT is problematic in other arrangements.

I also contend that there is some kind of bug in DVDA that can mess you up if you rearrange the order of the plalist or the left pane media order once you've made an initial playlist.

I believe it has something to do with the top to bottom graphic layer order of the buttons n the menu. Things get confused if the layer order doesn't match the playlist or structure of the left hand pane order. Something to explore later. You can see the object order by turning on View/Workspace Overlays/Object Order.

This has been an educational experiment. Hope I don't have to do it again. It was bugging the heck outta me.

T