Sounds good but what do you mean? I'm a square pixel guy pumping out clips for the web. I was happy. Now the client wants a DVD. Now I'm into the mystical whirld of pulldowns, aspect ratios, bit rates and other Druid technology and I'm lost. I've got a Vegas timeline with 5 groups of clips that will be chapters. I'm going to export as DVD AVI and suck it into a DVD authoring thing ... not Sony's. The program says you can use a marker to show an end of chapter and a marker for a return to the main menu. OK, so do I gotta space anything out in Vegas before I ship it to this program?

Maybe something new has happened that I don't know about, but if you have 5 separate videos you're going to get 5 different "titles" not "chapters".
The way I'd do it is to render all 5 videos as one piece (place each .avi back-to-back and render to mpeg 2 from the Vegas timeline as one long video. Write down the time where each section ends so you'll have something to go by later. (From the "file" dropdown go to "Render As", then go to "Save as type", then go to Mainconcept Mpg2, do not use the Default DVD template, open the template dropdown and find DVD NTSC or DVD PAL if european) It's better you do it, than let DVD-A do it for you.
Then drag that whole rendered mpeg2 into DVD-A and set your chapter markers in DVD-A (theres a timeline if you doubleclick the video and you can find the sections by the time you wrote down earlier where the videos were once separate and add your Chapter marker from there. (when you place a mouse mark on the timeline, that frame will show up in the screen above. You can advance 1 frame at a time by holding 'alt' and using right or left arrow.) when you place your chapter marker you can even add titles to each chapter here.
Now when you play the finished DVD, it can play from beginning to end "seamlessly" OR you can choose a specific chapter and jump right to it. ( if you'd like a few seconds between chapters you'll just have to add some blank, dead space. Like just Black or some text.)
You can do each section separately if you want, but the DVD will stop after each section and you'll have to physically start the next part. (maybe that's what you want.)
You may want to use a DVD-RW until you get it . It probably won't go that smoothly the 1st time. But you could render 30 second section to mpeg2, drag to DVD-A and add some chapters and practice on the DVD-RW until you feel comfortable
Yes, this is simplified. I ain't gunna write the whole manual.

Write down the time where each section ends
set your chapter markers in DVD-A

If you put markers on the Vegas timeline and select "save project markers in media file" when rendering, these steps are taken care of automatically. Since you would have to move the cursor to the chapter breaks to find the time for each one anyway, pressing M instead of writing the time down would be a lot faster and easier. Then when dragging the MPEG file into DVDA, the chapter markers will already be there. Make sure you add a marker at the beginning of the project as well.

"place each .avi back-to-back"

.. OK, that's what I was looking for ... the question was if I needed some space in between each avi because I'm going to put a stop marker (it brings it back to the main menu) after each one and another marker where the next one begins... to me this means the markers are going to be on top of each other so I wanted to leave some place between clips on the Vegas Video timeline and that's why I asked ... and you guys have sure been great with all your input and I'll never do another DVD ... screw the clients ... who needs the money anyway?

I wouldn't expect markers that you use in the Vegas timeline to translate to any authoring program except Architect.. or am I misunderstanding what you are doing?

Gary

" ...I wouldn't expect markers that you use in the Vegas timeline..."

... not markers ... I'm talkin' 'bout TIME SPACES between clips so that when it goes into a DVD authoring program, the END markers and BEGINING markers don't fall on each other .... hope that clears it up... as I get older, I have more trouble explaining things to people. ... as soon as this project is over, I'm chucking the computer and I'm going to write a book on the Exciting Life Of Garden Slugs ...

Clipman, since you already said "I'm going to export as DVD AVI and suck it into a DVD authoring thing ... not Sony's", none of the responses truly apply to your original question as markers that you generate in Vegas will (probably) not be read by whatever authoring app you'll be using.
Since you haven't told us what that app is or what it wants as far as files are concerned, we can only guess.

My suggestion would be a version of TheGr8Steve's post.
If your app wants AVIs, render each clip out separately (DV-AVI format).
If it wants MPEGs, then render each clip out separately as MPEG-2s.
Again, which type of MPEG-2 will depend on what your app wants.
A little more information will go a long way.

Mike

OK, I'll try again. Let's forget about chapters and titles and markers for a moment. I'm in VV. I have a one timeline. I have 5 clips on this timeline which will become 5 items on a DVD menu. I plan to render the timeline so a DVD authoring program can inhale it. Do I need SPACES between the clips on the timeline and if so, how much space? When I say spaces, I mean time. OK, let me help with some possible answers:

1. ClipMan, you don't need a space between clips in Vegas because ....
2. ClipMan, you need X seconds between clips ...

How's that? I tried my best. I'm old and frail. My brain shut down. I haven't learned anything new in a dog's age. Once this is over I'm going back to square pixels and never again will I dwell in the House of Pain.

Spaces on the timeline are not going to do anything for you.

You simply need 5 separate files, each to be represented as a menu item on your DVD.

Gary

Also what DVD authoring tool are you using? Lots of folks here and knowledgeable about other tools.

"Also what DVD authoring tool are you using?"

I'm not sure I should tell anyone here becuase I'll get laughed at so I'll put it in brackets so only you will see it... (Adobe Premiere Elements 2) ... This unmentionable program wants markers before and after the clips and if the clips are all stuck together as one without any spaces between them or even 5 seperate ones end to end, how can I put markers in on top of each other on this program's timeline? Sure, you'll tell me to read the f* manual. I did. It took me a week just to understand the "Hi, Welcome To Your New Software ..."

" ... each to be represented as a menu item on your DVD ..."

Sure, I understand, BUT I need to put a STOP marker at the end of each clip to get back to the main menu and if there are no "gaps" to allow a Stop marker followed by a Start marker for the next clip, how will the program know where to start or stop? I know I'm missing a key point somewhere and not grasping the way a DVD authoring program thinks and operates. Thanks for the help in understanding. I'll be too old to post soon so none of this will really matter in the grand scheme of things ...

Of course, I read your post so fast, I didn't see the "not Sonys" at the end of the "Suck it into the DVD authoring thing"
All DVD authoring "things" are different, so I can't help you specifically. But I'd render each avi, one at a time, as an mpeg2 from VEGAs timeline, like I described earlier, but so you end up with 5 separate mpeg2s. (You can leave all 5 in the timeline, but just loop around the section you want to render, 1 at a time.)
If you drag all 5 of those mpgs into your authoring program, the resulting DVD should be like it has 5 small videos on one DVD and you should have to push a button (depending on your authoring system) to get to each video. They should stop after each section is done playing and you'd have to physically start the next one. That's what normally happens when putting separate "Titles" in most DVD authoring programs I've worked with.