Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 3/8/2010, 5:17 AM
I know of no reason this would happen, emax.

Do you see this button when you Preview your DVD menu in DVD Architect?

Do you see this button when you play the DVD in your computer?

Can you think of any possible reason this might happen? It's very out of the ordinary.
emaxxster wrote on 3/8/2010, 8:15 AM
No it does not show up during preview. When I play the dvd on any other device it show up. I'm going to start from scratch today. I did burn one with button on it and then I changed it and saved it with text only, then I burned it and it was still there. the only thing I didn't do was shut down sys. and restart. I did close project, close DVD-A and restarted it and loaded saved project, it still didn't work.
musicvid10 wrote on 3/8/2010, 2:28 PM
You are burning from a prepared folder from an older version of your project.

When you save a project, it does not overwrite the prepared DVD folder. You have to tell it to do this.

If in doubt, just delete all prepared folders from that project, and prepare again fresh.
emaxxster wrote on 3/9/2010, 3:42 AM
Thanks musicvid,
I figured that every time I make a change to any part of a project, I would be saving the changes when I hit the save icon on the tool bar.
I guess the other way around this would be to do a save as and then use some way to know which one was the most recent. Mark
TOG62 wrote on 3/9/2010, 5:06 AM
I figured that every time I make a change to any part of a project, I would be saving the changes when I hit the save icon on the tool bar.
That's exactly right.
I guess the other way around this would be to do a save as and then use some way to know which one was the most recent.
That's true if you want to keep more than one version. Whichever you do, though, you need to prepare the project again before your changes will be reflected in the video output.

Mike
emaxxster wrote on 3/9/2010, 7:57 AM
Thanks TOG62, I'm vary new to DVD-A, and could you shed some light on how to "prepare the project again".
The more I think about this problem I'm having to understand DVD-A.
I would have to open a project, make changes, save that project undera new name. Close that project and then open the new one so I could actually burn the one I made changes to. That seems to be to much just to change some thing. Thanks Mark
bStro wrote on 3/9/2010, 12:56 PM
I would have to open a project, make changes, save that project undera new name. Close that project and then open the new one so I could actually burn the one I made changes to

The only reason you would need to save a project under a new name is if you made major changes and you want to be able to go back to an older version (by opening the file with the old name). Otherwise, just save your file and Prepare the DVD files again in order to incorporate those changes into the actual DVD.

What I think you may be having trouble understanding is the difference between a project file and the prepared files that actually get burned to the DVD.

A DVD Architect project file (extension: DAR) works similar to a Vegas VEG file. It is a relatively small file that contains information about the media in your project -- what files to use, how they should be used, how your DVD menu and features should behave, etc. There's no actual media in the project file -- it's simply a collection of references and settings. The project file is essentially a set of instructions for DVD Architect telling it how to prepare (build) the DVD that it will eventually create.

The Prepare step (it's one of the things DVD Architect did after you hit the Make DVD button) reads those instructions and does everything necessary to build the files that will get burned onto your DVD. Any media that needs to be encoded, any graphics or videos that need to be created, all the DVD-specific instructions that need to be written -- that's all done when you Prepare the DVD...based on the project file.

If you make changes to your project and save the file, that's the only thing that's affected: the project file. Your prepared files (the one that get put onto the DVD) haven't been touched yet. This is by design -- after all, someone could spend days, weeks, or even months on a DVD project. They may need to save the project file between sessions, but there's no point in rebuilding the DVD files every time. They just save the project and resume working later.

If you've made changes and want to see them incorporated into an actual DVD, then hit the Make DVD button and follow the steps to Prepare the DVD or Prepare and Burn the DVD.

But there's no need to Save As unless you plan on going back to an old version.

Rob
musicvid10 wrote on 3/9/2010, 1:22 PM
If you inadvertently Prepare the same project to different folders, or Prepare different project versions to the same folder, DVDA will get confused and give you confused versions when you burn.

Delete ALL Prepared DVD folders that pertain to your project, and make sure every saved version of your project gets its own Prepare folder.

Really, that's what you need to do. Don't try to fix it. Delete the prepared dvd folders, open the most recent version of your project, and start fresh.
bStro wrote on 3/9/2010, 7:45 PM
Actually, if smart prepare is enabled and if the smart prepare file still exists, preparing to the same folder as the previous version will simply prepare anything that has changed, which is just what I'd think someone would want in the situation described in this thread.

Without smart prepare, if you prepare to the same folder, DVDA won't get confused -- it will simply overwrite the old files.

Rob
musicvid10 wrote on 3/9/2010, 9:31 PM
Rob, sorry to disagree, but I have just gone through this. Smart prepare is enabled. If I prepare two versions of the same project to the same folder and the dar's are named incrementally, DVDA will get confused. That is but one scenario where this confusion can and will happen.
YMMV, but my advice above stands without qualification.

bStro wrote on 3/9/2010, 10:56 PM
mart prepare is enabled. If I prepare two versions of the same project to the same folder and the dar's are named incrementally, DVDA will get confused.

Of course it would -- in that situation. Because it's no longer the same project (file). DVDA also looks at the project name when deciding whether or not to smart prepare. Different project name = different project = different prepare files.

But I didn't say anything about having two DARs "named incrementally." In fact, I said in my previous post that it wasn't necessary to Save As with a new name. The only reason this "Save As a new file" notion came up is because Mark was confused about what he needed to do to solve his problem. He's not trying to create multiple versions of projects or multiple versions of his DVD. He prepared and burned a DVD, decided to change it, and and now he wants a prepared / burned DVD that reflects his changes.

Open file, make changes, save (to the exact same DAR file) and smart prepare the new version. That's it, done.

Rob
emaxxster wrote on 3/10/2010, 3:28 AM
Thanks to everyone for the help.
I think if a person opens a project and makes changes to it and them looks at it in preview, and likes that changes. That once that person selects the save button on tool bar it should save all current information. So then when that person selects the make DVD button everything should be burn to DVD the way it's previewed.
I used two methods to get the final result that I wanted.
1. I used the save as option to get current changes to show on DVD.
2. When I opened that last saved as project, it previewed the way I wanted it. After selecting the "Burn to DVD" button I noticed that on the next screen there was a radio button to burn current project .
I did both, had opened file that previewed like I wanted and selected to burn current project instead of the one in a file location. Thanks Again Mark
musicvid10 wrote on 3/10/2010, 6:29 AM
Open file, make changes, save (to the exact same DAR file) and smart prepare the new version. That's it, done.

Ideally, yes. That being said, I hope you never have to experience the problem of confused vobs in DVDA.