Questions about video clips and menus

dfred wrote on 3/2/2008, 6:45 PM
I've posted and answered various posts and thought maybe it'd be easier to begin a new post. I have a couple of papers of info I've copied from the forums and still can't seem to follow simple instruction.

One of my notes says to "add all clips to Vegas timeline to creat full length movie." Ok, let's say I have two clips and I add those. My next note is "once architect is open, save project. Then go to "Explorer" window and drag each individual clip into the menu. Rename clips as desired. Drag each menu entry onto the main project window, thus creating a menu button for each segment, which will appear on the final project."

I am assuming that by doing the above steps, each of the two movies will have their own button and start and stop at the respective movie. Is this correct?

Next, my other note says "if you want users to play each of four clips separately then return to menu" to add the clip containing the four clips/movies to the menu four times. Double click each to open on the time line then drag yellow flags from beginning to end to make new start and end points.

My current project is one continuous clip of 12 minutes. If I want to play 4 items within that clip, would I need to have 4 SEPARATE clips to add to the menu in DVDA?

I currently have 4 chapters and each is marked and each chapter marker named appropriately. I can select any one of those buttons in the menu and it will begin play at the proper point. What I cannot yet figure out how to do is have each clip stop at its end and return to the manu page. Maybe it is because I don't have four separate clips - or maybe I need to add the same clip four times as suggested above - then create the start/end points within each clip.

If I go to, say, chapter 3 in the continuous movie and attempt to adjust the yellow flags for in/out points, the remainder of the manu shows "broken chapters."

I sure hope I'm making myself clear. Once I can fully understand, it'll probably seem so easy but I just can't seem to master this task thus far.

Comments

dfred wrote on 3/2/2008, 7:28 PM
Thought I'd post once more with an update to this mess I've created.

I started with a blank slate. I loaded the entire video of 12 minutes. I split that into two clips (thus far - I'm just testing the waters).

Each individual clip was saved with the title "Test of Two Clips." It was then rendered and opened in DVDA.

Once DVDA was opened, the entire movie was on the screen. Next, I opened Explorer and dragged the two individually-rendered clips onto the menu. This created a manu button for each clip.

To test up to this point, I selected "preview" and chose the middle of the three buttons - one button was the entire "Test of Two Clips" and the other two were "introduction" and "song 1." I chose "introduction since it was in the middle and I wanted to find out whether it would stop at the end of that clip.

It worked.

Here are the steps I think I need to follow. If you see anything that is being overlooked - or would make it easier - please respond.

Load video from video camera into Vegas. Save.

Split video into apporpriate number of clips. In this particular project, I have an introduction and 3 songs.

After video is split into a clip, save that clip and render to .avi file.

Once all 4 clips are saved as .avi files, add all clips to Vegas timeline to create a full-length movie. For this project, that'll be about 12 minutes.

Save movie.

Select "Make Movie" which will render movie to DVDA.

Once Architect is open, save the project.

Go to the "Explorer" window and drag each individual clip into the menu. Rename if necessary. I notice that if I save them with a name rather than "clip 1" then the menu buttons will be named as they are dragged onto the menu.

From this point I can change the appearance of buttons, themes, background, etc.

Once all the above steps have been performed, save project and select "Make DVD."

Please let me know if this is correct and/or if this is the best way to make future projects. I have a note card in my instruction manual and if this is correct, then I will update that card tomorrow.

I do know that if I have multiple clips on my video camera, they will load as separate clips; however, for this project, I had the video camera on and did not stop recording until the entire program had finished.

Thank you all so much. I've learned a lot but still have a very long ways to go.
TOG62 wrote on 3/3/2008, 12:28 AM
I've modified your procedure below as, if you do what you have described it will work but it will put 2 copies of you content onto the disc. This is OK for short projects but could be a problem on larger ones, because of lack of disc space.

Load video from video camera into Vegas. Save.

Select "Make Movie" which will render movie to DVDA.

Once Architect is open, save the project (optional).

Go to the "Explorer" window and drag your clip the menu 5 times. One copy will be to play the whole movie, the others to play individual clips. Rename each as necessary.

Double click on each menu item (except the one to play the whole movie) and set the start and end points to correspond to the relevant clip.

Change the appearance of buttons, themes, background, etc., as required.

Once all the above steps have been performed, save project and select "Make DVD."

Although you have added 5 copies of the movie to the project DVDA will add only one to the disc.

Mike
dfred wrote on 3/3/2008, 6:08 AM
Thank you for simplifying my directions. I tried something this morning - I made a video of two clips. I named each one then combined them into one movie, of about 35 seconds.

I dragged the two individual clips onto the menu and they popped up with their correct name ("Back" and "Front"). I set up the theme/menu buttons and it worked.

One thing I forgot to do was to double click on the individual clips and set start and end points. Is this a necessary step? Might the playback results vary from player to player? The reason I ask this is because when I clicked on clip named "Back" it played only that clip, stopped and went back to the main menu.

Thanks.
TOG62 wrote on 3/3/2008, 6:59 AM
The point about setting start and end points is that, following the instruction I gave earlier, you would have 5 copies of the whole video. Therefore you'd have to set start and end points to get only the individual clips to play before returning to the menu.

If you want to import only separate clips you can then get a 'play all' option by adding them to a playlist. The main drawback to that method is that you get a slight pause between clips.

Mike
dfred wrote on 3/3/2008, 7:23 AM
Hi Mike,

I reopened the project in DVDA. I have the full movie and the two clips in the preview pane on the left (the menu area).

Now I'm stumped as to how to put those 5 copies of that full movie in there to be able to set in and out points.

I'll be online a few so maybe you'll answer as I try to figure this out.
dfred wrote on 3/3/2008, 7:36 AM
I finally figured out how to drag the clip into the menu multiple times. Turns out when I opened DVDA that the clip did not show up in Explorer. Once I shut down the program and opened it again, the clip was there.

In this test project, I put the entire clip on the menu twice, thus creating a new button for each clip. I opened the first and set in/out point and did the same for the second and it worked.

I'm trying it with a different clip now to see what happens. Last night I kept getting an error message "broken chapters" but I'm not certain I was actually loading the video into the menu properly.

Will post another update shortly - if I get this to work.
dfred wrote on 3/3/2008, 8:02 AM
The video clip is dragged onto the menu 3 times - once is the entire clip and the other two are portions marked by chapter markers.

I see buttons for each one and I have selected a theme.

The new issue I have is that when I make the DVD, it only has one menu button that shows up on my many page. I loaded the DVD into a different computer to test this.

Any ideas?
dfred wrote on 3/3/2008, 8:54 AM
I got it! I tried a different DVD (not the DVD+RW mentioned in my earlier post) and loaded it onto the laptop and the buttons are there! I tried playing it and it is working properly. So guess I'm not too dumb to figure out at least one aspect of this on my own.

Thanks for the help; however, if you have any other tips/tricks/advice based on my posts I'd appreciate it.