Setting Thumbnail icons- A big step backwards

gbohn wrote on 6/26/2004, 7:56 AM
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but trying to set simple still image Menu Button Thubnails seems to be much harder in DVDA-2 than it used to be in DVDA-1.

In DVDA-1, I would take a 1 or 2 hour MPG, drop it on the Main Menu, do an 'Insert Scene selection Menu', and I'd have several pages of Scene selection menus (for, say 24 chapters).

To quickly set the Thumbnail of one of the scene selection Buttons, I could
go the say scene selection page 2, double click on the button, and I'd get a timeline with the current chapter marker in green.

I could expand the scale on the timeline, find where I wanted to be, and hit 'T' to change the thumbnail. Hitting 'Back to parent' I would be back on scene selection page 2, with my updated Icon for the button I chose.

This didn't take long, and now I could easily do the next button on that same page.

In DVDA-2, this seems to be 10 times as hard:

1) I tried the 'Start Time' properties for the button. Minimum granlarity is about 1 minute 12 seconds. Since this is 1 or 2 thousand times coarser than I has hoping for, I tried double clicking on the Button.

2) No more button to 'set thumbnail'. It appears you can double click on the menu button to get to a smaller timeline, but the current marker is no longer highlighted in green. (At least you get a black current position line, but this is already suckier than before).

When you have the frame you want, the best you seem to be able to do is 'copy' the timeline time. You then have to find the Properties for the button you were on, so you can paste this into the 'time' value.

2) O.k., so now that you've 'copied' the time, you need to find your way back up to the button you double clicked on. But, hitting 'Back to Parent' no longer takes you back to the Scene selection page you were on when you double clicked the button.

Instead, you go back to 'Menu 1'. So, you have to navigate back to the scene selection selection page you were on, and remember which button you copied the time for, so you can go ahead and paste the time into the right properties entry.

So, why does 'back to parent' go back to a different parent then you came from? I would have been happy to use the 'Previous page' button instead, but it is greyed out at this point.

So, I figure I'm either missing something, or this new procedure is ten times more work to perform what used to be a trivial job in DVDA-1.

What am I missing?

Thanks;

-Greg Bohn

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 6/26/2004, 9:05 AM
You aren't missing anything. They inexplicably took it out. Hopefully it will return in the patch. With the old feature removed, the copy/paste is the only way to accurately transfer the frame from the timeline to your icon.
bStro wrote on 6/26/2004, 1:16 PM
Not sure what's up with your mouse. When I use the Start Time function, one small nudge of my mouse moves about 13 seconds at a time.

Rob
gbohn wrote on 6/26/2004, 1:55 PM
>Not sure what's up with your mouse. When I use the Start Time function, >one small nudge of my mouse moves about 13 seconds at a time.

Err.. and on what length file did you try this?

On my system, the amount of 'nudge' I get using the arrow keys varies depending on the vide file length. Which makes sense since the slider has to represent the entire length of the time for the file.

On a 'short' 2 minute .MPG a nudge is about 1 second for me. On a 2 hour file a 'nudge' is about 1 minute and 13 seconds.

Are you saying there's some trick to getting a smaller nudge? (And I would still consider a 13 second nudge far worse than what DVDA-1 lets you accomplish...)

-Greg Bohn

bStro wrote on 6/26/2004, 3:06 PM
Err.. and on what length file did you try this?

About an hour.

Rob
mike_2004z wrote on 6/26/2004, 4:58 PM

Like I said moths ago: DVDA-2 is 1 step forward in features but 2 step backward in user friendly.

Haven't have any complain since moving back to DVDA v1 :-)

thier wrote on 6/28/2004, 10:22 AM
Or, if all you want to do is simulate what the "Set Menu Item Thumbnail" button used to do in DVDA V1, you can position to the desired frame in the timeline, note the displayed time (hh:mm:ss.ff), go back to the menu, select the desired button, and type that exact time into the "Start time" property of the Thumbnail.
...very slow, very ugly, but precise.

This obvious oversight shows what a truly sloppy job Sony did on QA for this version.