Skip Through Intro Clips

cworld29 wrote on 12/3/2004, 2:08 PM
I am having another problem with the skip button setup. On normal DVDs you can use your next chapter button to skip through intro clips and arrive at the main menu. That is all that I am trying to do here. I have tried multiple methods and all work fine in preview but not when played in software or set top players. Is this possible in DVDA2?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/3/2004, 4:15 PM
Well, this doesn't help you any, but i can assure you that all the DVDs with scene selection menues i prepare in DVD Architect allow the skip button to work in all players. I haven't tried it with a video that contains scene markers and no scene selection menu, but then again, i don't know why i would produce a DVD with scenes and no selection menu. *shrug* Have you been inserting scene selection menues in your DVDs?
ScottW wrote on 12/4/2004, 8:31 AM
Whether this will work depends on how the "normal" DVD was authored.

If the DVD was authored such that all of the intro clips were basically a single movie with a chapter mark at the beginning of each clip, then you'll see the behavior you describe. Another option is to put each clip as it's own movie and then link the movies together in a chain - this should get you the same effect without placing chapter marks). To do this in DVDA you'll need to insert some introductory media and then navigate into the movie and change the end action to go to the next movie, etc.

Without knowing exactly what you've tried as a method to get this to work, it's not possible to suggest alternatives.

--Scott
cworld29 wrote on 12/6/2004, 9:35 AM
I do have a scene select menu but I am talking about navigation before the main menu shows up.

OK I'll be more specific. I want two clips to play before the main menu. This is done by inserting introduction media. Most DVDs on the market today have introduction media; previews, authoring house logo etc.. On these DVDs you can use your chapter forward button to skip through these clips to arrive at the main menu.

I can not do this in DVDA2.

I have tried inserting the two clips seperately. In this case I set a clip as the introduction media, then I set its end action to "Link" "Main Menu". Then I set another clip as introduction media with its end action set to "link" to the other intro media. This method has been tried with "Title Play" set to On and Off. This seems to work fine in preview mode but not when the files are prepared.

I have tried rendering the intro clips into one with chapter marks in the middle and towards the end. I place this composite clip as the introduction media with the end action set to "Link" "main Menu". Once again, this works fine in previeew but not in the final rendered files. Once again I have tried this method with "Tile Play" set both "On" and "Off".

I recently purchased the Northern Exposure season one set. This is a good example of crappy DVD authoring. Among the list of its problems is the choice to not allow viewers to skip through the previews that play before the main menu comes up. You can still fast forward through them but I think most agree that this is not standard behavior and is an inconvenience. In fact that is the most common annoyance listed among buyers at Amazon. Maybe this product was authored in DVDA?

The chapter button not triggering end actions is something that I believe has not been addressed properly. Projects previewing as expected but not in the final render lead me to believe that this may be a bug.

Maybe I am just not doing it properly. If this is the case then someone please straighten me out.