You are correct that the "resume" feature does not allow you to link to a Playlist. Why? Well, the Playlist actually does nothing more than create pointers to the video/audio files you already imported into your project. The good news is that, since these files are being "re-used," there is no increase in project size that results from creating the playlist. The bad news is that the DVD spec does not provide any way to keep track of the total play time inside of this playlist. I'm pretty sure this is a limitation in how a DVD works, and not inside of DVD Architect itself. Thus, if you have a playlist consisting of a four minute clip, followed by a two minute clip, and then a ten minute clip, if you paused at the five minute mark within the playlist, the DVD player would actually have to be instructed to go to the one minute mark of the second (two minute) clip. I'll admit that this sure sounds like something that would be easy to do, but as I said, I don't think this is in the spec.

Getting the Next and Previous buttons to work is a problem that can be solved in several ways, depending on how much work you are willing to do and, more importantly, on what navigation you are trying to achieve. To understand the underlying issue, you have to understand that the remote control on a DVD player (or the simulated remote in the DVDA preview window) goes to the next chapter within an MPEG-2 file. However, each individual MPEG-2 file is created as a separate title. The words "chapter" and "title" are really important to understand. So, if you are playing an MPEG-2 file and there are no more chapters beyond the point at which you are playing, and you press the "next chapter" button on your remote, nothing happens.

What confuses some people (like me) is that some DVD players will go to the next title when you press the next chapter button when no more chapters are left in the current MPEG-2 title. Others will only do this if the next title is specified in the "end action" for the current MPEG-2 title. Still others will not do anything no matter what you do.

In earlier versions of DVDA (version 4.0) the DVDA preview would go to the next title if it was specified as the end action (I just verified that DVDA 4.0 works this way, and DVDA 5.2 does not). Unfortunately, a lot of people authored DVDs with structures like yours and were unpleasantly surprised when some people to whom they distributed the DVD called to say the DVD didn't play correctly.

Also, you never get the PREV chapter button to go to the previous title, except on a very few DVD players, and only if the user presses the PREV chapter button multiple times. (BTW, if you want to author a DVD that relies on these "non-standard" DVD title/chapter behaviors, make sure to go to the File --> Order Titles dialog and drag each title so that the list is in the playing order you want).

So what to do?

The best solution is to render all 35 of your MPEG-2 files as one single file instead of separate files. If this isn't possible at this point, you may be able to join them all together without re-rendering by using one of Womble's products, or VideoRedo. This will work perfectly if all of the MPEG-2 files have the same resolution and bitrate. It will also probably work if the bitrates are different, although I can't guarantee that.

Once you have a single MPEG-2 file, put chapter stops at the points where, in your original multiple MPEG file scheme, each new MPEG-2 file began. Then, within DVD Architect, you drag and drop this single file into the project multiple times (35 times for your original 35 clips). Don't worry, this will not increase the project size. Then, for each instance of the MPEG-2 file, create an "In" and "Out" point on the timeline that exactly matches the original multiple MPEG-2 structure. DVD Architect makes this pretty easy because the In and Out sliders will snap to your chapter stops. Thus, for instance, the first instance of this single MPEG-2 file would have the In point set at 0:00 and the Out point at 2:05. The next instance would have the In point set for 2:05 and the Out point set for 4:23. The next instance would have the In point set for 4:23 ... and so on.

You then treat these "instances" of the single MPEG-2 file exactly as you were treating the individual MPEG-2 files: you create a button in one of your menus that links to it, and when that lecture completes, the navigation returns to the menu from which it was called. You can use scripting to control which button is selected upon return to the menu.

Finally, rather than creating a playlist from these "instances" (which you actually can do), instead drag one more instance of this single MPEG-2 file into your project, but leave the In and Out points alone. This instance becomes your "Playlist" version, where the entire video will play, and where you can navigate backwards and forwards using the chapter button on the remote. You can then create a "Resume" button on your menu for this "Play All" instance of your lectures that will resume navigation at the exact point that the user pressed the Menu button to return to the menu.

The OP implies in his first post of this thread that he is NOT burning a DVD disc ---

BUT a double layer Blu-Ray disc presumed to be authored as a Blu-ray project.

The OP implies in his first post of this thread that he is NOT burning a DVD disc Good point. Perhaps some of the DVD spec limitations don't apply. Here is a simple test DAR file that show what I'm talking about. Perhaps it still may be of use:

Test.zip

Hello Everyone,

John's solutions to my problems were excellent; each of my problems was resolved!
1) One clip consisting of all lectures (in my case 2 long clips; the first consists of 18 clips and the second of 17 equaling two 50 GB blu-ray discs).
2) A "Play All" button for the main clip plus individual buttons to play each chapter separately.
3) A "Resume" capable button to link to the "Play All" clip.
4) The functionality of Next and Previous scans.
4) To avoid exceeding the size limitation of the blu-ray disc.

Testing & Validation:
1) No increase in volume creating the extra chapter/scene links.
2) The "Play All" and the individual lectures tested successfully as expected.
3) The "Resume" link functioned successfully when playing the "ALL LECTURES" clip.
4) The "NEXT" and "PREV" buttons in the Preview functioned successfully with the main clip (had to double click the "PREV" button to transfer to the previous chapter as expected).

N.B. johnmeyer's recommendations should be documented in the DVDA user manual by the manufacturer/vendor. (I have few more lectures for grad students; I will not hesitate to use the same methods & suggestions.)

Need to burn the projects onto blu-ray discs.
Thank you very much, John.