When is it appropriate to use multiple DVD Tracks?

CoolBlue wrote on 10/21/2007, 1:28 PM
For example, I have the following video captured in one file and it all is going on the same disc...

1. 30 minutes at Disneyland.
2. 20 minutes at Las Vegas.
3. 30 minutes at Six Flags theme park.

What is the most appropriate way to lay this out on disc? Should I create a seperate Title/Track for each on the main menu? Or should I just use one Title/Track and create a Scene Selection menu with chapter points?

I would assume creating three seperate tracks would be best. The user could then go to the main menu, and choose which to play, instead of using a Scene Selection menu.

Comments

TOG62 wrote on 10/21/2007, 3:02 PM
It really depends upon what you want to happen when each item finishes. If you go for chapters they will play in sequence, whereas separate items will each return to the menu.

In that situation I would go for separate tracks. If you want the option to play everything straight through you could always create a playlist.

Mike
richard-courtney wrote on 10/21/2007, 6:08 PM
Best example is a Video Training disc. Play a video then ask a question.
The user's response will guide you to a review of the correct answer or
inform the user his/her mistake.

The disc continues on to the next subject. Perhaps it also uses the GPRMs
and keeps a tally of correct responses.

The end of the disc you display the number of correct answers.
MPM wrote on 10/24/2007, 10:33 AM
The advantage of separate videos includes being able to have different specs for each. The advantage of single videos is that transitions are seamless, and performace better than with a playlist.

Remember that a title is a list of cells (chapters) to play. In DVDA duplicating/copying a title on the menu only uses one copy of the video on your DVD, and you can specify the start chapter and end time for each title. In this case you could import one video file into DVDA, using 4 buttons pointing to it on your menu. 1 would play the complete video, while the other 3 would only play a portion.

Or you can import 3 separate files and not worry about setting each titles start and duration. ;?P
Jeff9329 wrote on 10/24/2007, 1:57 PM
Along the same issue of multiple tracks, if I want to make the same video available to the user in both widescreen and standard, what do I setup the initial DVDA project properties as?
Jeff9329 wrote on 10/24/2007, 2:10 PM
CoolBlue:

I do a lot of family video.

Except for the parents, and sometimes including them, everyone will be bored to tears at watching 80 min of family video unless you are Stephen Speilburg.

I would use three separate tracks to allow easy to resume breakpoints.

This is a good case where the new advanced menu systems for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray blow away the old menu systems. And DVDA is pretty limiting anyway.

I have been using some cheap HD-DVD authoring software that creates an active image of each track and or breakpoint so the user can "flip" through these points in various ways and see video at those points. The only bummer is that the menu uses up a lot of the disc space. Enough rambling.
MPM wrote on 10/24/2007, 4:44 PM
You can have multiple aspect ratios for both the title videos and the menus according to the DVD spec -- DVDA will allow the video but not the menus. I mention that first in case you might want to just do 2 DVDs... Otherwise you can include both versions as separate video files/titles, just use either 4:3 or 16:9 menus, which is all the project sets. If you want to hack the DVDA DVD on your hard drive you can include the same title twice in a 16:9 project, then use IfoEdit to set one of the titles to Pan & Scan, which will fill a 4:3 screen with a widescreen video, cropping off the right & left sides to keep aspect. The original video will only be stored once on disc.

As above, the project settings only reflect the menus. Usually with W/S video people go widescreen for menus because 1) the letterboxing is not too noticable, & 2) some players will automatically stretch them to fit. Pan & Scan to my knowledge won't work for menus from DVDA, regardless the above hack, because the subpicture responsible for highlights is not created for pan & scan and won't line up...

It's REALLY a hack to set the menu & highlights to Pan & Scan with DVDA, but if you're determined enough it can be done -- search for one of my old posts listing how.

"I would use three separate tracks to allow easy to resume breakpoints."

AFAIK it should work about the same regardless number of tracks -- some add-on scripting is harder with multiple tracks re: resume... That said, no reason not to go with the 3 videos.

"This is a good case where the new advanced menu systems for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray blow away the old menu systems. And DVDA is pretty limiting anyway"

Would be nice, but there's a real lack of software so far and at present coding skills would be useful (script for HD & Java for BR). OTOH DVDA is probably as capable as most authoring software out there. It does have the limit of only one aspect for menus, but otherwise the only features missing are more or less limited to stories (Encore: chapter play lists) & CC.

"I have been using some cheap HD-DVD authoring software that creates an active image of each track and or breakpoint so the user can "flip" through these points in various ways and see video at those points. The only bummer is that the menu uses up a lot of the disc space..."

Well, with HD & BR you're supposed to have enough disc space not to care. :?P
Jeff9329 wrote on 10/25/2007, 3:49 PM
Thanks MPM!