Menu emergency!

Oy Vey -

So I thought it was over, but here I am again tonight because the client wants a menu redo in time for an early AM flight...

I have been reading the bundled help manual, but can not seem to find how and where to tell my DVD Studio Pro project to jumb back to the menu at the end of each chapter!

If it's something that IS in the manual, and you haaven't time to explain, could you please tell me what to click on in the index of the help manual?

Stuck-in-NY,

Marla
G5 dual with DVD Studio Pro 4

Marla: I took some time before replying, because it's one of those questions that are hard to answer I am not even sure I undertstood correctly what you need or want to do.

First of all, chapters (unlike what you suggest) are not conventionally used as "mini tracks" (play a short segment, then return to menu). They are more a way to start playback from certain point to the end, among other things. That's at least the orthodox way.

It's true that in a DVD you can (and DVD SP allows you to) place an "End Jump" command on a chapter marker, so you can return to a menu. But you know what the problem is? According to what you say, if I understood correctly, each chapter marker would act as an individual start point. The problem, then, will be that you wil go to certain chapter marker, and since that chapter marker is an "End Jump" for the previous segment... it will return inmediately to the menu!

There are workarounds for example placing an "end" marker just before the next "start" chapter marker. But it's kind of an akward solution. Bear also in mind that there are limitations to how close in time chapter markers can be. They have to be at least 15 frames apart (BTW, to place an "End Jump" action on a marker, select the marker and then the Inspector will become the Marker inspector. There just select a target in the "End jump" menu).

For what you want to do, it may be easier to create a track for each segment. That's the reason why DVD SP allows you to create so many tracks. It enables you do to sophisticated navigation in easy way.

Hope this helps.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

I do frequent programs that jump in and out of tracks and back to the menu. I use Stories to do it and they seem to work flawlessly.

In this case it looks as if you will need a story for each chapter (I believe you can have up to 99 of them, though not sure). Each story would start at the desired chapter. Then the end jump of the story is the menu.

Bob Rice
frameworx media

I would say that each marker is in fact going to define a cell in the final DVD, and that each cell has a series of nav packs within it which play through in sequence. Only when the last nav pack has played will the end jump take place, which is good, because the last nav pack is in a different physical location to the next cell marker!

This means it is virtually impossible for a marker to be acting as both the end of a chapter and the start of a new one...

The presence of the new marker defines a new cell, and the post commands of the earlier cell will route the navigation where it needs to go according to the author's choices. If no commands are there the navigation defaults to the next cell in a continuous fashion.

All this means that it really IS ok to set end jumps on the chapter markers if you want to... I have done so on replicated discs without an issue. The end jump command in DVDSP becomes a cell command on the built DVD which takes on the navigation when it is reached.

You set the end jump by clicking on the marker in the timeline and then looking at the property inspector - you'll see the command there easily enough.