Sales guys are evil.

Sales guys are a needed part of any business. This is very unfortunate, especially when they pitch projects that us tech guys have no idea how to do.

I am the video editor for a small media production company. Because of the small size of our company I have also been responsible for our DVD authoring, even though I know very little about DVD authoring. This hasn?t been a problem since most of our DVDs consist of simple menus.

We however just took on a project that is quite a bit more complicated. I think that I may have an idea about how to accomplish this, but I would greatly appreciate some input from someone who actually knows what they are doing.

The DVD is going to be a series of very short videos that are going to consist of a slide with a question and audio or somebody reading the question. After each question is asked a menu will come up with multiple answers to the question. The person will answer the question. Depending on how they answer the question this will take them to another video explaining why they are rite or wrong and then onto the next question. This goes on for a few dozen questions.

This leaves me with several questions:

Are there set limits to the number of DVD menus or titles that each disk can hold?

I think that I can do this using the basics of DVDSP. Would I be better off biting the bullet and learning how to script? I don?t even really know what scripting is or does.

Can anyone recommend a training book/DVD/program that teaches more advanced DVD authoring?

Thanks,
Ryan

Hi all.


The DVDSP Tutorial DVDs that should have come with your DVDSP package is a great first step. After that, I would try reading the first three chapters of the DVDSP manual.


Take care.

-DH

You might decide what each picture is in the stream of answering questions either YES or NO. Can the Yes or NO go back to the same Menu(s) that has YES or NO on it? Perhaps a Menu that has the text - "That was an Incorrect Answer", and another Menu that has text saying "Correct Answer"

You can have 99 menus in one VTS folder. That is if the DvD Studio you have is version 4.x

Does the first question need to refer to a different question depending on whether the answer is YES or NO of the first question? This could get ugly really fast if it is not well planned out to minimize menu switching.

One suggestion is to figure out how you want to accomplish this for one question. Then create a separate track for each question. That would make it easier to keep track of the steps you want to follow for the questions. Trying to put them all on one track could be nightmarish to sort out.

I've done things sorta like that in the past. John Foley is right that this could get ugly fast. There are a couple different ways to do this fairly efficiently, though all are technically complicated until you get comfortable with using mixing stills, stills with audio, and videos on the same track.

bob rice
frameworx media

Dvdcreation has free online articles about DVDSP scripting

Creating a score counter for interactive quizzes:
[www.dvdcreation.com]
Adding a timer to an interactive quiz:
[www.dvdcreation.com]

The above advice is good, Ryan.

This project will need careful planning, but is ultimately very achievable with DVDSP - I have done several similar.

A DVD has a theoretical maximum of 10,000 menus in all, but as John says, it depends on exactly where in the structure you place them. You can also use tracks as menus, and if you want to re-use some menus (i.e. a splash screen saying 'Correct!') then you can cut down on the total number needed. As for titles - in DVDSP you can have up to 99 tracks, stories or slideshows only, and each of those can have 99 chapter markers max. This could be a real limit for a very advanced disc with some deep navigational structures, but it depends on your actual project needs.

You asked about scripting - this is only necessary if you want to get into higher level authoring, and this *might* be an ideal project to do so. You can accomplish pretty much any navigational system through scripting, but you can also use them to keep track of a score, return to specific buttons on specific menus, work as timers, do some mathematical calculations, keep track of which choice a user made, and so very much more.

Check out Erica Sadun's DVD Studio Pro Solutions book for some advanced ideas. Otherwise check out Martin Sitter's web site www.macprovideo.com for some in depth tutorials about some of the features available to you.

There are also some excellent folk around who will willingly help you with specific areas or issues you run in to. If you want to employ a DVDSP consultant then that's a different matter - there are some of us who take on the kind of work you describe for a fee, and whilst I'm happy to help out online here (and at the Apple discussions), such help is often limited by time and space available :-)