next button on Mac DVD player

Hey Guys

A bit new to DVDSPRo scripting so this may be a simple wuestion.

i have made a DVD with several submenus.
I want to be able to skip straight from a track and back to the submenu.

It works fne on a regular DVD but not on the DVD that comes with the mac - DVD PLAYER.
Nothing happens when I press the "next" button on the controller.

Anyone know how to do this?

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

The next button will more usually take you to the next logical chapter marker in the track rather than skip you out to a menu. The best way to get to a menu is to use the menu button on your remote.

You can easily script which menu to get to if you have more than one which accesses the same track, or you can use stories and avoid scripts (usually, but not always).

How have you got the disc set up?

yes its already set up

How do i script which menu to go to?
I tried and failed....

Funny thing is, when I click "next" on a normal DVD player it works....

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

The scripting requires you to do a number of things. Firstly, for every menu you need a script and this has to set a value. Each time you jump to a menu, you jump to the associated script instead. Each script will be very similar, but the value in each must change, and of course the script must jump on to the original target for the button you clicked.

mov GPRM0, 1
jump menuname

is the format for each of these scripts. The first line needs to have a different number at the end. The second line needs to have the correct menu name. Once this is done, whenever you move to a menu from anywhere you land on a script first and then go on to the menu.

Next you set the end jump and menu call for every track to go to a final script which looks at the menu you came from last (by looking at GPRM0 value). You can then jump to that menu accordingly:

jump menuname1 If (GPRM0 = 1)
jump menuname2 If (GPRM0 = 2)
jump menuname3 If (GPRM0 = 3)

With a few additional lines of code you can set the jump to go to the right button, too.

If you set this up correctly, no matter which menu ast accessed the track, you can get back to where you were before playback of the footage.

Hal

Thanks for your input.
It makes a lot of sense but I am just to inexprienced with programming in DVDSPRO to fully understand how to do it.

Any tutorials you can recommend?

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

There are several places to find help with this sort of stuff. The example above is about all you need to do to get your situation working, but I accept it needs some more info in order to get it running if you have no prior knowledge. If I get a chance I'll write it up as a tut... in the mean time, have a look here:

[dvdstepbystep.com]

and here:

[www.dvdstudiopro.co.uk]

And also on the Apple forums for DVDSP. There is some excellent (if a tad out of date) information on the next site... I only wish SPDIF was still around (site author) on some of these forums. His info relates to an earlier version of DVDSP, but the explanations of what the script commands do is still relevant:

[www.dvdstudiopro.ch]

Also, read... read.... read! The manual is a fair place to start, but get hold of Martin Sitter's DVDSP books (again, earlier versions to v4, but all very good info.), and look for 'DVD Studio Pro Solutions' by Erica Sadun.

There are other places on the net for tutorials, and there are varying levels of complexity. Some are out of date a little, but the information on what things mean is still good, even if the application of the theory is different in later versions of the software.

Thanks Hal.

I'll jump right into it!

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

Hal

thanks again for your help.
I did the tutorials and I managed to get it to work - almost.

My problem now is that if I am at a menu and press "menu" on the remote, (Hoping to get back to the previous menu) the DVD instead jumps back to the last played track. This is probably due to the fact that between menus I have an animation that is a movie track.

example
Menu 1 - Menu animation (Track) - Menu 2

So if I am at Menu 2 and want to go to Menu 1 by pressing "menu" I end up at Menu Animation (Track) instead.

Any idea how to fix this?

thanks

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

Yes - it's a common misconception, I'm afraid. The menu button only moves you from menu to track, or from track to menu. It's like a resume button in that respect - you leave the track to get to a menu, but pressing it a second time takes you right back to the track exactly where you left off.

The button you need is the 'return' button, which is more properly designed to do what you want, but unfortunately it isn't well implemented in DVDSP (still... after all this time...). You can also use the 'title' button to get you to the top level menu (the first you create in DVDSP), and again this is what that button is intended to do.

However, moving between menus in any other way really needs you to add a new button on each menu to handle that kind of navigation and be sure it all works reliably.

Hal

Thanks for that
I was suspecting that was the case.

I'll just redesign the menus and get it to work - its close enough.

Have a look at the intro to the DVD if you can be bothered.
Its on my web page under "motion". Its called 'babusjka'.

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

I like it, Johan... I think I prefer less 'jumpy' stuff, mind you - smoothness of operation in the graphics appeals to me, but what you have done probably fits the material far better than I can see. How did you do it?

Thanks, yeah I know its jumpy but it was sup[posed to look like an old TV broadcast in Russia so it fits I guess.

Its Cinema 4D and After effects

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com