DVD architect: script to change chapters end action?

[Mike Kujbida]

“End Actions” are your best friend for doing this.
Take a look at the (rather lengthy) description I gave in the DVD scene selection markers as in comm. DVDs and see if it helps.

[Fabio Mereghetti]

Yeah, I saw that thread, thanks. (By the way: someone should really cut out all the doubled parts, there).

I have already done all you mention there. I also checked that the navigation was right for each of the button because, as you surely know, if you insert or move some buttons in the three you could end up with wrong navigation behaviour.

What I would like to be able to do, instead, is to give the user the ability to change the end action of the chapters before playing them.

Example:

– if the control box “watch to the end of DVD” is checked, when a chapter ends go seamlessly to the next until the DVD end is reached

– if the control box “watch to the end of DVD” in NOT checked, when a chapter ends go back to the menu page from where you started the playback and find the next chapter button highlighted

I don’t know if I can put an interactive control box on a DVD menu.
If not, is there another way to dynamically change the end action of a chapter?

Thanks.

[Mike Kujbida]

“What I would like to be able to do, instead, is to give the user the ability to change the end action of the chapters before playing them.”

I stand to be corrected but in all my years of reading DVD creation posts, I’ve never seen this option discussed.

“I don’t know if I can put an interactive control box on a DVD menu.”

Unfortunately no.
End actions are an either/or choice, not an and/or choice.

“If not, is there another way to dynamically change the end action of a chapter?”

Another full set of menu pages giving them the second choice?
This could get really confusing for the user though.

[Fabio Mereghetti]

Thanks for your answer.

In the end, I think I will simply create a three pages scene selection menu with the playback always going to the DVD end, and leaving the user the choice to use the stop button (or the top menu one), if i likes it.

Thanks again.

[Mike Kujbida]

Have you asked the client what they would prefer?

For example, whenever I shoot a play, the main menu has a “Play All” button and a “Scene Selection” button.
Scene Selection goes to another menu page where the viewer has the option to watch an individual scene (it may the only scene they were in).
At the end of the scene, it goes back to the Scene Selection page where there’s also a link to the main menu.
I also did a Tae-Kwon-Do training video a few years ago.
Following a brief introduction by the instructor, it went to a menu page with several different patterns (aka moves).
Once again, it returned to the Scene Selection page at the end.

Over the years, I’ve found that most viewers prefer this method.

[Dave Haynie]

The general effect you’re trying to get can be kind of hacking in, if your menu isn’t to complicated. You have a starting menu with a multi-way toggle of some kind. When the user selects the toggle, they’re actually taken to a new menu, identical to the first other than its showing the newly selected toggle highlighted, rather than the default.

You can, from different menu pages, launch the same media assets with different parameters, end actions, etc. But it’s not common for end users to care about end actions so much, other than in the case of a “play clip 1…4, play all” sort of situation.

-Dave

[Fabio Mereghetti]

Thank you for your hint. It looks as a good cheat. I’ll think about it.

The object of this DVD is a footage of an “end course show” with about fifty girls from 4 to 20 years old and my 8 years old daughter is involved too.
So, my (not paying) “clients” are the parents and relatives of all the other girls.

Nonetheless, not wanting to release the usual unwatchable crap home movies are in general, I took this opportunity to try and learn something interesting and useful about video making/editing.

I made a plan for the shooting but having limited gear and experience I ended up with a stable DV SD footage in need of cleaning (tripod) and a quite unstable HDV couple of hours full of close ups and alternate point of view shots (taken by hand often over my shoulders).

Than I did the multicam, the cleaning and the stabilizing and now I’m quite satisfied.

The last step is to “distribute” a standard DVD Widescreen (PAL land) and I’m trying not to be boring here too. That’s why I’m bothering people here.

Going back to the menus I imagine the user will watch the whole show the first time and it will be pleased to be able to directly choose the performance her/his daughter was involved to the other times. But these are those kind of things that, when you start watching them, you’d rather let them go to the end than cutting them off after one chapter alone.

But maybe it’s be simpler than that…

Thanks.

[Dave Haynie]

Don’t have to convince me.. I was the guy doing 2 and 3 camera shoots, with separate audio rig (recording to laptop) at my kids’ band concerts and plays. It’s good practice for “paying gigs”, but also… if you do know how to do it right, and don’t, it’s just wasted effort.

First thing — always use tripods. I have a nice >$200 tripod with video head, but a few extra for stationary cameras or mics… got ’em for $10 each or less, at yard sales. Certainly some of the better OIS systems can make handheld shooting an option when you need it, but I really try not to need it (I also have a monopod which fits the same Manfrotto base mount as my main tripod — and I built one of those into a GlideCam 2000, as well).

Distribution has to be a little boring, because if it’s not, people won’t be able to play it. This was an issue back in the early days of DVD, but as long as you stick to single layer, good quality discs, and print-on-disc labels rather than stickies, you’re pretty much a “go” these days.

For plays and concerts, I run the video straight through, but do a good chapter index. That way, you can watch as intended, but if Mommy’s Special Boy is doing a solo only on second act, fourth song, it’s easy to punch that up for people who won’t sit for the whole show. I also do a nice DVD authoring, including a menu transitions and a credits section (which you can make from program hand-outs).

This is also good experience for other things. I’ve shot several dozen weddings over the years, but it was the kids shows that really got me thinking about “site collected assets”.. still photos, particularly close ups, programs, anything you can use later for the video disc authoring, to avoid the cliched “Wedding on a DVD” clipart/clipvid that so many people use to fill out a wedding video.

-Dave