Encore 5.5 DVD menu and chapters

[Jon Geddes]

Is there a specific reason you are using a Chapter Playlist? Unless you need the disc to return to the main menu after each chapter or want it to play the different chapters in a unique order instead of straight through, then you should not be using a chapter playlist. Simply link the scene buttons to the chapters of the timeline.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Bram Van workum]

Well I wanted both. If “they” select the scenes/chapters option i’d want every chapter to return to the menu and also if they select “Play” it should paly all the chapters in one go.

The playlist just does the whole list and the chapters dont return to the menu when i play them individually. Als setting an end action for each chapter ruins the playlist.

Last but not least Encore doesnt take over all the highlights i made in the menu. Just one highlight appeared in the DVD…

I’m thinking i’d better use Pinnacle studio for the DVD making process and skip Encore all together…

[Jon Geddes]

So what you want to do is have a single timeline for all the scenes, with chapter markers separating each one.

Your “Play” button will be linked to Chapter 1 of the main timeline.

You then need to create a chapter playlist for EACH chapter, that contains only that chapter. The end action of the chapter playlist will link back to the scene menu, and you can even have it select that button or the next in the list.

You then simply link each scene button to it’s corresponding chapter playlist.

If there is a problem with your button highlights, make sure you resolve that as it will most definitely cause problems. It could be a problem with your button routing or button group/layer prefixes in Photoshop.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Bram Van workum]

Ok, didnt consider playlists for all the chapters! thanks!

As for the highlights. I use CS5 edition of Encore. I’d like to send you my 2 psd files for “review” so to speak.

The Main menu psd works fine in Encore if I use the preview function. Its the “chapters” one thats failing. What i did in both files is the following:

A folder layer with some text in it and a line I drew with the Linetool. The text is just that. The name of the line always is: (=1) Highlight The folder wherein the line resides is: (+)Menu or (+) chapter.

Thats it, i didnt do much else other than add an image and a color solid to make the background. So its all folder layers with these operators (+) or (=) in ‘m

[Bram Van workum]

Ok, didnt consider playlists for all the chapters! thanks!

As for the highlights. I use CS5 edition of Encore. I’d like to send you my 2 psd files for “review” so to speak.

The Main menu psd works fine in Encore if I use the preview function. Its the “chapters” one thats failing. What i did in both files is the following:

A folder layer with some text in it and a line I drew with the Linetool. The text is just that. The name of the line always is: (=1) Highlight The folder wherein the line resides is: (+)Menu or (+) chapter.

[Jon Geddes]

Please send me an email and I’d be happy to take a quick look at it. You can find my email in the contact section of our website.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Bram Van workum]

ok, mailed it to the info section on your website

[Bram Van workum]

Soo that helped a lot but i’m still not quite there.

In the main menu the play button leads to the timeline, which plays front to back and reverts to the main menu when done, Good!

The scenes button leads to the chapters menu with all the chapters selectable. I made sure that each chapter button links to a playlist, which in turn play one chapter. So I now have six buttons that each lead to their own playlist to play their respective chapters. The end action = Return to last menu.

In Encore preview it neatly returns each chapter to the chapters menu but if I play the movie in , say, Windows media player classic or any other device it doesnt return to the chapters menu. It just keeps playing until the last chapter where it has to take en end action.

all in all the chapter menu now serves as a sort of stepoff point from where you want to start watching the film. I’d prefer it if my DVD had the option to play the whole film via “play” and just a selected chapter via “chapter”

any ideas?

[Jon Geddes]

If that’s not working for whatever reason, you can always export each chapter as it’s own video, then import each one as a timeline. You can then link each chapter to it’s corresponding timeline, then create a regular “Playlist” (not a Chapter Playlist) for the Play button on the main menu, which plays through all the timelines. This method unfortunately prevents you from using the chapter previous button to go back to the previous timeline/chapter.

The chapter playlist method should work though. So your end action for each chapter playlist is to return to the last menu? How about instead of returning to the last menu, you actually specify the menu? See if that makes any difference.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Bram Van workum]

Did that, same result. If I play via the Chapters menu (and i can select any chapter) it wil keep going till the end of the timeline. I’ve set it to End action: Main Menu. This way i made sure that it reverts to the dvd menu.

Pressing stop just stops the whole thing by the way. It doesnt return to the menu but that might be becuase i’m not using an actual DVD-player to watch it but a media streamer between my PC and TV.