End action in DVD Architect 5

[Graham Bernard]

Check that your End Action takes you back to the Menu you want. What I’m concerned about is that by default DVDA should, by default, take you back to the last used Menu. Never mind, just check that your End Action takes you to that Menu you want.

Grazie

[Rob Strobbe]

What you’re seeing is the end action for the movie, not for the chapter. A chapter is nothing but a bookmark. And it doesn’t have an end action.

From your description, what you really want is for the chapters you have now to behave as individual movies.

Check the manual / online help for the section on making a scene selection menu. There is a part of it that explains how to get your “chapters” to return to the menu when they’re done playing.

Rob

[Carlos Dearell]

How do I create a scene selection or chapter menu in DVD Architect or DVD Architect Studio?

In order to create a scene selection menu, please follow the steps below:

1. First make sure you are creating a Menu based project. If not, go into the File menu, select New, and choose Menu Based.

2. Then locate the video file that you rendered out of Vegas in the Explorer window at the bottom of the DVD Architect or DVD Architect Studio interface. Then drag and drop it in the Menu 1 window.

3. Double click on the box/button that appears in the Menu 1 page for that video, to open that video in the timeline area of DVD Architect or DVD Architect Studio.

4. Next you will need to insert your Chapter/Scene Markers in the timeline. To do so, click anywhere on the timeline and press the ‘M’ key on your keyboard. You will see a small orange line with a flag on top indicating your marker with an area open to insert text into. Type the name of the chapter in the text area of that marker flag. Then continue to add chapter markers on the timeline where you need them.

5. Now double click on “Menu 1” in the treeview window in the upper left corner of the interface. Your workspace screen in the middle should go back to the screen containing the Menu. Right-click on the button for the video and select “Insert Scene Selection Menu.” You will then have the option to name the scene selection page, and determine how many chapter links you want to show up on each page. For example if you have ten chapter markers, and you choose five links per page, you will have two scene selection pages that each have 5 chapter links. After pressing OK, a second box/button appears on the workspace to access your chapters.

Just followed this and I’m still not able to have say Chpt 1 to stop at the end? It just keeps playing the full video?

[Mike Kujbida]

Carlos, I did a very lengthy response outlining the necessary steps in the DVD scene selection markers as in comm. DVDs thread.

[Rob Strobbe]

To clarify, when I said “online help,” I was referring to the help system available within the DVD Architect program. (You access it from within DVDA by hitting the F1 key or going to Help > Contents and Index. The text you’ve pasted, though accurate for creating a standard scene selection menu, is not from DVD Achitect’s online help or manual.

If you go there and search for “scene selection”, the first topic result will be Adding a Scene Selection Menu. Double-click that, and you will be presented with instructions for three options regarding scene selection menus. You want the second one titled Create a menu that returns to the scene selection menu… In the DVD Architect Pro 5.2 manual (not any of the Quick Start Guides), this is on page 43.

That said, here’s my version, which is slightly different but gives essentially the same result.

1. Add your movie to the project.
2. Double-click the menu button for that movie to bring up its timeline. There, add markers to indicate the chapters you’ll be needing. (It’s not absolutely necessary, but it will really help later on.) When you’re done, go back to the menu with the movie’s button.
3. Select the movie’s button and go to Edit > Copy or hit Ctrl+C on the keyboard.
4. Go to Edit > Paste or hit Ctrl+V on the keyboard until you have as many copies on your menu as you have “chapters” in your movie.
5. Tidy up these menu buttons to make this “scene selection menu” look the way you want. You could do this later, but I imagine the menu looks a bit messy by this point and will be easier to work with if you clean it up.
6. For each of these button, double-click it to navigate to its timeline.
7. Move the In and Out points (the yellow flags on the timeline) to indicate the start and end of that particular copy. This will be easier if you added chapter markers as mentioned above. Bonus tip: Do the Out point first. As you change the In point, the chapter numbers will change. (After all, if your movie starts “after” Chapter 1, how can that be Chapter 1 any longer?)

That should do it.

Rob

[Carlos Dearell]

Thanks for all your help with this!

Now for another rookie question? How do I save the in & out points for each chapter? When I do the in/out for the next chapt, I click on the first to make sure everything is fine but the chapt starts with chapt 2?

[Rob Strobbe]

After you’re done setting the In / Out points for “Chapter 1,” go back to the scene selection menu and double-click the button for “Chapter 2.” This opens the timeline for that movie, where you will follow Step #7 again.

(I kind of implied this by using the word “each” in step #6, but I should clarify that when I post this in the future. Thanks for beta testing my instructions. 😉

Remember, what you once had as chapters are now individual, autonomous media items. The timeline you see is for that movie. To edit anything, including the In / Out points, for a different movie, you have to navigate into that different movie’s timeline. You can do that by going to a menu that links to that movie and double-clicking its button or just double-clicking that movie in the Project Overview window.

Rob

[Carlos Dearell]

I must be totally doing something wrong? This is what happens after I put the in/out for each chapt. Now in the second image chapt 2 is set in/out. If I click on chapt 1 it will start will chapt 2 has an in point?

[Rob Strobbe]

As far as playback is concerned, don’t worry about the chapter markers. By this point, they’re pretty much irrelevant since there aren’t any between the In and Out points. You screenshots look fine.

If it makes you feel better, after you’ve set your In and Out point, you can delete the chapter markers (right-click it, choose Delete Marker). Note that there will always be at least one — the one that “follows” your In point. Every movie has to have at least one chapter marker, even if it’s at the very beginning.

Rob

[Carlos Dearell]

This is seriously driving me crazy!