First Play question

[George Wing]

In the connection window, make sure the FIRST-PLAY “handle” is connected to the first-play item.

Regards,
George

[Warren R sampson]

Thanks for the reply, George. Glad to hear from a fellow DVD Lab user! I have been using it for several years, but still find great things to do with it.

My method on all previous projects has been to right click on my Main Menu (the one I want to play first) and set it as First Play. Checking in the Connections panel, the green First Play circle is indeed connected to my Main Menu along with the blue Title Button.

Today I played one of my titles at a friends house. She owns a very basic Walmart DVD player. The first thing that played was the first movie in my Movies list. I then navigated to the Main Menu, ejected the disc and re-inserted. The First Play went to the proper Menu as I had intended.

But a little alarm went off in my head. I remembered that when I open my VTS in Windows Media player, it played the movie instead of the menu.

I started to wonder if it was something deeper in the way that some DVD players decide to play assets on discs. I wondered if there was a Pre-Command that I should insert to make sure that all players went to the menu instead of the first movie. Sorry for the long reply!

[George Wing]

Out of curiosity, what is your process for burning your DVD’s? Do you create DVD Folders from DLP, and then burn the folders to disc, or do you create an IMAGE file, and then burn the IMAGE file to disc?

What software are you using to burn?

If you use PowerDVD to play your DVD from your hard drive, does it play the menu first, or the Title first?

Regards,
George

[Warren R sampson]

I am using DVD Labs General Disc record 3.1. It has been very reliable and useful for quick burned copies as well as for my local replicator (both pressed and burned).

I don’t usually burn an ISO image to test. I compile to VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders, then open a VTS stream directly from Windows Media player. It’s a fast way to get a really quick look at the compiled version. When you open a VTS directly, obviously the playback starts in the middle of a movie not at the first play menu.

THAT was what was weird about the player today. It was the first time I had seen a set top DVD player do what Windows media player does: it started playing a TS.

Maybe I am making a basic mistake by not burning from an .img. It wouldn’t be the first time I had done something dumb!

[George Wing]

Was that the first time you put the DVD in the DVD Player? Sometimes a player will “remember” a DVD and resume play from the last time you played the disc. Is it possible the player thought the DVD was already played before?

Check the DVD’s settings to see if “Auto Resume” is turned on (it could have a different name depending on the player/manufacturer). If it is turned ON, try turning it off to see if it will always start at the First-Play item…

Regards,
George

[Warren R sampson]

Thanks for the tip George. I was almost certain that I had never played this DVD in this player before, but it is possible that an earlier version was played. It is the most logical answer. First play works on every other player I have tried, so I must have played an earlier version and it just slipped my mind.

Thanks again for all your help.

Warren