Questions About MovieFactory Regarding Capicity and Chapters

[*KINGPIN*]

Dear Ulead & Members, I am writing this email due to some questions I have regarding MovieFactory software that maybe I can get some help on. My questions are as follow, I tried to make a DVD using video clips. After a successful burned I played the videos on my DVD player and one issue I came across was all the videos where in one chapter and multiple titles. I can not seem to separate the videos by chapters but only titles. for example it would remain on chapter 1 and title 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. is there a way to have chapters 1,2,3,4 etc. instead of title. another question I have is when making a DVD video, what is a capacity, i am using a 2 hour / 4.7 GB DVD-r diskette. When creating a DVD video the hours add up to 2 hours but there is more GB (disk space) available. so do I add videos that add up to the disk space or the hours on my DVD-r disk. Can you please answer these questions for me, other then that I am impressed with the software but these problems are big issues to me and hopefully can be answered.

Thanks Again Everyone.
Adam

[jcc]

It sound to me as if you have multiple clips in your timeline and have not defined chapters in each clip. Is that so?

The clips on the timeline are your DVD titles and they can be divided into chapters

If you select the Project Settings icon (gear icon bottom left), then Change MPEG Settings you will see how much you can fit on a disk using various formats.

[DVDDoug]

A DVD can have up to 99 titles. A title is a separate program, clip, or movie. (I don't think I've made a DVD yet with more than one title.)

Each title can contain up to 99 chapters.

Quoting myself

The DVD standard does not set a fixed level of compression -

Higher bitrate = higher quality = lower compression = less playing time.
Lower bitrate = lower quality = higher compression = more playing time.

A good "rule-of-thumb" is 90 minutes per DVD. You can get that with a 6000k bitrate and Dolby AC3 audio. This bitrate is typical of commercal DVDs (The DVD spec allows bitrates up to about 9800k, audio & video combined)

When you squeeze more than 2 hours on a (single-layer) DVD, you start to see the video-quality degrade. You'll have to judge for yourself... There are lots of variables including the quality of the source video, the quality of your TV, and how critical you are.

Using compressed audio allows more room for more video or higher-quality video. If you live in the USA (or another NTSC country), your player must play LPCM (uncompressed) and Dolby AC3 audio. If you live in a PAL country, your player must play LPCM and MPEG-2 audio. (Players are not required to play MP3 audio.)

A Bitrate Calculator may help.

[beernose]

... I tried to make a DVD using video clips. After a successful burned I played the videos on my DVD player and one issue I came across was all the videos were in one chapter and multiple titles. I can not seem to separate the videos by chapters but only titles. for example it would remain on chapter 1 and title 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. is there a way to have chapters 1,2,3,4 etc. instead of title. ...

Thanks Again Everyone.
Adam

What you seem to be saying is that you really want ONE title that is a combination of all the multiple videos you've brought into the project? With chapters for each of the individual videos?

Yes you can do this. I figured this out a couple days ago.

Each "clip" that appears at the bottom of the main project screen will appear as a "title" on the DVD. So when all the videos are imported, you need to multi-select them (hold down the control or shift key when selecting the clips), then select the "Join Video" option to sequence the clips into a single "clip" (which appears as a single Title on the DVD).

By default, Movie Factory will create a chapter point at the start of each of the merged video clips. You can also add additional chapter points with the "Add/Edit" chapter button.

Note, any "visible" or "shown" chapter will appear in a submenu if you create a chapter sub-menu (in the Setup Menu screen under 'Advanced Settings'). Back in the Add/Edit Media screen, when creating your chapter points in the Add/Edit chapter box, you can click the "Hide" button to create a chapter point which does not appear in the DVD menu but does create an additional chapter on the DVD.

Note, there is a BUG in this as well which I discovered last night. If in the Project Settings dialog box, you choose the "play next clip" option at the bottom in the Clip Playback option box, then hidden chapters cause a glitch in the DVD navigation. The "glitch" is that when the movie plays, you can skip to the hidden chapters just fine (the DVD plays them if you deliberately skip to them), but if you allow the DVD to simply play normally without skipping ahead, when the title plays and transitions from chapter 1 to chapter 2, the movie automatically jumps to chapter 1 of the next title instead of moving on to chapter 2 of the current title. If you choose "Back to Menu" clip playback option instead, this glitch does not occur. (but now your DVD jumps back to the menu between clips which is probably not what you want).

I'm hoping someone from Ulead is monitoring these posts and works toward a patch to fix this. This is a fly in the ointment of an otherwise SWEET program.

Hope that helped! ?

[urony]

[quote="beernose]

Yes you can do this. I figured this out a couple days ago.

Each "clip" that appears at the bottom of the main project screen will appear as a "title" on the DVD. So when all the videos are imported, you need to multi-select them (hold down the control or shift key when selecting the clips), then select the "Join Video" option to sequence the clips into a single "clip" (which appears as a single Title on the DVD).
[/quote]

I tried "Join Video" finction in my MF4.0, the videos were joined but I lost the Audio. Does anybody have an idea why did it happaen?

thanks - Uri