Real Chapter menu in VS11+

newly2006 · Post by **newly2006** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:56 pm

I was lucky not having any big problems with creating a chapter menu in VS11.5+ in Vista Ultimate. My first DVD in VS11 looks great, including chapter menu.
The only problem I have with DVD chapters - they are not really chapters!
My understanding of chapter is - it's a movie clip that has naturally the beginning and the end, so if I click on chapter 3, it will play chapter 3 only and then return back to the menu. No way! Charters in VS11 are just markups that mark the beginning of clip only and they have no end. Each chapter plays up to the end of the disk, like it were a tape.
I have some experience of cheating around VS10 and I applied this trick in VS11 - I created video file for each movie clip, moved them into a new project and added chapters, but it did not help - new chapters still play the whole disk.
I am seeking help from forum gurus - is there any way to create a REAL chapter menu in VS11+?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:41 pm

Ah! But no -- what *you* think of as chapters are, in video parlance, 'titles'; that is to say, they are discrete video clips which appear as separate names or thumbnails in the menu you make. You can set VS to make them all play through once one is selected, or it can be set to return to the menu each time one title is played. (Those controls are in the second of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen -- the cogwheel Project Settings icon.)

Chapters are exactly like a book's chapters -- they are only parts (or sub-sets) of a single title/clip and together all the chapters make up one whole clip. Commercial DVDs will have a main movie, and usually the menu also allows you to select scenes. These scenes are the same as chapters -- all just part of the one movie.

And your DVD player remote control will have a button which allows you to jump from scene to scene/chapter to chapter...

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 2:09 am

Here is a excerpt from the tutorial Authoring a DVD.

newly2006 · Post by **newly2006** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:30 am

Thank you very much for clarification, Ken.
I had to wait for weekend to try how it works and now I am happy with my DVD menu. it's beautiful and it plays only one selected chap... sorry, not chapter, but title at a time.
This terminology is still confusing as well as confusing is VS11 DVD authoring GUI. It's never clear which screen and which settings related to main (titles/clips/movies) menu or to secondary chapters/scenes menu.
Menu is not created if you add video files to timeline, but it creates menu only if files added to Disk Creation popup window.., and so on...
SJJ, I'd better read you manual more carefully to avoid trouble with menus. Thank you.