Back to chapter menu after chapter ends?

[lanud]

I have a project with two titles, each one containing 3 chapters.

Within a title, how can I let the viewer go back to the chapter menu after viewing a chapter? I mean, I noticed that if a viewer selects for instance ¡§chapter two¡¨ of title one, the project brings him to chapter 3 automatically once chapter 2 is over. It gives no option to go back to chapter menu immediately after chapter 2 ends. What if I have a viewer interested in viewing only chapter 2, why he should be tied to see chapter 3 rigth after it?

I know you can set it up with titles but I have found no way to get it between chapters of the same title.

Thanks!

[Devil]

Not surprising you found no way: you cannot!

[lanud]

hmmm, then what a gap for this program. I guess that is something they should address on the next version. How can it be though? it is pretty obvious that it is a useful feature and they know it when they make it available for titles. Hard to believe they missed that.

Anyway, thanks for the info.
Cheers.

[Devil]

AFAIK, it is a function of the way DVD menuing works and has nothing to do with VS. If you take a commercial DVD and go into the chapters menu and click on a chapter half-way through the film, it will play from there to the end of the film before going back to the menu, won't it? Why do you think VS would do anything different? If you want each chapter to play independently, you have to cut them into separate titles, that's all there is to it.

[dmstockt]

Is THIS possible? Of course, I'd love a tutorial, if I know that it IS actually possible, I'm pretty sure I can figure it out. Am I using the naming "Title" and "Chapter" right?

From what I read, I think this WILL be possible, but I'll want to create the individual sections (expecially in the "extras" section) as seperate DVD "files" as opposed to trying to create the menu structure as part of the project/solution.

Thanks,
Dan

[Black Lab]

I will be Devil's advocate here (sorry, I had to do that) and agree that when you jump to a chapter within a title, that the video will play until the end of the title, then go to the menu (if that's how you have it set). I've never seen a video go to the menu at the end of a chapter.

Remember, VS is an editing app that has a nice little DVD authoring app thrown in. Try out the trial version of DVD Movie Factory and see if that does what you want.

[dmstockt]

Well, I'll know soon enough how this ends up... OK, not soon enough, my impatience is really making me think about replacing my new core 2 with an Extreem and look into overclocking!

I guess that if I can't create the desired flow for this particular project, I'm not going to be disappointed. This will be the first time I've used the menu functionality in VS10+. Everything is a learning curve right?

I'll think about the authoring software... though realistically, I'll likely not download the trial. Last "trial" I downloaded; the next morning was my computer failure (Cool 3D effects or whatever it is...) I don't think the two were connected in any way other than coinceidence, but I'm already spending way too much time acting like I work for a studio

With that said, it gives me cause for concern about the direction of "Video Studio" as a consumer product. "VS is an editing software with authoring thrown in" [or something very close to that] implies that the continuing development of authoring capabilities and features within VS will become afterthought (at least lower priority), almost "requiring" additional software purchases... I think this is a BAD idea; at that point, open source competition will put Ulead in the ranks of the $1000 video suites...

That of course is just my opinion...

Dan

[Ron P.]

For DVD authoring use the analogy of a book..

A title in a DVD is a movie clip, which is like a book. A chapter in a DVD is like a chapter of a book. When you read a book, you go from chapter to chapter until you have finished the book. You can skip to other chapters, but still at some point you read all the chapters in the book before changing books.

With a DVD you can have several books (titles), that can have several chapters. You can skip from chapter to chapter, but when playing it will play all the chapters until it reaches the end, before proceeding to the next title(book), or returning to you the menu (table of contents).

[Ken Berry]

"VS is an editing software with authoring thrown in" [or something very close to that] implies that the continuing development of authoring capabilities and features within VS will become afterthought (at least lower priority), almost "requiring" additional software purchases...

'Twas ever thus, I am afraid. From the start, VS has always been predominantly an editing program. Movie Factory was the equivalent authoring program. In the prosumer stakes, Movie Studio Pro was the editing program and DVD Workshop was the authoring program. It's a bit like Adobe Premiere Pro, though that doesn't have any authoring functions at all, only editing. For authoring you need Encore and possibly After Effects. Ditto with Vegas and DVD Architect.

When I started with VS7, the authoring aspects were pretty basic. I bought Movie Factory 2, I think it was at the time, to compensate. VS's authoring capacities have greatly increased in sophistication since then, though Movie Factory 6 is still better at it IMHO.

In other words the future direction of VS is the same as it has always been -- predominantly an editing program, but for those happy to have a "basic" but workable (and pretty good) authoring capacity, also providing that aspect. However, as many of us have found, there is probably no such thing as a perfect, all-rounded editing/authoring program. Some programs do things better than others, and many of us use far more than one program in any one editing project on a very regular basis.

[dmstockt]

I figured out how to handle the titles and chapters; of course the more experienced of you already knew this approach (and mention it in your posts), to create dvd files of logically connected "chapters", and then add them to the timeline only at the create disk phase (open new project of nothing and select create disk...).

Although I overlooked renaming my chapters (the files were named pretty close to what I wanted anyway), and I left in a "Play" icon I wanted to get rid of; overall I am 99.95% ecstatic with my end DVD result!!! Ulead VS10+ is EVERYTHING I need [today ] in terms of editing and authoring of video from my HC3.

This is truly a wonderfull and POWERFULL piece of software. I have come from just capture and burn to a full-fledged commercially viable final [DVD] product in no time flat. There is so many things that I have not even begun to experiment with (Scrolling Text, intricate transitions, animations etc...)

This project was my towns Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony. I think I am going to take it to the school Band director and see if she is interested in selling it to help fund the band trip planned for next year. They were doing a car wash a couple of weekends ago. I am also going to drop off a couple of copies to the librarian [historical record], city hall (gotta pay the water bill next week anyway), and the Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

FYI; my sarcasm regarding time to create disk... 47 minutes of video (2.69GB)... the DVD burner opened up 1 hour and 9 minutes after I hit "Burn"... WOW!!!!

My lasagna is likely burning, See Ya's
Dan

[Ken Berry]

Glad to have a 99.95% happy customer!!

Those burning times are indeed long, and suggest that you have jumped straight from the editing module to the burning module, without first rendering your project into a DVD compatible mpeg-2. The way you seem to have done it inserts the project file into the burning module, and rendering to the DVD-compatible mpeg-2 takes place as part of the burning process, which extends it considerably.

Nothing wrong with that workflow if it works for you. For many people it does not, so if things go wrong at some stage, just remember there is an alternative.