Multiple Videos Only Show as ONE Title - How to Separate?

[pcdweller]

I've placed 4 video files in the Timeline in the Edit mode. I have not merged them, they remain separate. But when I go to "Share" & create DVD, the Title menu always shows the whole project as one Title. I would like each video to show as a separate Title, which I can subsequently subdivide into chapters.

Also, the "Cut" icon is greyed-out in the Title Menu interface, so I cannot cut the project into separate titles here either.

I've checked the manual & Googled every relevant keyword I can think of, but I've come up dry on this one. Has anyone found a solution to this?

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

You don't say which version of VS you are using, and this will affect which burning module you are using. So I will keep the following comments general when it comes to the burning module itself.

I think your problem stems from a slight confusion over terms. In effect, there are two terms 'title' in video parlance. The first is the usual one, and means the words that name a video e.g. "My Holiday", which appear in the menu of the DVD you are creating. But in deeper, editing parlance, 'Title' means a completed, single video, and that is in fact what you are giving to the burning module...

It is perhaps easier to understand from a workflow point of view. Normally, you put your videos for a project in the timeline, do your editing, add background music, voiceovers, transitions, filters etc, and then normally you should convert that single project into a single new video (or Title). That is still our recommended workflow: Share > Create Video File > DVD. (You select 'DVD' if your project is one hour or less long; or Custom if it is longer, and then adjust the bitrate to make sure the video will fit on the DVD...) Instead, you have, presumably, done your editing on the four separate videos you have on the timeline, and then jumped straight to the burning engine: Share > Create Disc > DVD. The burning module opens, and it inserts automatically the *project* file into the burning timeline. But for the program, the project file -- which it treats as if it were video -- is only a single file, and it will burn it onto your DVD as a single Video (i.e. a single Title...)

If you want each of those four videos to appear as separate Titles on the DVD, you have to create four separate projects with one video in each of them. (You can, of course, include many more than one video clip in a single project, but in your case it appears to be one clip each... though I don't know if you have included a name/title before each or a 'The End' and credits title or clip at the end of each.) Then you edit each of these projects individually, and then follow our recommended workflow and create a new video of each of these projects: Share > Create Video File > DVD.

When you have finished editing and creating the last of the four videos, start a new project: File > New Project. Don't bother giving it a name. The objective is just to clear the timeline of the last project and its clip(s). Then you select Share > Create Disc > DVD. And this time when the burning module opens, it finds a project with no video in the timeline, so the burning timeline also remains empty. You then individually add the four new videos (TITLES) that you have just created. Then you can build your menu, and this time you will have four separate Titles, which you can then subdivide into chapters.

[pcdweller]

Thanks for the information, Ken. Separating the videos to individual projects & importing them during the "Create Disc > DVD" process was the solution. I guess my terminology was imprecise enough to prevent my solving this thru my searches. Getting the clips to display as individual items on the opening menu is what I was after & now have achieved. Much obliged.