Menus for many chapters

[davekn]

I am a new user with several related questions that I have not found in the user group or help files. I am making DVD's of home videos, most of which have 80 or 90 scenes, which I'm breaking into chapters using the automatic scene detection feature - works great so far. My questions are all around menus:

 

1) Are there any menu formats with more than 6 chapters per menu?

 

2) Can I make a flatter menu hierarchy? For example, a top level menu that has 10 selection buttons, one for a sub-menu of chapters 1-10, the next for a sub-menu of chapters 11-20, etc.?

 

3) If I can't make a flatter menu hierarchy, is there a way to make the > (next menu) key the default one on each menu without manually changing the default on each menu one-at-a-time?

 

4) (This may be the hardest:) Is there a way to have all the menus placed physically at the start of the DVD so that moving from one menu to the next is faster when playing the DVD on a standard player? (The trade-off will be slower transitions from the menu to the selected chapter, but this is OK for me. The Sony software that came with my computer places menus this way and I like that. I just gave up on the Sony software because it hangs the computer almost every time unless my hard drive is almost empty.)

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance! If I'm asking dumb questions that have already been answered, please point me to the threads and accept my apologies for your trouble!

 

David Knierim

[davekn]

Sounds like you're under the impression that each scene HAS TO BE a chapter. It doesn't. That isn't what 'chapter marks' is for anyway. Can you image how many would be in a commercial DVD if they did that? Be more logical - put chapter marks at regular internals like every 3 min or manually mark the special scenes of interest that a viewer may want to jump to.

 

Is there a way to merge two adjacent chapters into one chapter? That way I could automatically generate chapters at scene breaks, then merge the chapters that are both short and related. I've tried viewing help files and doing some experimenting without success.

 

My goal is to convert home DV tapes to DVD's with minimal manual work, but still have chapter breaks at logical points, not just time based. The Sony software "Click to DVD" that came with my Sony computer did that nicely, except that it now errors out every time unless my hard drive is almost empty. I was hoping to replace "Click to DVD" with "Easy Media Creator 9". (The Sony software makes a chapter per time-stamp on the DV tape, so many chapters. But the resulting menu is in one location on the DVD, so the player can select through the menus very quickly.)

 

Thanks,

David Knierim

[ggrussell]

I'm putting 1:02 (one hour two minutes) on a standard one-layer DVD. This is what fits on one miniDV tape in my camcorder. Many scenes are about a minute long, some up to two minutes, others down to 5 seconds. Every time I pause the camcorder it becomes a new scene.

 

Perhaps my best solution is to manually join the short scenes onto their neighbors. I was hoping to avoid manual processes, but perhaps this is worth while. I haven't yet looked at how to do that or how quickly it may go.

 

Thanks,

David Knierim

Sounds like you're under the impression that each scene HAS TO BE a chapter. It doesn't. That isn't what 'chapter marks' is for anyway. Can you image how many would be in a commercial DVD if they did that? Be more logical - put chapter marks at regular internals like every 3 min or manually mark the special scenes of interest that a viewer may want to jump to.

[ggrussell]

There is no 'merge' feature, but you can go back and edit the chapter marks, delete any unwanted marker and then update the menu.

[davekn]

How much time are you trying to put on a DVD? Only one hour at best quality; two with reduced quality, not quite double that for DL. If you are using DivX, then much more but the player must be able to play DivX files. Sound like those scenes are very short or .....?

 

I'm putting 1:02 (one hour two minutes) on a standard one-layer DVD. This is what fits on one miniDV tape in my camcorder. Many scenes are about a minute long, some up to two minutes, others down to 5 seconds. Every time I pause the camcorder it becomes a new scene.

 

Perhaps my best solution is to manually join the short scenes onto their neighbors. I was hoping to avoid manual processes, but perhaps this is worth while. I haven't yet looked at how to do that or how quickly it may go.

 

Thanks,

David Knierim

[davekn]

There is no 'merge' feature, but you can go back and edit the chapter marks, delete any unwanted marker and then update the menu.

 

Editing (deleting) chapter marks is exactly what I want to do. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong in invoking the editor, as the marks from the automatic scene recognition appear to no longer be there. Can you tell me how to invoke the editor while keeping the existing chapter marks intact, then how to delete a mark? That would be very helpful.

 

Thanks,

David Knierim

[grandpabruce]

I'm putting 1:02 (one hour two minutes) on a standard one-layer DVD. This is what fits on one miniDV tape in my camcorder. Many scenes are about a minute long, some up to two minutes, others down to 5 seconds. Every time I pause the camcorder it becomes a new scene.

 

Perhaps my best solution is to manually join the short scenes onto their neighbors. I was hoping to avoid manual processes, but perhaps this is worth while. I haven't yet looked at how to do that or how quickly it may go.

 

Thanks,

David Knierim

 

There is nothing easy in video work. You don't have to manually join scenes. You can bring the entire capture into VideoWave, do any editing that you want to do, save it, shut down VideoWave, open MyDVD, bring in the .dmsm file created in VideoWave, and create your chapters, where you want them, manually.

 

Time consuming, yes, but the final product will undoubtedly "wow" your end users.

[ggrussell]

Open your project

Select the button with chapters

Right click and 'edit chapters'

There should be a list of the marks on the right hand side.

RIGHT click on the mark you don't want and select REMOVE

Repeat as needed

Then check the box to update the menu.

Click OK

[ggrussell]

1) no

2) no, don't think so, but you might with a lot of futzing or breaking the movie into separate files.

3) no, you have to change the default for each submenu.

4) Maybe, depends on how many

 

MyDVD is aimed at more casual users. Sounds like you need a more advanced DVD authoring app.

[sknis]

How much time are you trying to put on a DVD? Only one hour at best quality; two with reduced quality, not quite double that for DL. If you are using DivX, then much more but the player must be able to play DivX files. Sound like those scenes are very short or .....?