Menu and Chapter questions

[inthemiddle]

using videowave to create a slideshow.... well lots of slideshows..

 

Ok... so I've got 22 or so chapters to make...

 

1. I start with one menu, after adding 4 items it tells me it's full and asks if i'd like to create another, if i say yes, i seem to be able to make a 2nd menu, and then drag the slideshows back to the first, putting at least 5 on one page, is that asking for trouble ? why the 4 chapter limit per menu page ?

 

 

2. Time constraint on the menu pages (for music), seems to be limited to 150 seconds..... any way around that ?

 

 

3. Biggest problem !! - upon playback (in either preview or an actual burned disk, or mounted iso) ... it seems to only play 2 chapters, then go back to whatever menu... it doesn't matter which chapter i start on, it will play that one and the next one... and then return to the menu... help ??

(with this, in the file project settings menu i think it was, i tried selecting 'play this movie' or 'play this movie and all following movies' .. but that caused all of the links to become 'irrelevant' in a way.... no matter which link you picked, it would just play the next chapter after where you had left off... names and links didn't match ... just cycled through)

 

4. My next buttons (all the navigation buttons) have dissappeared, for now i'm creating my own unlinked button and linking to the next menu... seems to work.. but no matter what i do i can't get the next button back... it will create it, and i get the outline on the menu page.. but it's empty... tried changing to a default theme..etc.. no luck... whatever not that important to me (unless it's somehow related to #3)

 

5. What's with the color scheme or whatever for each link.... the 3 options... red blue, blue green, or like cyan, brown... what do those do ? my menu text looks HORRIBLE... but those don't seem to matter... ..

 

i hope that's it... really looking for an answer to number 3 more than anything !!!!! (pretty lame to make a presentation and have to jump start it every 2 chapters)

 

thanks in advance....

 

 

 

[inthemiddle]

Have you applied the SP1 patch for C2010? Check the version number under Help/About; it should mentions SP1 if you have it. If not then get the update before proceeding.

check... I have SP1

 

Don't try to to do the whole project at once. Proceed slowly until you are familiar with the different options and features. Too often users jump into a big project and and lock themselves into one track.

No problem.. happy to start over... just was using the same methods I'd used in Nero Vision Express before... didn't put too much time into customizing each set of slides.. just was trying to get the mechanics down...

 

 

So if you are planning to have 22 slideshows then you would have 22 Titles spread over several main menu pages.

Ok.. right 22 Titles... Several Main Menu pages...

 

Each Title can be divided into chapters using The Edit Chapters task. This is how commercial DVDs are organized. The main movie would might have 2 buttons on the main page: One button to play the movie from start to finish and another button to go to a Chapter menu page where you would select the chapter from which to play the movie to the end.

ok... don't care about this part... one less step... good...

 

Hopefully you created each slideshow in the stand alone Videowave and saved each slideshow as a project file with the extension dmsm.

Did not, but recreated 5 of them for now using this method (also the whole original project was for a normal DVD, but switching to Blu-Ray as I'm starting over).. This method looks nice as the Titles could be dumped into either type of project it looks like...

 

You would then launch myDVD and select the menu style you want to use. There are several styles that allow more then 4 thumbnails on each page (Birthday style is one such style). You can change the menu background for each menu page to anything you want.

Ok... I've been trying this by selecting Add New Movie, and feeding it the dmsm files.... I hope that's right ???

I saw a balloon theme, it still gives me the full message on the 4th or 5th item... but that's ok... given that possible limitation, i've already designed menus around it..etc..

So far, with playing more than 2 Titles at a time... so good... but I have 2 more issues... one related to this and one new to me (common to others it looks like)..more on those below

 

You can also change the audio of the menu. I don’t know why you would want to have such a long menu - most people are not interested in watching a menu even if the music is interesting. Watch any commercial DVD and you see that the menu duration is only 30 secs or so before looping.

Right... but when using a real song... it's just annoying if it cuts out and repeats mid-verse etc... like if you put it in and walk to the kitchen or something... etc... not critical... for now i'll only use songs 150 seconds or less (but still annoying IMHO)

 

You then add each VW project file and it will add a thumbnail on the main menu page (these are the Titles)

Right.. Adding New Movie... they show up... i haven't seen thumbnails, but i don't want them anyway... (basically the menu background is a picture that is representative of the 4 titles... so just the words for the titles is perfect for me...)

 

Are you using the Settings to set up the navigation for your menu? For each Title you have to set the correct link to the next Title for the After Playing option. Forget about the chapter option.

Ok... here's problem 1 of 2 (as mentioned above) ....

Well.. the "old" way i was doing it, all in mydvd with the slideshow wizard, I was able to set that link... it was annoying counting to the right "slideshow" as they all had that for a title...

Now... building as you have described... it's cool cause it has all of the more detailed file names that i've used in saving each show/title... but I am NOT able to set that link..

Now, it seems to play through the first 4 on the first menu, non-stop.... this is good.... but then it repeats to the first title on that menu instead of moving to the next title on the next menu and the drop down menu/setting for Play After or whatever is was called is grey/inactive on all of them...

 

Is there a way to make it roll through and play all titles on all menus sequentially ? (what's the difference between a 2nd root menu, and a sub-menu? anything different about an official Next button vs a new unlinked button and linking it ?)

 

2nd problem... switching to blu-ray... 16:9....etc.. adding photos (i have already resized them to um.... something just a bit larger (leaving room for cropping) than 1920x1080..maintaining their original aspect ratio, and going with a perfect 50% from original size for most.....but not all..some will be 70% or 90% or whatever) .... if i preview immediately after adding... some are blank as its building the proxy files.... if i wait, eventually they all show up.... BUT... then when I crop them to be 16:9... most of them never show up in preview again....

 

I believe i'm set on software rendering.... i've also tried clearing the proxy files... and then, just a handful come back.... if i don't crop/edit it, it's fine, it's only after i mess with them....(within the building of the original slide show.... double clicking on the thumbs in the story line... not using the wizard)

 

I also have the latest, as of last night, video drivers for my nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 (also have a GeForce 8400 GS in the same maching... using the same driver)

 

So... if i burn a disk, will they show up ? if i previewed as an MPEG 2 from VW they did... but if run the live preview from MyDVD, they don't.....

 

I can live without the preview, as you can see the music and pictures line up in the story line... as long as i know it will burn ok ?? (testing it now with the 5 titles i've done... but even if it works, is it just luck ?)

 

and last... rendering .. hardware vs software... i think i'm on software...last i looked... while encoding now for my test burn... instead of seeing the menus like i did when i did the whole thing as one giant DVD, i see a logo ... Designed for nVIDIA CUDA ... is that from Roxio, or my video card... did i get set on hardware by accident this time ? is that ok/good/bad ?

 

BTW... thanks SO MUCH for the help.. have to have this done by Friday.... big fund raising dinner for our kids team... ..this is sorta their yearbook, covering each race... and entertainment for the night too... feel a lot better knowing someone is out there reading/answering question/trying to help

 

update... burn completed.. and roughly half of the edited/cropped slides are blank/black.....

 

so yea.. need to fix that somehow !! (i guess i could just not crop.. but that's sloppy, and not nearly as cool ... or crop outside of VW.. but that takes WAY too long)

 

and well.. even if it only plays one menu's worth of titles at a time... 4 now is better than 2 before but hopefully i'm just doing something stupid with the menus/navigation setup.... just don't see many options to mess with...

[inthemiddle]

Update again....

 

Ok.. at least with the nVidia Geforce GTX 260 ... it seems like hardware rendering is a requirement.... (i'd seen other posts saying use software....) .. but for me.. switching to hardware seems to have resolved my blank images, and missing next/home buttons..etc... Will try another test burn probably tomorrow to verify....

 

Think i'm getting there..... woo.. hoo....

[bimicher]

using videowave to create a slideshow.... well lots of slideshows..

 

Ok... so I've got 22 or so chapters to make...

 

1. I start with one menu, after adding 4 items it tells me it's full and asks if i'd like to create another, if i say yes, i seem to be able to make a 2nd menu, and then drag the slideshows back to the first, putting at least 5 on one page, is that asking for trouble ? why the 4 chapter limit per menu page ?

 

 

2. Time constraint on the menu pages (for music), seems to be limited to 150 seconds..... any way around that ?

 

 

3. Biggest problem !! - upon playback (in either preview or an actual burned disk, or mounted iso) ... it seems to only play 2 chapters, then go back to whatever menu... it doesn't matter which chapter i start on, it will play that one and the next one... and then return to the menu... help ??

(with this, in the file project settings menu i think it was, i tried selecting 'play this movie' or 'play this movie and all following movies' .. but that caused all of the links to become 'irrelevant' in a way.... no matter which link you picked, it would just play the next chapter after where you had left off... names and links didn't match ... just cycled through)

 

4. My next buttons (all the navigation buttons) have dissappeared, for now i'm creating my own unlinked button and linking to the next menu... seems to work.. but no matter what i do i can't get the next button back... it will create it, and i get the outline on the menu page.. but it's empty... tried changing to a default theme..etc.. no luck... whatever not that important to me (unless it's somehow related to #3)

 

5. What's with the color scheme or whatever for each link.... the 3 options... red blue, blue green, or like cyan, brown... what do those do ? my menu text looks HORRIBLE... but those don't seem to matter... ..

 

i hope that's it... really looking for an answer to number 3 more than anything !!!!! (pretty lame to make a presentation and have to jump start it every 2 chapters)

 

thanks in advance....

 

 

Have you applied the SP1 patch for C2010? Check the version number under Help/About; it should mentions SP1 if you have it. If not then get the update before proceeding.

 

Don't try to to do the whole project at once. Proceed slowly until you are familiar with the different options and features. Too often users jump into a big project and and lock themselves into one track.

 

Lets get some of the terminology corrected first.

 

What you are calling chapters are called Titles in video lingo. So if you are planning to have 22 slideshows then you would have 22 Titles spread over several main menu pages. Each Title can be divided into chapters using The Edit Chapters task. This is how commercial DVDs are organized. The main movie would might have 2 buttons on the main page: One button to play the movie from start to finish and another button to go to a Chapter menu page where you would select the chapter from which to play the movie to the end.

 

Hopefully you created each slideshow in the stand alone Videowave and saved each slideshow as a project file with the extension dmsm.

 

You would then launch myDVD and select the menu style you want to use. There are several styles that allow more then 4 thumbnails on each page (Birthday style is one such style). You can change the menu background for each menu page to anything you want. You can also change the audio of the menu. I don’t know why you would want to have such a long menu - most people are not interested in watching a menu even if the music is interesting. Watch any commercial DVD and you see that the menu duration is only 30 secs or so before looping.

 

You then add each VW project file and it will add a thumbnail on the main menu page (these are the Titles)

 

Are you using the Settings to set up the navigation for your menu? For each Title you have to set the correct link to the next Title for the After Playing option. Forget about the chapter option.