Menu on Multi-VTS DVD in DVD-Lab Pro

[Yo]

I downloaded and installed the beta version of DVD-Lab Pro yesterday, and tried to author a DVD with it. Unlike the standard DVD-Lab, the Pro version can author a multi-VTS DVD. (Unfortunately though, it doesn't come with any documentation, perhaps because it's beta.)

I am putting three videos on one DVD disc. One of the three has a 16:9 aspect ratio, the other two have a 4:3 aspect ratio.

Since multiple aspect ratios cannot be in one VTS, I have to make it as a multi-VTS DVD. Although I could have put the two 4:3 titles in one VTS, I decided I might as well create three VTS, one for each video.

I created the three VTS, and put the three videos into them, one video in each VTS.

Now I need to create a simple menu to choose between the three videos. Nothing complicated, no chapter or scene menus, no motion menu, nothing like that. Just one simple menu for the whole disc, that appears first when inserting the DVD, to choose between the three video titles.

I cannot quite figure out how to do it. If I click "Insert Menu", a new menu appears inside the first VTS. But if I want a menu to choose between the three VTS, shouldn't that menu appear outside of the VTS? Wouldn't a menu that is inside a VTS only choose between titles within that VTS?

What is a VMG menu? When I inserted one of those, it did appear outside of the three VTS. So I tried creating the VMG menu, added three text buttons with the video titles, and linked them to the three titles. When I clicked on "Compile", however, the program reported some kind of problem with the menu connections.

Is a VMG menu not the right kind to make in this case? If not, is there a way to place a regular menu outside of the three VTS, to choose between them? Or, if the menu is inside the first VTS, could it still choose between the three videos, even though the other two are not in that VTS?

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One other unrelated quesion about menu creation in DVD Lab Pro, not as crucial as the question above. Is there a way to create the button to click on to choose a movie, as a still thumbnail clip from that movie? In some other DVD authoring packages I have tried, that is the default kind of button to choose a video, a thumbnail from the video, and you can choose where in the video to take the thumbnail from, and it's easy to do. In DVD-Lab Pro I cannot see how to do that. If it's too complicated I'll just put in the text of the video title to click on, the menu is not important to me, other than a means to choose which video to watch. But if it's easy to do (as happens by default in other programs), it would be nice to have a picture too.

Thank you to anyone for your input.

[jimmy basushi]

Hi Yo, it took me awhile to figure out the multi-VTS myself. Try right clicking when your in the connections screen and going to "add / bridge". Now you can link your menus from different VTS's.

And for your second question, 4 Buttons down from the add text on your little quick key bar is a "group hotspot" button, i think that does what your after, but i havent tested it.

[Yo]

Originally posted by jimmy basushi
Hi Yo, it took me awhile to figure out the multi-VTS myself. Try right clicking when your in the connections screen and going to "add / bridge". Now you can link your menus from different VTS's.

And for your second question, 4 Buttons down from the add text on your little quick key bar is a "group hotspot" button, i think that does what your after, but i havent tested it.

Thank you for your reply. I am not interested in making different menus, however. I only want one simple menu, to choose between the three different titles, each of which is in a different VTS.

So, my question is--where do I put that one menu? Should it be inside VTS 1? If it is, can that menu choose titles from other VTSs? If not, how do I put one that will work outside of the VTSs, as a root menu? What is meant by VMG menu.

Thanks again, to anyone who can help with this.

[mudda_t]

Don't know if this helps but if you go to labs homepage and click on tips & tricks (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tutorial/index.html) the second to the bottom link "Creating large project with Importing pre-compiled VTS" will explain multiple vts. You can find a lot of useful stuff there.
.
Many sites exist with dvdlab guides, help, etc. Also try
http://www.mmbforums.com/ and http://www.mmbgroup.com/kb/. Videohelp.com can also find guides written elsewhere.
.
You may already know about all this but i'm sure somebody else reading doesn't.

[cona812]

VMG menus are menus in VMG domain VTS menus are in VTS domain. VMG menus can link between different VTS, VTS menus only in current VTS.

If you want to link between the three films each in a different VTS you only have to create your menu in VMG domain. With VMG menus it's not possible to set audio or subpicstream-numbers, because they can be different in some VTS, so if you have multiple audio/sub-streams you have to store the streamnumber in GPRM's and use pre-commands for your titles to set the streamnumber depending on the value of the GPRM.

If you only have one menu in VMG domain it will become the "titlemenu". To link the rootmenubutton on your remote to the titlemenu you can create a commandobjekt as rootmenu and link with precommands to your titlemenu.

Cona

[Yo]

Well, I tried again from scratch.

I started a new project, and started by adding the VMG Menu. I created my three buttons from thumbnails of scenes from the three movies, with text describing each one.

I added VTS 2 and three, and added one movie to all three. No menus within the VTSs,as I only want one menu, to choose between the three titles, and from what I understand from your posts that one menu has to be a VMG menu, outside of the VTSs.

I went back to the VMG menu, right-clicked on each of the thumbnail buttons, and linked them to the three movies.

In looking at "Connections", it looked like "FIrst Play" was linked to tne VMG menu, which is what I want. That the first thing the viewer will see will be that one menu, to choose between the three titles.

As it looked all OK, I went ahead and clicked "Compile". No error messages this time, it all appeared to be in order.

After the compile was over, I started WinDVD, selected the VIDEO_TS folder that the DVD was compiled into, and clicked Play.

To my surprise, I saw the first title being played. I saw no menu, which is what I expected to see first. I could not even manually go to the menu, as the "Menu" button was grayed out. I could not even go to another title, as WinDVD only showed 1 title, the one that was playing. (I can tell by the size of the folder, however, that all three titles were compiled into the folder. But the 2nd and 3rd do not show up anywhere, and the menu doesn't play.)

What did I do wrong? How can I fix the project?

[j77]

it seems that everything you did would be something that I would have done.
that's the same process i'm using.

far fetched, but have you tried playing the folder with power dvd?
perhaps its the software causing the problem and nothing else?

one problem i have found when creting buttons with links on dvdlab is that sometimes it doesnt select the button area but the background area and sets the links to that.

J

[kds2012]

For combining 4:3 and 16:9, and/or different frame size movies on one disc, you'll want to create DVD's with multiple VTS's....

This is an ancient thread, but what the heck - I just figured something out, & I haven't seen this exact topic anywhere else... If it holds up, maybe it would make a good manual? Feedback please.

So ... I too wanted:

> To make a multiple VTS DVD in DVDLabPro (I'm using 2.1)
> Combining 4:3 and 16:9 movies or movies w/ different frame sizes
> That had just one menu for movie selection
> Where the selection menu reappeared after each/any movie ended
> And finally, where pressing any Root/Title/Top buttons at any time returned the DVD to the selection menu

I also wanted to do this through the graphic interface, rather than by writing control scripts.

In my experiments, I had the exact problems mentioned earlier in the thread: Either DVDlab made no Video_TS.IFO files, or the Menu Button directed action improperly, or my selection menu did not appear, or the player froze up, etc...

The following procedure finally worked for me (Although I haven't yet studied the debug code to actually see what's going on lol).

All of my directions are done in the graphic / icon working area, so if the software bumps you to another window, come back to the work screen. Note: The Draw Links button is directly under the Arrow / Move button at the left of the work screen, and the 'Bridge Tool' and 'Return to Last Menu' buttons are found along the bottom of the work area. 'Add New VTS' can be found under Project\Add of the main DVDLab menu. Also: To delete items in DVDLab, you generally have to select it w/ a left click, then press the keyboard Delete key. Finally: DVDLab works within whichever VTS is associated with the last-selected item. To switch to VTS-1, click a VTS-1 movie icon; to switch to VTS-2, click a VTS-2 item; etc. It helps to have some Connections\Display options turned on.

Preparation:
1. Start a new project, and immediately delete the default empty Movie 1, then delete the blank VTS Menu 1. All that should be visible in the working area are the First Play & Title Button icons.
2. Add a new VMG Menu, then click & drag a link from the Title Button to the VMG menu. The First Play link should be created automatically when you add the VMG menu -- add that link, too, if it's not there.

VTS-1 Structure:
3. Now add empty New Movie holders for each movie you intend to group in VTS-1. DVDLab should automatically create return links from each movie to the VMG input. If it doesn't, then something's wrong -- re-run DVDLab & try again. If the links will not automatically appear, then draw them to the VMG manually. Note: Your first movie should be called Movie #2, since we deleted #1 at the start.
4. Once you have holders for all your VTS-1 movies, click the Bridge Tool button to add a Bridge icon.
5. Now click the Return to Last Menu icon to add a Return icon.
6. Next, click and drag links from each VTS-1 movie to the Bridge, and then drag a link from the Bridge to the Return. Note: All of the links that had been automatically drawn to the VMG input should now be redirected to the Bridge input. Do not add any links coming out of the Return objects.

VTS-2 Structure:
7. Find the Add New VTS option and click it. This will switch to VTS-2 and add an empty movie holder for your first VTS-2 movie. Continue to Add New Movies for all the movies that will be in VTS-2. Note: As with VTS-1 above, DVDLab should automatically create return links from each VTS-2 movie to the VMG menu input. If it doesn't, try again. If the links do not automatically appear, then draw them to the VMG manually.
8. As above, add a new Bridge, then a new Return. Note: MAKE SURE you are still in VTS-2 mode.
9. Click and drag links from each VTS-2 movie to the VTS-2 Bridge, and then drag a link from the VTS-2 Bridge to the VTS-2 Return. Note: All of the links that had been automatically drawn to the VMG input should now be redirected to the VTS-2 Bridge input. Do not add any links coming out of the Return.

Fill it in:
10. Add all your A/V assets where they belong.
11. Add your VMG menu items and buttons, and link your buttons to your movies. Note: DVDLab sometimes gets confused about backgrounds, so I like to:
a) Add & arrange all my non-functional items first (thumbnails, for example, dragged from preview);
b) Export the menu as an overlay;
c) Delete all the objects from my menu so it's empty again; then
d) Bring in the overlay as a single asset
e) Last I'll add my buttons & link them to their movies.
12. Do any Index rebuilding and chapter work at this point. Note: You should now also have several link lines from the VMG to each & every movie.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT !!
13. Finally, we've come to this. When your project is otherwise complete: Select each BRIDGE and delete them all one at a time. You MUST NOT delete the RETURN items, but you MUST delete the BRIDGES. So just tuck the Return icons wherever they look nice - they'll be floating around without links now. Note: You should see that an angled 'ROOT' arrow has been created at the right side of each movie, and several link lines will disappear.

That's it. You're done. Try the debugger. Note: If you run Debug Project, and try to use the Menu button on the menu screen itself, DVDLab jams and reports 'Unknown Link." DVD players will not actually fail at this point - they'll just treat this situation as a prohibited user operation. Every other combination of buttons should produce a rational flow of operations, quickly and robustly. There are variations of this system that work, but this is fairly elegant in my mind. You might consider making an empty multi-VTS template for future use -- you can create simple text buttons in the VMG w/ links to the empty movies, and the Debugger will function, to test the flow. Note: 'FWD >>' & '<< BAK' buttons act normally, but know they treat the entire DVD as one movie chain, jumping through all chapters in all movies in sequence, without diverting to the menu.

To sumarize: You should now have:
> One VMG menu w/ Title Button & First Play inputs
> Two or more Movies belonging to different VTS's, each w/ a 'Root' tail arrow
> Link lines from the VMG to every movie
> One floating 'Return to Last Menu' icon per VTS.

You can use this basic {Create VTS#N-link-VMG-to-VTS#N Movies-to-Bridge#N-to-Return to Last Menu#N-then-delete-Bridge#N} sequence to create a DVD w/ any number of VTS's. Visually, it's maybe not apparent what's going on, but it works well for my DVD player, as well as Power DVD.

-- kds2012

[Ghitulescu]

Just one thing: you can do what you want with a freeware authoring solution called DVDstyler. It's not worth paying the extra features of dvdlab pro that you'll probably never use.
Besides there are guides on DLP, try google :p.