Scenarist: Display running time instead of "Play" on DVD player?

[Tackemon]

When playing DVD's that I've authored, I've noticed that my DVD player shows "Play" on its front panel display instead of the elapsed time. That always happens when the video is linked from a menu in any of the authoring tools I've tried so far (Impression SE, DVDit! PE, ReelDVD, and even Scenarist). I thought it might just be a quirk of my DVD player, but a friend that uses DVDit! PE noticed the same thing on this equipment.

There's a Knowledge Base entry about this for ReelDVD on Sonic's web site. The question is phrased like this:
Q: "My DVD player tells me that it is always "Chapter 1" and shows "Play" on the front panel, instead of the running time. Is there something I might be doing wrong, or is this probably a player limitation with DVD-Rs?"

Their answer:
A: "The way that ReelDVD authors the project behind the scenes will not allow you to see the timecode/chapter display. This feature is supported in Sonic Scenarist, Sonic Creator and Sonic Fusion products."

So I tried Scenarist, but it did the same thing. Is there some trick to getting the time index to work? It seems like a pretty basic thing to want to do!

I've just learned about PGC's and VTS's like three days ago and I haven't been doing the DVD authoring thing very long, so a *fairly* basic explanation would be much appreciated. :)

[GeraldoLuiz]

I have the same problem. When I have only one menu and one movie, the time shows up, but if I have more then one movie, no time at all and PLAY appears on my DVD screen. I don´t know why. Anyone does ?

[Tackemon]

BTW, I did find another thread that discusses something similar, but I'm afraid it's a little beyond my current level of understanding:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43626

I'm going to play around with some different combinations of titles, VTS's, and language thingy's, but I have to admit I'm pretty lost. :(

I did have one video and two menus directly under a title, so the next thing I'll try is rearranging things so that the video is the only PGC under that title. (I feel like I'm throwing darts at a dart board!)

[EiGuscheMa]

In the beginning I ran into the same problem.

The answer is quite simple: Create a new Title for each PGC you need.

Furthermore: do not use prev,next or go-up links. This will prevent the PGC from being a "one sequential play pgc"

The PGC has to be of "one sequential play" type. This will make time-code display work.

[Tackemon]

Thanks for the tip! And even in words I can understand. :)

I think I was sort of on the right track, but it helps to have it spelled out.

[Tackemon]

That works! Sweet.