DVD-Lab - Problem controlling button behaviors

[LisaB]

DVD-Lab seems to only let you specify button actions when navigating a menu (i.e., by creating button links)

But what about when a movie is actually playing? Choosing the "Next" button on the remote should take you to the next chapter when a movie is playing -- and it does....BUT, when you are at the last chapter of a movie, and you hit the "Next" button, it should either take you back to the menu, or, if the movie is linked to another movie, it should take you to the next movie in the series.

What I find, though, is that hitting the "Next" button does nothing at all when you're on the last chapter of movie, and I can find no way in DVD-Lab to change this.

[scrtagt69]

You have to draw a connection and tell the software where u want it to go when u click on next. For example, on the last chapter, if u would like it to return to the main menu, right click on the frame in the last chapter and click on draw connection. Then draw a connection from that chapter to the main menu. That should do it. Works everytime for me.

[LisaB]

Hi,

I created a small test project with 2 music videos. I made a simple menu with two text buttons, and linked the 2 text buttons to the videos. I added one chapter to each of the videos. In the connections window, I clicked on the "Draw Links" tool, then I dragged from Movie 1 to Movie 2 (This changes the default link, so that when Movie 1 finishes playing, Movie 2 automatically starts playing).

After this, I searched and searched to find a way to set up a connection for the "Next" button. I couldn't find anything like that.

For one thing, if you are in the "Movie 1" window and you right click, the options are "Rebuild Thumbnails", "Trim End", "Chapters", "Zoom End", and a few greyed-out options, none of which have anything to do with connections or links.

Next, I tried moving the slider in the "Preview" window to the very end, and then right-clicking in the "Preview" window...there are no options when you right-click here!

Finally, I re-explored all the options in the "Connections" window. If you right click on a Move frame, then there is an option called "Draw Connections", but this only does exactly the same thing as clicking on the "Draw Links" tool. Yes, you can chain movies together so that they play sequentially, but this unfortunately has *no effect* on the behavior of the "Next" button (or the "Prev" button, for that matter). When you draw a link from one item to another, this only specifies a "playing order" for the items...when one item finishes, the next will begin. But if you are in the last chapter of the first item and click "Next" on the remote control, it does nothing.

Have you really tried and verified this? Where is "the frame" in the last chapter, and which window is active when you are doing the right-clicking, and can you also set the option for the "Prev" button? You realize I'm talking about remote control buttons, and not menu buttons, right?

[LisaB]

Okay, okay, I did figure out a "cheap trick" way of doing what I want to do. The trick is to create a chapter at the very end (like in the last I-frame) of the movie. This way, you can use the "Next" button to move to the very end of the movie, and because the end of the movie is linked to the beginning of the next movie, the next movie will start playing a split second after you have skipped to the last chapter. But this is really a "trick" and is not the proper way of doing this...plus, it will not let me solve the problem of the "Prev" button. In other words, if I have a series of music videos all linked together in the connections windown, and I use this trick, then I quickly skip from one video to the next using the "Next" button, but I *cannot* quickly skip to the previous video using the "Prev" button.

They really need to implement a way of specifying button behaviors (remote control buttons, not menu buttons) for when a movies is playing.

In other words, when Movie X is playing, and you click on the "Prev" or "Next" button, you should be able specify what will happen.