DVD-Maestro - having a intermission clip?

[UEF]

Hi guys. What I want to do for all my buttons in my dvd menu is have a quick clip play before the actual movie or whatever the user has selected plays.

Example:

(User clicks extras)->intermission clip->Extras
(User clicks "Play all)->intermission clip->Plays movie1

Now when I used to use reeldvd this was simple, I could make links for each sequence and have the "output" of each button feed into the intermission clip, then out again for the extras, or the movie or whatever.

But in maestro you can only select an "end action" but a button, which is obviously playing the intermission clip. But how do I specify what happens after that?

The only way I have found around it is to create a unique movie for each intermission for each button press, and then set a unique end action for each of those which as I'm sure you can guess is not very efficient.

Is there a way to make maestro "play this, THEN this"?

[beartums]

As I understand it, you need to play the same "intermission" clip for each button. Is that correct? If so, you can use playlists (though I don't know how they would work if you're playing an intermission clip and then showing a menu -- I haven't tried to use them for that).

Another option is to have the end action be a command which checks to see which button you pressed and then does the appropriate thing.

good luck.

[UEF]

Yes, I would be quite literally using the same .m2v file as an intermission for each button press.

I havent used playlists before, I'll have a look when I get home.

If anyone else has any better ideas, please say so

[skeg64]

playlists won't help you here because you can't put a menu into the playlist.
You need to use a command sequence as the end action of the "intermission clip" (usually called a "transition"), as suggested.

[UEF]

Right. Is there a tutorial for those command thingies anywhere :S?

Much as I understand the visual approach to linking movies together (as used in reeldvd) is not appropriate for particularly advanced setups, I'm surprised making things link together like this is so difficult in maestro

Lovely program otherise

[beartums]

No tutorial that I know of, but a little playing around and asking in the forum here will help.

Things to know: GPRMs are basically global registers into which you can store values for later reference. SPRMs return values from the operation of the program. Some important SPRMs for what you are doing: SPRM8 is the value of the hilighted (last-clicked) button (1024 for button 1, 2048 for button 2, etc). You can find out what the other SPRMs are by running the navigation simulator and clicking on Show Advanced.

Your Command will basically look like:
MOV GP0, SPRM8
DIV GP0,1024
Jump To Movie1 if GP0=1
Jump To Movie2 if GP0=2
etc.

Really quite easy to use, if a little under-documented. And pretty powerful in all. The only caution would be that the transition from the clip to the movie will not be seamless -- then end of your clip should be a black frame.

good luck.

[UEF]

Well there's this on this very site.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=146371

I had a go at doing <button> command 1 <command 1> jump to transition, jump to movie 1 - that didnt work

[beartums]

Sorry I missed that one. When I was trying to learn commonds I found it useful, but limited (as far as commands go). Still, it's a good starting point.

Your command will be interrupted after it plays the transition clip. You will have to create a command that runs as the end-action for your transition clip that then redirects the player to the appropriate movie or menu.

[skeg64]

on second thoughts, you could use playlists which are simpler. You would have playlist 1 for play all:
intermission clip> movie1
and playlist 2 for extras:
intermission clip
then set the end action for playlist 2 to "extras menu"

set the end action to playlist 1 to whatever you want.

[beartums]

Good point skeg64. Didn't even consider using the end action on playlists, but that should work fine. No commands necessary.

[UEF]

Cheers guys 8)