Menus on VCD's With Nero 5.5

[AlphaBeta]

So I was looking around on the options in Nero for a VCD. And I guess it lets you create menus. But it makes no sence like it says titles, left & 15 thumbnails. What does all of this mean? Can someone tell me a website that explains in detail or could some tell me what it is for? There help doesnt tell anything about it.

[Tetsuos_Rage]

Im also having problems with making menus on Nero. I read the vcdhelp faq on this but it doesnt make to much sense. Can someone help?

[Greg12]

Well, the menu's only show up if u push "play"

I didn't do that

[gambit32]

What it means..although I've never used the thumbnails option is that you can set up the menus so it's actually a bunch of pictures and I believe w/numbers. All you have to do is select one of the numbers on your keypad on your remote and it will play. Mostly the thumbnails are to make your menu prettier. That's about it. Nero allows you 15 different thumbnails (pictures) to use for your menu. For instance, you have 15 small mpegs on your VCD/SVCD. You can make a picture representing each of the 15 clips. The titles to the left..etc..refer to the positioning of the text. It gives you a few options as far as where and how the text is positioned. If you need more info..repost.

[AlphaBeta]

Thanks you helped alot!!

[ironman61]

I've played with the menu creation, but no matter how much i try, I can only get one thumbnail to show up. If you want, let's say 8 thumbdails do u hav to cut the mpeg up into 8 sections? any further help would be greatly appretiated

[aldus4]

@ironman61

For each track you can get only one thumbnail in a Nero menu. If you honestly want 8 thumbnails you would have to split/cut the mpeg. If you choose the thumbnails menu, you can however after specifying "thumbnails menu" and having added your mpeg tracks - define where the thumbnail is to be taken from. For this you go to the tracks and right click on the specific mpeg track. Here a window will appear which has a "menu" tab. The slider at the bottom can be moved to any part of the tack, enabling a different thumbnail for you to view.

[ironman61]

That's what I thought. I tried it, created a menu, burnt it with nero, but the only thing that came out of it was a coaster. The menu came up but the movie didn't play at all...

[aldus4]

Which Version of Nero are you actually using - please mention up to the 4th digit!!

[jiheffe]

Hello,

just came across this thread looking to solve a problem Ihave with menus...

First, of all, let me say I am a newbie at authoring SVCDs!

So, I used TMPGenc (latest version) to convert DV AVIs to SVCD-compatible MPEG2s (PAL format). Then I used Nero 5.5 (latest update) to burn an SVCD. As I do not own a stand-alone DVD or SVCD player, I use WinDVD (latest demo version) to play the CD.
The CD plays perfectly, both from my ACER CD-writer as from my Samsung DVD-ROM drive.

Then I burned a new SVCD, this time with a menu. When I try to play that disk, the menu doesn't show up, and I can't access the movie clips neither. All I get is a black screen, and the counter in WinDVD continuously "flips" from 0:00:00 to 0:00:01 and again. Seems as if the player "hangs" when trying to access the menu.

Does anyone have a clue to this?

My config:
- Asus CUSL2C mobo with PIII 500 o'clocked to 725, 512 Mb memory
- Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 (Kyro II)
- OS: Win2K with SP2

[AntnyMD]

If I can recall correctly from the handful of times I used Nero menus, neither WinDVD (for SVCD) nor PowerDVD (for VCD) handle Nero-made menus at all. Both kinds (SVCD and VCD) worked as they should in my standalones. I use Nero 5.5.2.3.

If you want to test Nero's menuing option, just make a short VCD, like a 30 second clip, and just load it into Nero three or four times and have it make a menu. Then pop it in your standalone and alleviate your worry.

[vitualis]

Nero does not make still menus in a very intellegent way and they do not work properly on most software DVD players and some stand-alone players.

If you VCDXRIP a Nero VCD image, you can see what Nero does wrong. Somebody posted a VCDXRIP'd XML of a Nero image a while ago...

Regards.

[jiheffe]

Thanks AntnyMD and vitualis!

Can you suggest any alternate method to burn SVCDs with menus that will work with WinDVD? I came across "I-Author" but the company dosn't seem to carry it any more (and as I understood it, it is (was?) quite expensive?)

Kind regards,
JF

[xVxJ4cOBxVx]

Ok, I was having the same problem as you people with playing VCD's with menu's burned in Nero 5.5 playing in PowerDVD. The way to play it is, after you have burned it, open up PowerDVD, and make the default skin come up (its in your preferences). After this, load your VCD into your DVD-ROM, and press play. The first menu page should come up. In order to play the tracks, you must open up the number pad (on the far right side of the default skin, press the little tab, and a number pad should come up) and press the track that you want to play from that menu, and it will play. After you have chosen the track that you want to play, you can move from track to track with the next track and previous track functions. Hope this will help some of you.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: xVxJ4cOBxVx on 2001-08-07 12:24:46 ]</font>

[ironman61]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-07 03:17:27, aldus4 wrote:
Which Version of Nero are you actually using - please mention up to the 4th digit!!
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
I am using 5.5.2.4 demo
looking to purchase it soon

[jiheffe]

Update FYI!

I just burned another test disk, still with Nero. But this time i had added more clips to the disk, with as a result a 2-pages menu, instead of on single page.
As guess what... The disk played flawlessly in WinDVD, with the 2 pages menu and tutti quanti!

Kind regards,
JF

[jiheffe]

Update 2

Oops... I was too optimistic... I tried it again, and, nope, it doesn't work... Seems I had a little bit of luck the first time

[mingyunghsu]

Hi JF,

Your message had my great attention!!

I used NERO 5.5.2.4 to create a VCD menu of 2 pages each
with 6 thumbnails for my VCD containing 12 mpeg clips. My WinDVD displayed the menu for less than 1 second and switched back to WinDVD default picture. VCD menu did not show up since then even I clicked the "press" button.

The other issue is, when playing the VCD in my Pioneer HTZ 55DV standalone DVD Player, after pressing "play" button to have the 1st page of menu show up, I was not able to navigate from the 1st page of menu to the 2nd even by pressing "next" button on the remote or any way. The ONLY way to get to the 2nd page of menu is play one of mpeg clips listed on the 1st page of menu and navigate through the following mpeg clips by pressing "next" button
and the 2nd page of menu will show up after the very last
mpeg clip listed on the 2nd page. It seems to me that the 2nd page of menu was recorded to the track right next to the last mpeg clip. However, in NERO's track-title window,
those two pages were listed sequentially as track 1 with title 1/2 page and track 1 with title 2/2 page respectively.

I would really appreciate your time and efforts in
explaining or resolving the problems!!

Thank you,

Ming


<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-08 00:05:46, jiheffe wrote:
Update FYI!

I just burned another test disk, still with Nero. But this time i had added more clips to the disk, with as a result a 2-pages menu, instead of on single page.
As guess what... The disk played flawlessly in WinDVD, with the 2 pages menu and tutti quanti!

Kind regards,
JF

</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[jiheffe]

Hi Ming,

I am afraid I can't help you much with this... I am using Nero 5.5.3.5 (I think, anyway, it's the latest version available). I happened (probably by accident ) to burn one disk that behaved correctly with WinDVD...

But the good news is, I just bought a Kiss 1302 player, and it plays all my Nero-burned SVCDs, including menus, without problems!

So the problem is maybe partly with Nero, partly with WinDVD... But probably a little bit more with the latter
Regards,
Jiheffe

[Vidbox]

Nero's Menuing operates just fine if viewed with PowerDVD.
The Menu will hold until the corresponding clip menu number is selected. - My stand-alone DVD player (Aiwa DX-DV370) simply by-passes the menu and starts the first clip.
P.S. After selecting the type menu you'd like, once the clip are selected; right-click properties to set the clip's picture and title.
NOTE: Menus have operated in every very for 5.5

[justmc]

I got my Tmpgenc Svcd files to finally work with menu's using Nero 5.5. It runs on my Pioneer 434 standalone plus using the newest Windvd on my PC. In order for Windvd to work correctly I had to use it in expanded mode and click on the chapter # and then click on play. FINALLY !!