Free DVD authoring software + menus

[julesh]

I'm trying to author my first DVD with menus using free software. I've tried DVD Styler, DVDAuthorGUI and GUI for DVD Author, but all of them have produced the same problem - when I create a DVD image and drop it into PowerDVD it displays the menu for about 1/4 second, and then starts playing the first track. The options on the PowerDVD menu for displaying the DVD menus are all greyed out. Any idea what's going on?

[flaninacupboard]

what are you doing with powerDVD, dropping the VOBs in? to simulate dvd playback, you need to click "open DVD files on hard disc" and give it your video_ts.ifo file.

[julesh]

I'm dropping the directory that contains the 'VIDEO_TS' and 'AUDIO_TS' subdirectories, which according to the docs ought to work. But your method does work, so I guess I'm reading 'em wrong :) Thanks

Now to work out why the highlighted copies of my buttons appear in the wrong place... :(

[cdcox]

I had the same problem where menus would not work from vob files. And I had to no option to open image from disc (maybe this is only on the newer versions). What I do is creat an iso image from the video_TS folder and mount lthe image with Daemon tools and then it plays fine in power dvd. Creat the iso image with imgtools and then mount it. It should play fine.

[flaninacupboard]

yeah i think you need version 5 or above to get the "open dvd files from disc" button.

highlighted buttons in the wrong place though............ good question!
No experience with the apps you're using, if someone else has i hope they'll jump in....