All chapters to start-DVD Lab

[BartonHick]

Hey, I made a trial disc in DVD-Lab, just to get the hang of things, in preparation for making some DVDs (I'm new to this). I want to get this question solved before advancing to the real dvd. I created a chapter list, and I linked each to a chapter point in the clip. The link correctly displayed which part of the clip it was linked to. However, when I selected any chapter, they all went to the start of the film. I have two possible reasons why: the clip was only a few minutes long, and I had 5 chapter points but only 4 chapter selects in the menu (i skipped the middle chapter-was trying something). I don't see why either situation would cause a chapter select to got to the movie start, though. Any ideas? Thanks.

Oh, and one more thing. Is their any way to delete chapters (commercials) from the middle of a file in DVD-Lab, just so I don't have to use multiple programs? Thanks again.

[mikiem]

TO cut commercials you're going to have to edit -- read guides and other posts.

THere are some all-in-one prog. that do editing and compression & DVD if that's what you're after, but a lot of folks outgrow those pretty quickly.

For chapter points in DVDLab, you'll mark the points on the movie in it's timeline window. You'll be asked to index the video, so the chapt marks correspond with I frames -- say yes or OK. For chapter menus, one choice is to let DVDLab create one or more for you. If you do it manually, you have to set the button's actions, having it point not just to film, *but correct chapt.*

[Shadowmistress]

Regarding your first question, I'm not understanding what you created when you say chapter list. Did you make a menu with buttons with each button linking to the correct movie and chapter? or did you make a "chapter play list(movie branch)" component from the connections window?

If you made a menu with buttons, double check your links or reassign them. In the properties window on the right of the menu under "Button Link" it should display what each button is connected to just by left clicking on the button. If this is what you have and it's not working properly I'd suggest you recreate the menu from scratch.

If you have a chapter playlist(movie branch) component with all the chapters loaded up in it, the movie WILL play from the beginning each time you access that object from the menu. It will play those chapters, those whole chapters and only those chapters in that order until it's finished and then go back to wherever it's supposed to such as your main menu. You cannot set a menu button to access a specific chapter from within a chapter playlist(movie branch) as it will only let you link to it's start sequence.

To answer your second question, if you want to do it the lazy way and not edit out the commercials, yes, you can set the chapters up so that each commercial block is a chapter of its own, and then use a chapter playlist(movie branch) to play your movies from and only include your tv show chapters, leaving out the commercials. The catch: with the commercials still being there, each time you hit the forward button to advance to the next chapter it will advance to the commercials and there's no way you can prevent that. The second catch is that you may not start a movie from a specific chapter from your main menu and have it play without commercials. It will always start from the beginning if you're using a chapter playlist (movie branch). Otherwise it will start from the specific chapter but show commercials.

It's just easier to edit out the commericals using a video editor. Please explain your setup if you need further assistance.

[BartonHick]

Thank you both for your help. When making the chapters menu, I inserted a screen capture from each chapter, placing it as an object in the menu. I then right-clicked the objects and linked each to a specific movie chapter. One link, for instance, showed chapter 03 (00:03:48-or something like that) after it was linked.

Thanks for the advice on the commercials. I'm not being lazy with anything else, so I'll take the time to edit them out. But it's good to know in case I can use it in the future.

[Shadowmistress]

So.... is it working the right way now?

[guns1inger]

You can also use the 'Skip Section' tool to effectively create, then hide, a chapter that contains your commercials. Look it up in the help files that come with DLP.

[Shadowmistress]

You can also use the 'Skip Section' tool to effectively create, then hide, a chapter that contains your commercials.

I never noticed that before.
Cool tool.

[mikiem]

"When making the chapters menu, I inserted a screen capture from each chapter, placing it as an object in the menu. I then right-clicked the objects and linked each to a specific movie chapter. One link, for instance, showed chapter 03 (00:03:48-or something like that) after it was linked. "

If it helps, if you let the prog create a chapt menu page, while it uses the first image at that point in time, you can shift forward & back to select another image in the video file, or replace it with a still etc... Haven't used DVDLab for a bit, but if I remember correctly found that was about the easiest.