Black menu screen on authored DVDs

Hi,

I'm having trouble playing back authored DVDs on my set-top DVD recorder. The problem is that the menu just displays a black screen, although the video content itself is playable, whereas the same disc on another DVD player works fine.

I'm certain that this is not a media / read error problem: if I press "stop" from the black menu screen (to display the manufacturer logo screen) then play, it starts playing the first title on the disc, and I can then navigate around titles and chapters using the "T/C" button. All of the video plays fine - no pauses, skips etc. I have burned the same set of files to a +RW and a +R disc, both of which give the same results. I've even scanned the discs for errors using "K-probe", which gives acceptable results. Finally, the discs work fine, including the menu, on an older DVD player which I know to be very picky about media quality.

The files were authored using "GUI for DVDauthor", and burned using NTI CD-and-DVD Maker, in video mode. While experimenting with different authoring software I also authored a disc with Tsunami DVD Author, which gave similar results. I did get one disc from GUI for DVDauthor to work though, so I know it's possible - but that one had problems with the video editing so I erased it.

Any ideas what's causing this? I'm guessing it's either something in the menu files that the machine doesn't like, or a file structure / disc layout problem. Any suggestions what to try next?

Thanks!

If you search/google on your specific prob., including player model, *might* find someone else who's had the same prob.?

Only guess I can think of is if you're using video for menu, try another method of creating/encoding, &/or make sure it's corect size/aspect etc...

Did the search as suggested, and there are mixed reports on CDFreaks of this DVDR model playing PC-authored discs, so it seems the machine is picky. But none with exactly the same problem as mine, and some people report that it definitely can play them.

No video in the menu, just a still image.

I noticed that when it brings up the blank menu screen, the TV switches to 16:9 mode if I had set the menu aspect ratio to 16:9 in the authoring app. So it is managing to read as least some of the menu data!

- Try to set the 'number of frames for still menus' to 12 (permanent settings)

Changed this setting and ran the authoring again... and sure enough, it works!!

Many thanks for the tip.

For the benefit of anyone searching, the DVD recorder model is Philips DVDR-3305.