I see what you're saying. I should have rendered to one large mpg in Vegas and then divided it into 8 chapters in DVDA.

Oh well.

Thanks for the explanation.

I have (yet another) a follow-up question ...

What determines the initial order of objects in a playlist in DVDA?

My DVD has 2 menu pages, each with 4 titles. There's a forward arrow on the first menu page and a backward arrow on the second. The mpg and ac3 files are numbered sequentially, i.e. 01 Intro.mpg, 02 Roster.mpg, 03 Coaches.mpg, etc.

If I click Insert Playlist, the 8 items appear in the list, but not in numerical order. If I select them all, I have to reorder them in the window at the bottom.

Wait ... there's more.

If I play the DVD using Windows Media Player from the folder created by DVDA and click on the first title, the DVD plays through correctly. But ... if I look at the Playlist in WMP it has Title 1, Title 2, etc. If I click "Title 1" in the WMP Playlist, it plays what I think is Title 2. Which is what's listed first when I chose "Insert Playlist" in DVDA.

Somehow my title order isn't correct on the DVD, but it plays correctly because I have defined the end action for each title.

Can I reorder the titles so they match what's output to the DVD? Do I just have to insert a playlist and order it correctly?

There's a drop-down menu at the top center of the DVDA workspace. If I click the arrow, the titles are ordered incorrectly there as well. The order corresponds to the order in WMP's Playlist window and to the order if I select "Insert Playlist" in DVDA. And I believe it corresponds to what "Chapter" the remote control button of the DVD player goes to.

Is there any way to re-order the titles? They are in the correct order in the upper left window in DVDA. I don't understand why there's a disconnect. I believe it has to do with the order I added the mpg files to the menu pages when I was setting up the DVD.

It looks to me like you are trying to do two actions at once. If I understand correctly you have set the end action of each title to play the next title and you have setup the same titles in a playlist. The actions both do the same thing but a conflict develops if the title lists are not in the same order. Bottom line, do one or the other but not both. If you want a play all function use the playlist only and don't set the end action of each title to the next title but to the most recent menu. With the playlist you can use the next /prev chapter, depending on the DVD player, to move from title to title. If you have chapter points set in the single play movie the next/prev chapter will move you through the chapters in the titles in the playlist. HTH.

Ed

Actually, this is a known problem (a bug?) with DVDA. The order in which they play is normally determined by the end actions. HOWEVER, the order in which the chapter control works is determined by the order in which the media appears in the project list (the left-hand window in DVDA).

Turn on View -> Object Overlays -> Show Object Order.

You will immediately see number next to each of your items. You will also immediately see that they are in the order that your player is playing them. You need to cut and then immediately paste these to get them in the order you want them to appear. The first one you cut/paste will end up being the last item in the list. You may also be able to drag the items to the right position in the list, but DVDA doesn't make this easy.

I also discussed this same problem here:

Multiple video file problem (and workaround)

Actually, this is a known problem (a bug?) with DVDA. The order in which they play is normally determined by the end actions. HOWEVER, the order in which the chapter control works is determined by the order in which the media appears in the project list (the left-hand window in DVDA).

Turn on View -> Object Overlays -> Show Object Order.

You will immediately see numbers next to each of your items. You will also immediately see that they are in the order that your player is playing them. Thus, to fix the problem, you need to cut and then immediately paste these to get them in the order you want them to appear. The first one you cut/paste will end up being the last item in the list. You may also be able to drag the items to the right position in the list, but DVDA doesn't make this easy.

I also discussed this same problem here:

Multiple video file problem (and workaround)

Also, I reported this to Sony and received this reply:

DVD players behave in different ways when on the last chapter of a title and the user hits the next button: some do nothing; some follow the title's end action; and some advance to the next title. This is covered in the troubleshooting section of the help.

As to your second question, I also asked Sony that one, and received this reply:

A menu's default button is the first button in button order. The default button was the first button in object order in DVDA1 but button order and object order were made independent starting in DVDA2. Button order is the order that the button appear under the menu page in the project overview window. You can change button order by dragging and dropping buttons in the project overview window. I agree that it isn't very discoverable, however, it won't be changed for this version. The help contains a section on how to "Set a menu's default button".

I mixed up music compilation and playlist in my prior response let me see if I can straighten it out this time. If you have a series of titles where you would like each title to act like a chapter here is a way to do it. First build a music compilation of the titles. Yep, a music compilation. Drag and drop the titles to get the titles in the correct order in the music compilation. Next Insert a scene selection menu for the music compilation. You will get a scene selection for each title. You can navigate through the titles like chapters and there will be no delay between titles. All the titles will be in the same VTS so the next/prev chapter button will work correctly.

Ed

Thanks for the responses.

I didn't actually add a playlist to the project - I meant that when I opened the "Insert Playlist" window, the titles were in a peculiar order. And the order didn't match the order I had set in the left-hand window. But the order of the "Insert Playlist Window" did match the playlist order when I played the compiled DVD in WMP. And it appeared to me that the order matched the order in which I dragged the titles onto my menu pages in DVDA (I didn't render them sequentially in Vegas.)

Anyway, I decided to just start from scratch and add the titles to the menu pages in order. The resultant DVD behaves exactly as I expected.

And ... yes ... I spent about one-tenth the time just doing it over as I had spent trying to figure out what was wrong with the original.

All my comments still apply to the situation you just described.