Questions about DVD Flick

[AliShibaz]

I just tried DVD Flick and created a DVD using 3 AVI files.

I should be grateful that it was so easy and simple. But when I place the DVD into my DVD player, it just plays as if it were one single file.

I was hoping that like all other DVDs I have created using my DVD recorder, I could display a menu showing the 3 AVI files and enabling me to select one to play.

Also, when I play all other DVD files, I can see an index showing which file is playing and how far it has gotten (by displaying an index).

I see there is an option for creating a Menu on the DVD but I fear this is not the same kind of menu that I am looking for. I would like to create a menu that shows the three files and allows me to select which one to play.

Most importantly, I would have expected that I could create my DVD with a small number of AVI files and then later "add" to that DVD if there is room remaining by adding more AVI files.

Is this not possible? Must I select all the AVI files at one time and then create the DVD without the possibility of ever adding any more files?

Is there no way I can play any parts of this DVD? Or can I only insert the DVD and play it from beginning through to the end?

Thanks for any help.

[admin]

If you use DVD Flick's menu option, it should create something like what you've described (with the option to play everything, from beginning to end, or to individually select which "title" to play). You will need to create a new title for each AVI file, as opposed to just creating one title and add multiple AVI files to the same title (which will then force DVD Flick to just create one big long video file).

As for adding titles after the DVD has been created, I'm afraid that's not really possible.

[AliShibaz]

Thank you very much.

That is excellent news.

I can easily specify all the .AVI files I want to put on a DVD when I create it.

But, it would be wonderful to have a menu on each DVD.

I will try that and let you know the results.

Thanks very much again!

[AliShibaz]

No Luck

Bad News.

I followed the Guide and tried to create a Menu. But it didn't create any menu I could find.

Can anyone give me any instructions on how to create the menu?

I followed the info in the Guide. But apparently I may not have done things in the correct order.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[admin]

Just to make sure the steps are correct, what you need to do is to create a new project, then for add each AVI file using the "add title" button until you have something like this (the screenshot below shows 2 titles only, you should have as many titles as you have AVI files):



Then, click on the Menu Settings button and select one of the menu themes (don't select "None" which will disable menus). Make sure "auto-play menus" is turn on, otherwise the disc will play the first video title when it is inserted (you'll have to press the "menu" button on the remove to access the menu). Then create the DVD, and burn with ImgBurn.

[AliShibaz]

Aha!

Thank you so much.

I'll try that and let you know.

[AliShibaz]

Well, I made some progress.

I do get a menu now.

But all it says is "Unnamed Project".

And it doesn't list the individual titles of the .AVI files.

Perhaps the problem is that I didn't use the "Edit" button when I selected my files?

I tried earlier to set the length of chapters but when I tried to click on the settings, they would not accept any entries. They remained "greyed out".

Or could the problem be something else?

[AliShibaz]

Oh, and I did finally get smart and use a RW type DVD.

So, now I can make "practice" DVDs without wasting type R DVDs.

[AliShibaz]

I would offer the following advice to anyone else who is in my same position.

Namely, anyone who is trying to create a DVD and is working towards getting it into the shape they want ...

I have a few very tiny .AVI files and so instead of wasting a lot of time creating DVDs with my large .AVI files, I use just two tiny files and create a type RW DVD.

In this way, it only takes me 5 minutes or so to create a "test DVD" and I can fine tune and experiment with creating my DVD until I - hopefully - get it right.

[AliShibaz]

SUCCESS!!!

Finally. The first time I used a RW DVD, it worked.

The difference between this time and last time was that I used the "Orange" or "Amber" type menu and I edited each file after I added it and specified a Chapter lenght.

The Guide is very good. But is there a more detailed source of info that will explain to me about how to set chapter lengths?

WOW! I love this app. It was so simple to use and the GUIDE made things so simple.

Now when I play the DVD, I can see exactly where it is (meaning I can display the index which shows exactly how far each file has played) and I can skip forward or backwards using the Chapter length I set.

It now does everything that a professional "store bought" DVD will do or the DVDs that I created with my $300 DVD recorder.

I still am confused about how the "Edit" process works and I'd like to find a more detailed explanation about that and about how setting chapters has to be done for each file or can it be done once for all files?

But, this is absolutely wonderful!

Thank you ever so much.

[AliShibaz]

Oh Dear.

I just learned that when I had previously selected the menu type as "Simple White" or "Simple Black", it did indeed work. But there were no instructions on how to play each track. So I just assumed it was not working.

But you need to click on some dots that appear on the menu to get it to change to the list of files.

Using the other menu choices produces a menu with some instructions explaining how to select each file. I think that is something that will confuse a new user like me.

Perhaps the GUIDE should explain that it may be best not to select "Simple White" or "Simple Black" until you first try another menu style.

[admin]

Step 4 (on page 3) of the guide covers editing titles, you can only set chapters (for titles) based on a set interval (for example, every 3 minutes, or you can specify the number of chapters you want and the software will add them evenly through the title). You can't specify specific chapter points (eg. at 2 minutes 23 seconds), for that, you'll need a slightly more advanced DVD authoring tool like TMPGEnc DVD Authoring Works (paid application).

You also need to name your project, otherwise it will be named "Unnamed Project" - that's covered in step 3 (on page 2).

And good tip about testing your project using small AVI files, that's what I usually do, plus also use DVD-RWs whenever possible for your first encode (and only burn after you've tested playback of the created DVD folder using a DVD player software on your computer, like PowerDVD, VLC player, KMPlayer, PotPlayer or Media Player Classic, all of them free except for PowerDVD).

[AliShibaz]

Thanks for that info.

BTW, I have no experience with .ISO files and I'd like to ask one question.

Am I correct in assuming the reason to create an .ISO file is so that I can then make multiple copies of the output DVD without having to go through the entire lengthy process for each DVD I wish to create?

In other words, am I correct in assuming that an .ISO file is just a copy of a DVD which I can easily use to create a DVD. So, it may take me an hour to select and edit all the .AVI files I wish to use to create my DVD. But once I create an .ISO file, it will onlly take me about 5 minutes to create each DVD I want instead of an hour and a half to create each DVD.

Is that the correct idea?

[MilesAhead]

If you want to author with specific chapter times, I wrote a small utility that converts the xml chapter times to HH:MM:SS format. You can then paste it into DVDAuthorGui, which is a free authoring program.

It's called HmsTimes and you may download from this page:

Faves Downloads

All my stuff is "free for you to use at your own risk, donations welcome" Windows software.

[AliShibaz]

If you want to author with specific chapter times, I wrote a small utility that converts the xml chapter times to HH:MM:SS format. You can then paste it into DVDAuthorGui, which is a free authoring program.

It's called HmsTimes and you may download from this page:



All my stuff is "free for you to use at your own risk, donations welcome" Windows software.

Thank you very much. But I'm afraid there has been a mis-communication. I really have no need to create specific chapter times.

But perhaps you could help me with another question?

I am creating DVDs containing .AVI files that contain 50 minute TV programs. I expected to be able to fit six of these onto a DVD because a DVD normally holds six hours.

But for some reason, it will not let me put six on a DVD and I can only put a maximum of five. Is there really that much overhead so that a total of 5 hours 10 minutes is too big for a DVD to accommodate?

Also, I have been doing a little experimenting - trying to learn about DVD Flick.

I created an .ISO file and then used NERO to write that to a DVD. It worked fine.

But now for some reason, DVD Flick has "greyed out" the option to create a DVD and it won't let me do anything else except .ISO files. Does anyone know why this would have happened?