Posted by Bob on 11/16/05 13:06

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 19:13:06 -0600, "Ken Maltby"
<kmaltby@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> A few startup hints for TDA.

>1. Make your own Menu Themes.

>2. Click on the Blue "Add new track..." to add separate clips/
>movies/episodes, if you want them to play and return to the main
>menu. Or if they have differing parameters. (you can have them
>play the next track, instead of returning to the menu, if you want)
> {This is what you should do with your "short movie clips".}

I prefer to return to the menu since each title is uniquely different.

>3. Click on everything. Right Click on everything also.

>4. RTFM/Help files.

I am a manual freak - I actually enjoy reading manuals because they
have so many neat little things tucked away in hidden corners of the
presentation. I will generally read a manual at least three times -
that is how long it takes to pick everything out.

>5. If you label the "Tracks", that text will automatically appear in
>the "Create Menu" for that menu selection.

>6. Try a Text Only layout, instead of one with thumbnails.
> (layout 6#3 is the first one, in the listings.)

>7. Often a 'Main menu only" works best. How often do you
>want to select a chapter from a menu? And if you did most
>players will have a Chapter selection menu, anyway.

>8. Make chapter points even if you aren't using a chapter
>menu; they also serve a navigation function.
> {If your "Short Movies" are small enough you might not
> need to set any.}

My clips are too short for chapter marks. I have 16 clips in all and
they take up less than a DVD disc in all, menu included.

>9. Motion Menus are a breeze with TDA, just click on the
>existing background and open your own .mpg to be the
>background image and music. I use VideoReDo to cut out
>the opening credits of the shows I'm collecting, and use that
>as a background on a text only layout. This also gives me the
>show's theme song as the BGM (Background Music).

I tried motion menus once but with 16 title icons it looked silly. I
would much rather have the text showing statically. Motion menus are
useful when you have only a few titles.

>10. Once you have a menu theme as you want it save it with
>the background clip/image and most of it's settings, under an
>appropriate name. For my TV series I use the series name,
>I also have some "standard" ones for a two movie DVD, or
>mini-series. Once you have your own theme, you can edit it
>each time you use it , if you want.

> That should give you a start.

Thank you for the big heads up - this will save me the agony of having
to discover it the hard way.

I rendered that troublesome video clip in TDA - and it plays just
fine. Therefore, contrary to a stupid remark made by one of the
posters, it is not my mpgs that are the problem - it is MF4. But then
we knew that all along.

I tried almost every possible thing to get it to render properly in
MF4 - I even turned off that MF4 VRD switch - but nothing worked.
There is a fundamental problem with MF4 that I was experiencing only
parts of before I ran into this. Now this simple 3 minute music video
clip - which is perfectly acceptable to VRD, WMP, DVDR, TDA et al, ad
nauseam - brings MF4 to its knees. One of the attempts caused MF4 to
claim it would take over 6 hours to render the clip. Obviously there
is some kind of very serious problem with MF4.

I still want to get this clip fixed in MF4 since I have already made
the effort to render (export) 15 other clips and all I need is this
one last one to complete my collection. I do not look forward to
having to import and render those other 15 clips again in TDA.

I have a few more things I can try - like turning off Two Pass
rendering and fooling around with some other switches. Maybe one of
them like "flicker free" is causing the problem. It usually is
something like this - a minor function that the developer slapped
together Q&D.

Again, thanks for your considerable assistance in getting TDA running.
I have already printed it and am eager to work down the list. But I
have to read the manual first.

--

BOYCOTT SONY!

SONY IS TRYING TO TAKE OVER YOUR COMPUTER!

HOMELAND SECURITY TOLD SONY TO CEASE AND DESIST!

YOU DO THE SAME - BOYCOTT SONY!

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