Rob -

You're not missing anything. The PD menu structure dictates terms! You must be about the millionth PDuser who's made such a request & it's still unavailable. The root/scenes/chapter thing is stuck where it is.

BUT, there's a mountain of other disc authoring software that gives you more flexibility. PD is essentially for video editing. That's its forte.

I hope Jeff won't mind me plugging his K.I.S.S menu template again. It's the closest thing I've seen to what you want... http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/153239

Cheers - Tony

Edited to remove a misplaced apostrophe. Sorry Crabby.
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Thanks Tony.

It's personally reassuring to know it's not my abilities but a limitation of the software, and that others have encountered this problem before. If the software will not be changed, I would recommend that Cyberlink explicitly define the root/scenes/chapter (only) structure in their documentation. A simple documentation call-out that other menu structures are not possible would have saved me (and apparently others) a lot of time.

I downloaded a trial copy of PowerProducer to see if the menu creation function offers more options that PowerDirector. It does not. It's a different beast intended for a bit of a different audience.

For DVD menus I use DVD Lab

It will do just about anything you desire. You can create a chapter menu, hotspots on the screen to click, hidden spots (like Easter eggs) you can have it play an intro movie (like trailers) and you can dictate if they can or cannot jump to the menu right away (just like production DVD's) and you can also dictate what part of the menu or what clip to go to next after playing a chapter, or just return to the menu. You can combine it with images that you can mask for very creative menus with videos behind. One thing I particularly like is that you can create a little movie that plays when they click a selection on the menu so that you can wisk them off to their selection, like have a character run into view and do something interesting to intro the selection before it plays.

I've used it for years and it works great, no issues at all. The only warning is it is very "techie" oriented and it may take a while to understand the terminology as their are so many options and things you can do with it. Richard

PD10, build 10.0.1129b SR VDE111213-07
Windows 7, 64-bit, Intel Quad core 3.3 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Intel on board graphics display (shares the RAM), 931 GB free space

I did try the K.I.S.S. II template, and it's a great basic template, but ultimately it was Richard's suggestion about DVD-Lab that provided the solution. I used DVD-Lab to create the DVD menu I wanted. The cost of DVD-Lab may put off some people, especially if you only need to create one or two special menus, but there is quite a bit of flexibility to that software, and it looks like if you can imagine it, you can create it with DVD-Lab.

I'm really glad it worked for you Rob. Richard

PD10, build 10.0.1129b SR VDE111213-07
Windows 7, 64-bit, Intel Quad core 3.3 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Intel on board graphics display (shares the RAM), 931 GB free space

No one ever listens (((( NERO burning software ))))has some of the best menus --movie titles you could want.
I have DVDs with up to six different movies titles and it is simple to produce in Nero , it is part of the burning steps

Just click on which you want to watch and the way it goes.

Just like this , that took me 1/2 a minute to make in NERO just click on title and play the one you want

For something straight out of the box Nero works. I just can't accept the constraints.

But if you only need a DVD menu for a few projects it can work for you. Richard

PD10, build 10.0.1129b SR VDE111213-07
Windows 7, 64-bit, Intel Quad core 3.3 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Intel on board graphics display (shares the RAM), 931 GB free space