Menu Woes Again

Tom

Newbie Location: St Helens, Merseyside, UK Joined: Jul 23, 2007 14:08 Messages: 19 Offline

Solved by

Dec 06, 2008 18:18

I read with interest Robert's comments on using the menu on the create screen, and the follow up comments, and I have to tell Nina that I already have grey hair!

And it is getting even greyer editing menus.

Rather than continue that thread I thought it better to start a new one, as I have a specific problem in PD7.

I have used PD5, and PD6 and just upgraded to PD7. I say this to indicate that I am not a complete novice with PowerDirector, although I accept I am still a junior and constantly learning. I am obviously doing something wrong in menu edit, but what?

The problem I have is that I can edit the menu without any problems, but when it comes to playing the DVD, the button highlight never works. The chapters are found and play, but you have to guess where the cursor is.

As an experiment I started a new project and in Edit loaded the first 4 sample clips into the project, then set a chapter at the start of each clip (i.e. 4 chapters). Then went to the create disc screen, and selected template 5. Without touching anything I burned a disc. The DVD played but no highlighting. I repeated the experiment using template 10, and the highlighting worked!

Everything I have tried when editing my menus fails. In preview everything appears to work, but after burning the highlighting does not show. This is a problem I have never had in PD5 or PD6. I am seriously considering going back to PD6, if I can’t resolve the problem.

BTW I have installed the patch. I also appologise for a rather long ramble.

Tom

RobertWA

Senior Member Joined: Sep 20, 2008 00:18 Messages: 223 Offline

Dec 07, 2008 03:36

Tom

I replicated your experiment with Templates 5, 10 and also 1. All worked fine.

I then tried one which I made from scratch - opened the Menu Designer with NEW then just added an image to the background. I then burned the DVD and the options didn't work - not just no highlight, no action at all!!!

I then changed one setting to Enable Video Thumbnails and my menu worked fine.

Don't know why it worked, but you might like to try it.

Good luck.

Robert

Tom

Newbie Location: St Helens, Merseyside, UK Joined: Jul 23, 2007 14:08 Messages: 19 Offline

Dec 07, 2008 06:23

Robert

Thanks for replying and testing.

I repeated the experiment by opening the Menu Designer with NEW then I added an image to the background. I then burned the DVD and again I could navigate around the DVD, but without any highlighting, i.e. I had to navigate blind. I then enabled thumbnails , and the DVD worked fine all the highlights appeared!

I then left the thumbnails enabled and went back to menu 5, (one that did not work in the original experiment) Burned the disc without any other changes and it worked!

So with thumbnails enabled it works with them disabled the highlighting does not work. So Is this a bug within PD? Do other people experience this, or just a few people?

In all cases when I was in the Create Disc/Author mode the highlighting appeared.

I have only been playing with PD7 for a few days but initial opinion is that it is 3 steps forward, 2 back compared with PD6.

Tom

John

Newbie Location: Alveston, Bristol, UK Joined: Mar 06, 2008 12:10 Messages: 31 Offline

Dec 07, 2008 15:56

Hi, I have a similar problem, not with the chapter objects, they work fine even when they are not enabled. My problem is with 'Play' & 'Chapter' on the main menu. They highlight in preview mode, but not on a burned DVD. I have tried several different menus, but get the same result every time.
Can anybody help me with this please? Best regards

John

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Dec 07, 2008 17:48

John

Try the steps I outlined in:
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4388.page#16829

Jeff

John

Newbie Location: Alveston, Bristol, UK Joined: Mar 06, 2008 12:10 Messages: 31 Offline

Dec 08, 2008 08:44

Thank you Jeff you're a life saver.
It worked just as you said it would. I am in fact using the latest version of PD7 Ultra, 2227c. I would have thought this would have included the fixes from previous updates, but maybe not. Anyway the fix you recommended is brilliant.

Thanks again

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Dec 08. 2008 08:45

Best regards

John

JeffK44

Newbie Joined: Jan 14, 2008 12:41 Messages: 11 Offline

Dec 27, 2008 17:42

Jeff,
Your fix worked wonderfully for me as well. When I first read this post a month or so ago, I did not think it applied to me because my problem was that I could get nothing to work on the main menu page when I used a DVD player. Everything worked fine on a computer and it actually worked on a portable DVD player I have. I had concluded the problem was with my DVD player. I then happened to try a DVD I made on a 3rd DVD player and this time the navigation buttons seemed to work but nothing was highlighting so I had to navigate blind. I remembered reading this posting and thought I would give it a try. I was skeptical because I had long ago updated my PD7 with 2206 and more recently with the 2227c update so if this was a problem that had been fixed by a Cyperlink patch, I didn’t think it would be my problem.
I was very happy to find that your work around allowed my Menu to work on all my DVD players. I have re-burned quite a few of my DVD’s and they are all now working.
Thanks.
Hopefully Cyberlink gets around to solving this in their next patch.

Thanks again
Jeff K.

Roger

Newbie Location: Sydney, Australia Joined: Sep 29, 2008 09:03 Messages: 29 Offline

Dec 28, 2008 07:16

I just want to add that I also am now another happy customer. I also had the problem of menu items not highlighting, except for the templates supplied with PD7. Any modification to one of these, or a new menu made from scratch, did not work, either in my DVD Player or on the computer in WMP

Anyhow, by enabling the "video thumbnail" option I can now burn a disc which works. Thanks Jeff.

Of course this is not a solution to the problem, just a work-around. We don't always want video thumbnails, do we. This is another PD7 BUG which Cyberlink need to fix.

BTW I have not had any problems with "create disc" stalling or locking up. I am only making SD discs. I assemble the project from several clips, captured as MPEG-2 and then use "produce" to combine them into a single clip which I burn. It remains to be seen how I go with something more complicated: Stills, transitions, audio track etc.

Happy new year to all.

Roger.