on certain DVDs, like Godfather, when you insert it, the movie automatically plays. or, like citizen kane, once the loop finishes in the menu the movie will play. how is this accomplished via DVD-Arch or do i need another DVD-authoring software?

If you don't have to have a menu, you could just create a Single Movie DVD, and it would play without any user prompting.

If you need a menu, and you want it to play after a certain amount of time, no, DVDA won't do that.

Gary

excellent, thanks. so do ANY dvd-authoring programs let you have a menu that auto plays or is that a 'script' item?

If I understand you correctly, You're wanting a DVD that comes up to a menu and then, after a certain period of time, automatically selects a specified menu option? Is that correct?

Edward, that is correct. i've seen it w/a few DVDs. like citizen kane when you put it in it gives you the splash then gives you menu and after one loop of th menu starts to play the movie. w/godfather when you put it in it starts the movie, no need to press play that's why Quentin said, it's so brilliant, godfather needs no introduction.

As far as I know, that is currently not possible in DVDA 1.0.

is this possible in any other DVD authoring program?

I'm sure it is but I can't name any names. I haven't used most of the available options.

Any professional DVD authoring package like Scenarist (expensive)
and Apple's DVD Studio can do this for sure. Some other products
from Sonic (creators of Scenarist) might also support it (quite
likely). Check out some of their products at www.sonic.com

Here's a comment from another forum (related to a different issue):

Sorry -- DVDA cannot do this. The buttons are there from the
beginning. DVDA 1.0 is a very basic DVD authoring program lacking a
lot of fundamental basics.

I'd expect to see a lot of huge improvements in the next version.


--
Best regards,

Timothy


Maybe this will be one of the areas that's improved in the next version.

i just uninstalled sonic mydvd (4.5) and i think it is terrible... i hope it is not a reflection of their professional products.

Sonic DVDit is definitely of questionable value today. Two years ago, it wasn't too bad. It hasn't been updated since (although upgrades were promised several times)

Sonic has a lot of questionable products and updates, but they
have some packages that support/do things that no other package
on the PC basically does (Maestro cannot be bought anymore
and is now DVD Studio Pro on the Mac). You can never compare
a consumer product of a company to any of its higher end
products. Forget about DVDit.

Try the demo version of DVD Producer and see if it supports it.
The DVD Producer is pretty easy if you follow a tutorial (included,
what I heard from a friend). If it does not support it then you will
have to go to something like Scenarist and that's basically not
an option (price wise and very difficult to master).

I've also noticed that Sonic's forums have been offline for at least a couple of weeks.

I think DVDlab can do it, it has a lot of very nice
features, like motion menu wizards, and a very good
navigation overview, a steep learning curve, but worth it..
give it a try at...

http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/

/magnus

wow, that dvdlab looks very interesting and the price is decent for what it does =). thx for the link.

Pesonally, I'm waiting to see what Sony comes out with in the next version of DVDA.

haven't been to the vegas forum lately, are there links to news of the next version of DVD Arch and or Vegas? Vegas5+DVD Arch 2?

A post by Sony personnel says "the next version of DVDA is being worked on". (paraphrased) No how, when, where, how, or what was given.