Play Once with Encore

[Rick Thornquist]

I'm making a DVD that has a bunch of videos on it, all accessed from a main menu.

I'm looking to include an informational clip that I want to show when the first video that is accessed. It's basically some text that I want to fade in and fade out before the video is shown.

The problem: I only want to show this clip once, before the first video they watch - I don't want them seeing it before every video. I'd also rather they not see it before they see them main menu.

Is there any way to do something like this in Encore (I have CS3, but will probably be getting CS4 soon)? I've been digging through the program and haven't been able to come up with anything.

Thanks!

- Rick

[Jon Geddes]

Unfortunately without scripting, this task is a little difficult in Encore, but can be done.

Here is what I would do:

1) Create the main menu with all the buttons to your videos and have it set as first play
2) Link all the buttons to the same timeline of the information clip
3) For each button, set it's override to the clip you actually want it to play
4) Create a duplicate main menu which links to each clip normally without any overrides
5) Set the end action of each timeline, and the menu button of each timeline, to go to the duplicated main menu (no timelines should be set to return to the last menu)

With this setup, when the person clicks on a button from the main menu for the first time, it will play the info timeline first, then with the override set, will continue on to the timeline specified in the override. The person should then return to the duplicated menu from then on, and the info timeline will not be played again.

[Rick Thornquist]

Jon -

That's very clever and should work perfectly. Thanks!

- Rick