general views about DVD chapters and Playall

I'm a new entry into the event videography field. No skills to speak
of as yet.

Something I've been wondering about is how the bulk of my possible
clients use their dvd players and remotes.

I rarely watch DVD movies. Almost exclusively I've used DVDs for
training of some kind and mostly on a pc not a dvd player. Of course
I've watched the occassional DVD movie.

What I'm most concerned with here is how people use chapters.

I'm not talking about in the authoring process but in actual usage.
In the authoring process I guess the question is, what do you expect
your users to do with your chapters and playall type buttons.

My first take and consequent way I set them up was that they would be
used as a quick way to get to a specific section and then be retuned
to the parent menu where one makes chapter choices.

That is, I encluded end actions that sent the user back to the parent
menu.

I've since learned that many authorers don't do that. They don't
enclude end actions at chapter ends. Seems kind of pointless to me
but I think my attitude may be colored by my personal usage which may
be a bit odd or at least not `average'.

When using a DVD for training one might use chapters heavily and not
in the way a movie watcher would.

I'm now wondering if most users do what I do with DVD movies.
In the case of movies I just jump around with the chpter jump button.
Don't pay a whit of attention to chpters or even look at them.

Harry Putnam...

Richard Responded:

Harry Putnam...

[...]

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Harry Putnam...

Nice helpfull responses .. both. I didn't really follow the title
discussion so much but I'll keep the message and maybe after a few more
readings it will start to soak in.

But both answers confirmed what I was already starting to think was
the way to go.

Good to here from `old hands' about this stuff ... thanks

Richard Crowley...

Depends on the content. For some kinds of things (like training videos
where one might want to see a certain "bit" specifically, and then maybe
some other "bit"), it makes sense for the chapter to return to the menu
when done.

But for a movie (or for concerts such as I do), I assume that if the viewer
really wants to go back to the menu at the end of the song (or the scene,
etc.), they can hit the [Menu] button. Otherwise I will play out the rest of
the program.

So I'm wondering what so called average users might do with an event
DVD, say a wedding.

By and large
I'd guess they would first hit my encluded playall button and watch it
straight thru.

Maybe later when showing friends or the like they might start to use
the chapters I set. At this point will they expect the chapter to
return them to the parent menu when it finishes or just plow on into
the next chapter?

Of course I intend to ask customers and have started doing that now but
just doing that appears to sort of lead them to my way of thinking.

Ken Maltby...

Chapters are also referred to as "Part of Title" (PTT) in the DVD
structure, and it is normally expected that one PTT will follow the
next in order until the end of the title. The natural part of the DVD
structure that is to play as a separate entity is the Title. Any good
DVD Authoring program will let you make separate Titles and/or
Video Title Sets (VTS), as well as chapters within the Titles.

Where you have a consistent self-contained clip, that people
would view as a whole, it should be made a Title with or without
chapters. The "Play All" feature is provided to allow the playing
of Titles as if they were chapters within a Title, one after the other
in a specified order. While a title of any significant length should
have "Chapter Points" established to aid navigation/seeking; the
use of a "Title Menu" that lets you select chapters in the title is a
matter of convenience for longer Titles. It lets the viewer return
to a part of the DVD if they need to, and not have to start from
the beginning, all over again.

Having separate Titles/VTS also allows you to use different
parameters for the audio and video. They need not match, as
they do for all the chapters within a Title.

Luck;
Ken

I'm curious to know what people will do without any leading or
coaching or quizing.