Solved Authoring Menus for DVD and Blu-ray Versions

Hello Derek, sometimes I need to create the same video in both DVD and Blu-ray formats. Working from the same Movie Studio project I can render video and audio files suitable for both DVD and Blu-ray discs (e.g. MPEG2/AC3 for DVD and MP4/W64 for Blu-ray)). I can then author menus for one format using DVDA, and want to use these same menus for the other format.

In other words, is it possible to change the media from one type to the other whilst preserving the menus? For example, I am thinking that I could author the DVD version and save it as MyDVD.dar and make a copy calling it MyBD.dar, then swap the media files in the latter project to those suitable for Blu-ray. Do you know of a quick way of doing this ? Thanks.

I don't know what other people do, but this is my method.

Let's assume you made the DVD version first, with DVD Architect and have already rendered the Blu-ray video versions with Vegas and they are ready to be placed into DVD Architect.

1a. Open your DVD project and then use Save As to save the .dar project file into a New Folder with a different file name. This copy is going to become your Blu-ray project version.
1b. Now open the Project Properties for this new "Blu-ray" version and change everything to Blu-ray settings, then save again.
2. Close DVD Architect
3. Go to your Vegas Projects folder (in Documents) and locate the folder that contains all your DVD video and audio file versions. Create a new sub-folder inside of here and then move all your video and audio files for the DVD version into this new sub-folder.
4. Start DVD Architect and open the new Blu-ray.dar project file you copied from Step 1.
5. DVD Architect will tell you that the files could not be found. Select specify a new location or replacement file and then select the Blu-ray video versions you rendered with Vegas. Once you have selected all the replacement video files, go to Save and re-save the project. All the Blu-ray versions will now be locked into place (swapped out) and then you can burn your Blu-ray disc version.

*Make sure to use the Preview function before you attempt to burn a Blu-ray disc and check that all the new videos were swapped correctly.



Regards
Derek

Thank you for such a speedy reply. Your suggestion sounds like a very good work-around and I will give it a try to see if it works for me. I'll let you know how I get on.

First Update.

I've now tried your suggested method, and got to the part where DVDA could not find the media files, so I selected the option to 'Specify a new location or replacement file' and selected the Blu-ray media files. So far so good.

However, at this point the project properties must be changed, otherwise DVDA tries to re-compress the files to fit a DVD. The first thing I did was to change the target format from DVD to Blu-ray (25GB). Then, as my Blu-ray video file is a .m2v (basically MPEG2) I left the video file format as MPEG2, but changed the audio file format from AC3 to PCM as my Blu-ray audio file is a .w64 (basically a WAV file - PCM encoded). I also changed the video bit rate and frame rate to match my .m2v file.

I then tried to prepare the Blu-ray disc, and got no warning or error messages from DVDA. The encoding of the menus took less than a minute, but then DVDA reported that the preparing stage (normally quite fast) will take over 2 hours. I left it to run, but DVDA eventually crashed before completion. I can't see what I am doing wrong, and wonder if you can suggest something? Thanks again.

Second Update.

I have now tried to create a Blu-ray menu from scratch, by creating a new, menu based, Blu-ray Disc project in DVDA. I've added the media and a scene selection page (actually 2 pages as I specified a maximum of 14 links per page). I then tried to create a Blu-ray ISO file, and got the same problem. This indicates to me that there is nothing wrong with your method Derek, but a bug in DVDA. I am using build 67.

My project has one main menu with two buttons - play all and scene selection. The first scene selection page has 14 links and the second one has 13 links. Nothing fancy. Maybe it's the number of links that upsets DVDA, although according to the help pages a Blu-ray Disc project can contain up to 250 buttons per title.

I am now stumped!

PS: The menu preview works perfectly.
PPS: I'm going to re-render my video to avc instead of mpeg to see if DVDA is happier with that format.

I also changed the video bit rate and frame rate to match my .m2v file.

Never change the Video Bit Rate inside of DVD Architect - as soon as you do this, it will force DVD Architect to re-render your videos.
Always leave the Bit Rate setting inside of DVD Architect at default settings.
If you have rendered your videos with Vegas using any of the default formats/templates, DVD Architect will use those same Bit Rate settings.

There is another method you can also use, when wanting to clone Menus you have already created in DVD Architect.
You can save any custom menu themes you have created and apply them to new projects.
If you right-click on each Menu screen you have created, you can select Export Menu as Theme.
This will then appear in the Themes tab, so when you create your next project, you can apply it without having to start from scratch.

You can waste a lot of time trying to fix problems in DVD Architect.
When I have experienced problems in the past, I recommend starting with a clean slate and not trying to do anything tricky.
While in theory my method for cloning a DVD project into a Blu-ray project should work, it may be best to start with a new project.

Thank you again for your help.

As it happens I also came up with the idea of exporting my menus as themes, so did exactly that (great minds think alike!). Also, this time I used the 'Make Movie' dialog within Vegas to create a Blu-ray disc with menus, instead of 'Render As'. When rendering had completed I opted this time to send the media files to DVDA from within Vegas. I then applied my custom themes and created a Blu-ray iso file, which seems to have worked. Preparation still took a while at 13 minutes, compared with less than a minute for a DVD. So this method has worked for me.

By the way, the Project Properties dialogue within DVDA does not have a 'Match Properties to Media' button on my version.

You're right about not fiddling too much with DVDA and starting with a clean slate when things don't work!

Thanks again.

By the way, the Project Properties dialogue within DVDA does not have a 'Match Properties to Media' button on my version.

That is correct. That function has never existed in any version of DVDA.
Match Properties to Media is a Vegas function only.