Yes, it's not at all obvious how this should be done!

You will need first to open the video that you want to appear first on the DVD.  Then choose File>Open and select your second video.  You will be asked whether you want to "Close Current Project", "Add New Project" or "Cancel"; choose "Add...".

This will open the second project in a completely new timeline window (the first will still be open "behind" it.)  Select everything in the second project (shortcut Ctrl+A) and Edit>Copy (shortcut Ctrl+C.)

Go to the "Window" menu item; you will find at the bottom of the dropdown that both your projects are listed, with the second one ticked.  Click on the first one (it now becomes ticked, i.e. the "active" project) and so visible on the timeline.  Set the cursor/playhead to the end​ of this movie and choose Edit>Paste (shortcut Ctrl+V).  Your second movie will now be placed at the end of your first movie and will play as one.

Repeat the above actions for the third movie.

Then, if you want the DVD Menu to simply point to the beginning of each movie, with no intermediate chapter points, simply create a chapter marker at the beginning of each one.

Post back if you're still unsure of anything.

Jeff

Hi Jeff (emmrecs),

Thanks for the explanation. I'm going to play with it in a short time. I don't know why the documentation is so lacking in those kind of step-by-step directions, but it seems to be.

I do have one further question, however. Do I need to put any kind of "end" markers at the finish of each individual movie, or will it automatically go back to the menu?

Regards,
Alan

No need for 'end' markers, but check the editing menu in the burn window for 'Action at and...' options including jump to next movie or jump to film menu.

Hello cpc000cpc and Jeff,

I'm trying it out now. I find the menu creation stuff a bit puzzling, so it is a bit of a guess. I suppose I'll find out if I need more guidance later on.

When I followed these directions from Jeff:

You will need first to open the video that you want to appear first on the DVD.  Then choose File>Open and select your second video.  You will be asked whether you want to "Close Current Project", "Add New Project" or "Cancel"; choose "Add...".

It did not work out exactly as expected. The second video inserted itself after the first, and so cutting and pasting were unnecessary.

I placed in the chapter markers and found that by right-clicking them, I could enter in a caption via the Properties context menu.

It will probably take some time for my CD to burn, so I'll keep you all posted as to how it turns out. I have a feeling I may run into some "gotchas," and so I may have some more questions.

Regards,

Alan

Well, it did not work out. I tried to burn it to disk and got an error message that said:

Burning was aborted with the following error:
Internal error while processing
Operation failed

So I tried burning it to my 1 terabyte almost empty hard drive and got the same error. I tried to export it as a MPEG-2, and the "save video" button seemed frozen. When I used my file browser utility to look in the directory, it showed the file there, but it's still saving it and is unplayable. Apparently, "Movie Edit Pro MX Premium Download_Version, Videodeluxe version" has no "saving in progress" dialog when it is saving.

I saved a copy of the log file, but it's kind of long, so I hesitate to post it here. Is there somewhere I can upload it? Also, I saved a screen shot of the dialog box which I'm going to try to attach at the bottom of this message.

Please help me to do this.

Regards,
Alan

Hello Alan,
While I wrote the following, I see that you have got more problems.
Try to check that there are no «black holes» in one of the films.
If you have a DVD-RW (not wasting DVD's), I would burn one by one of the films, and thus find out if one of the films are corrupt.

Comments to emmrecs proposal:
Placing all the 3 films on the same timeline, will result that you have One Film with 3 chapters. If your brother wants to see film no. 2, the player will continue playing film no. 3 without stopping.
Another way could be:
You import the 3 films on one timeline for each film, as emmrecs describes, and then go to Burning. (there must always be a chapter marker set at the beginning of each film. And you can set more chapter markers if you want).
In Burning you see the 3 films in the Menu. If you have set more than 1 ch.markers at a film, there will also be pointer(s) to a sub-menu.
Right-click at one of the films, and click Properties. In Menu entry properties you can change text, font, menu image etc. In the lower right side you can change Action at the end of the film. Default is Jump to film menu.
Clicking «Edit»  in the left upper corner gives you other choices.

Hope you succeed, regards Andreas

Hi Andreas,

If you have a DVD-RW (not wasting DVD's), I would burn one by one of the films, and thus find out if one of the films are corrupt.

These three videos were actually burned to MP4s. So I really had to do nothing but import them, line them up, put chapter markers, and then burn them. So none of them are corrupt.

Try to check that there are no «black holes» in one of the films.

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what "black holes" are.

In Burning you see the 3 films in the Menu. If you have set more than 1 ch.markers at a film, there will also be pointer(s) to a sub-menu.
Right-click at one of the films, and click Properties. In Menu entry properties you can change text, font, menu image etc. In the lower right side you can change Action at the end of the film. Default is Jump to film menu.
Clicking «Edit»  in the left upper corner gives you other choices.

Actually, with all due respect, I didn't see "action" selection. I am putting in the screen shot below.

As I  was just getting ready to do something else, I thought I'd give it another try, and so I made a new project with the same three videos, and I got this rather mysterious dialog:

I am in the United States, so I know I have to use the NTSC. But I am not sure what to do with all this.

Regards
Alan

Hi Alan

As you already have the three movies as mp4 the procedure for putting it together to get what you want is slightly different from Jeff's which is for combining three seperate projects into one.

1.   Start new project 

2.  Import the first mp4 onto the timeline, set up any chapters you require.

3.  Click File, Manage movies, New - if asked to close current movie click No.

4.  Import the 2nd mp4 to the new empty timeline and set up any chapters that you require.

5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for the third mp4

6. Save the project.

7. Click Burn and select the type of DVD/BD you want to create

8.  Select the menu template you wish to use and make any changes to the title, button labels etc.

9.  Save the project

You should now have a top menu which allows you to select which movie to view. 

If you have created chapters for the 3 movies, then you will have sub menus with the Play and Chapter buttons on - one sub menu for each movie - clicking the Play button will play the selected movie only, clicking the Chapters button will take you to the chapters menu.

HTH

John

Hi John,

Thanks for the detailed answer. I noticed you said this:

If you have created chapters for the 3 movies, then you will have sub menus with the Play and Chapter buttons on - one sub menu for each movie - clicking the Play button will play the selected movie only, clicking the Chapters button will take you to the chapters menu.

Do I have to create chapters for each separate movie to have a menu that will allow the viewer to choose which video?

I noticed when I put chapters, in preview, I had a main menu which started at the first movie, and then there was a sub menu with the chapters on it. I would like to have the chapters in the main menu, so that there is only one menu. The menu template I chose has an interesting melange of scenes from the three movies playing in the background with rather agreeable music.

So how can I have only one menu, with the preview, with the music, and with the links to each of the chapters?

Regards,
Alan

Hi,

It might simply be a matter of building your menu as usual (Main + Chapters) and then unchecking the 'Film' option:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP-SingleMenu.jpg

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Never fails to surprise me how often users post here with a problem that they've apparently been wrestling with yet they either never bother to read later posts or, if they do, fail to offer any feedback.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK