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Hi everyone, I've looked through the Arabesk manual but haven't seen clear instructions on how to manually author the DVD menu to include 5 minute chapters in each of three films but without having a chapter menu appear. When using the Assistant there is an actual box that includes check boxes for Numbered Chapters and No Menu, but this is not so for a DVD authored without the Assistant (at least as far as I've seen). I saw no reference to this in the manual. I am running Bogart for Windows 7.2 and Arabesk 6.3.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Thank you in advance.

Use the Assistent to add your films without chapter menu - and then select "Edit Disc with Arabesk" on the last step. Then you can freely design your main menu and the chapter menu editor is locked (entering just gives an error message).

But why chapters without a menu This is user comfort You can just load any nice looking chapter menu template (or create your own with black background and a plain, simple chapter 1-xx display). IF you create chapters and you want to see chapter 10, you prefer to press "Chapter+" ten times, instead of pressing chapter menu, next side, and click on chapter 10

I never use the assistant. But I too found it annoying that Arabesk would automatically create a blank chapter menu if I chose to have chapters at 5 minute intervals. I don't like the design of the chapter menu templates typically so I always design my own. But I don't always want to take the time to do so. But I always do want chapter points in anything I make. SO to get around it, after I tell Arabesk I want 5 minute chapters, and then it creates a chapter thumbnail button in the main menu automatically, I just go in and delete the new button. Essentially hiding the chapter menu. It gives me a warning about it afterwards but the disc will burn just fine.

Christopher6206 wrote:But I don't always want to take the time to do so.

So why not take the time ONCE to create a nice chapter menu that will fit every film you add. For example just a black back with plain, white, nice readable text. Use Archive -> save and you can always access this simple plain menu. Loading that takes three seconds.

Christopher6206 wrote:I just go in and delete the new button. Essentially hiding the chapter menu.

Until someone presses the menu-button on the DVD/BD remote control. Then your menu will be shown. And I would prefer a nice looking, plain menu instead of some strange menu that nobody was looking at the time of the DVD/BD creation.

Hi Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to help me. I think that part of the problem had to do with my own inexperience with chaptering - I had only used chaptering once, a long time ago, maybe with Arabesk 2!

Thanks to your suggestion, I pushed myself to learn how to set up chapters and a menu to access each one.

I don't think the Arabesk 6 manual explained clearly that chapters are created from clips on the Smart Edit or Bogart time line. I reviewed a list of steps on DVD authoring written by Bobbie Evoy several years ago that covered this. Also, did you write a list of steps including using NOP on the clips that would become chapters? If I could find it again I would print it out.

Thank you again for your help

Don't worry! With the upcoming Arabesk 7, you can set chapter markers directly within the Bogart Edit menu. DVD/BD production (even with a new BD menu simulation) will get much easier

Take a look at some Arabesk 7 screenshots.