Hi all,
I made some home movies with Adobe Premiere 6.0.1, exported them with the DV500 DVD presets, and tried to build a DVD using Impression 2.2. I couldn't get past the menus (entering clips and sound worked fine). I'd used Photoshop to make a black background image in 24 bit BMP format, then made 'buttons' within Impression using the 'make thumbnail' feature (from the video clips I'd imported). Everytime I tried to drag the button thumbnails onto the background image (which was in the video timeline), I kept getting a "You cannot have true color buttons in hilite menus" error.

I followed the instructions on making True Color menu backgrounds and buttons in Photoshop using the correct pixel sizes and BMP 24 bit specifications, but somehow my menu is in Hilite format. I was trying to make True Color menu items, how do you specify that?

So next I tried it with Sonic MyDVD that came with my burner. I burned the DVD with a Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-R Drive on the included blank Pioneer DVD-R disc and it won't play in either the original computer or either of my DVD players (a Samsung and a Zenith). It will, however, play in my other computer's LiteOn dual format drive. In all cases that it wouldn't play, the affected machines just displayed "Loading" until I gave up and ejected them.

Any ideas why this might be so? I would think that it would have at least played in the DVD burner that made the darn thing.

Thanks,
Jeff

What's your DVD playback software ? Also, were was your audio and video data rates ? What about your audio compression type?
I've found that some DVD software seems to prefer an AUDIO_TS folder next to the VIDEO_TS folder, even though the AUDIO_TS is empty.

The playback software was PowerDVD on both computers, the consumer DVD players were both progressive scan Mitsubishi and Samsung models. Audio and Video datarates were according to the NTSC DVD settings in Premiere 6.0.1 (48KHz and 29.97 fps). I didn't use any audio compression when exporting from Premiere (uncompressed was defaulted so I left it there). Other options were all Pinnacle MPEG1 Layer 2 from 128-384 bits/s. Is there a standard one of these to pick? Size wasn't an issue for this particular DVD as there was only about an hour of video so I figured I'd have room for uncompressed audio.

The DVD SonicMyDVD made indeed does not have an Audio_TS folder, just a Video_TS folder and a Sonic folder with some advertising BS in it. Your assumption would seem correct, since the other homemade DVD my friend made with Windows Movie Maker has both Audio and Video folders and the Audio_TS folder is in fact empty. Unfortunately I don't see a selection from within MyDVD to change settings for that.

Thanks,
Jeff

Uncompressed audio is supported universally, so until you solve your other audio problems, stick with that. Try using Nero to create a video DVD-R and add an empty AUDIO_TS directory.
You have a brand name DVD-R (Pioneer) , but it may be defective. Have you ever created a good DVD-R with your Pioneer A04? Beyond that, I don't know what to suggest.
I've used an A04 successfully with various brands of DVD-R, although I did have trouble with some early Princo DVD-R and DVD-RW, especially the latter. They play on the A04 and pretty much every other player I've tried, although DVD-RW is less universal.

This was actually the first DVD I burned on the Pioneer. I took the disc and copied it to my other computer's hard drive, added an AUDIO_TS folder, and burned it with that computer's LiteOn drive and it plays everywhere now, including on the Pioneer drive. So I think your initial suspicion of the lacking AUDIO_TS folder was correct. My next step is to do the same thing on the Pioneer drive's computer.

Still can't figure why Sonic's MyDVD wouldn't put a commonly required folder on there, though...

Thanks,
Jeff