DVD Studio Pro: Authoring a DVD that plays automatically without a menu

The following steps describe one way to author a disc in DVD Studio Pro without a menu, and without the need for the user to press the Play button. This enables a track to play automatically when the user puts the disc into a DVD player. The key to these steps is to use the First Play function.

1. Create a new project in DVD Studio Pro and import the assets for your project.
2. In the Outline tab, select “Menu 1” under Menus.
3. Press the Delete key to delete “Menu 1”.
4. Drag your video asset(s) from the Assets tab to V1 in the Track tab.
5. If the audio track does not automatically appear in A1, drag it from the Asset tab to A1 in the Track tab.
6. Optionally, you might add subtitles, or other track elements at this stage.
7. In the Outline tab, select the item at the top, “UNTITLED_DISC”.
8. In the Inspector, you should see the properties for the disc. The first item is “Name:”. You can name your disc here. The second item is “First Play:”. From the First Play pop-up menu, choose Tracks and Stories, then from the submenu choose Track 1 and then [Track].If you want your disc to loop continuously, follow steps 9 and 10 below. Otherwise, proceed to step 11.
9. In the Outline tab, select Track 1 under Tracks.
10. In the Inspector for Track, from the End Jump pop-up menu, choose Tracks and Stories, then from the submenu choose Track 1 and then [Track]. This makes the track play over again when it reaches its end.
11. Simulate your project to make sure it works as you wish. If you’re satisfied, the disc can be built at this point and tested in a DVD Player.

Tip: If your video track does not loop, it will just stop playing at the end of the track. On some players this will show the last frame of your video indefinitely. For this reason you may want to ensure that your video track ends in a black frame.