You can tell DVDAuthor Wizard to add chapter markers to a MPEG file. These chapter markers allow you to quickly skip to the next part of the file by using the remote control of your DVD player. There are two ways to accomplish this. The first method requires a text file to be created, containing the time indices of the chapter boundaries. The second method uses a DVDAuthor XML file. DV editor application 'Kino' can export chapter information to an DVDAuthor XML file.

The first method works like this:

During the DVD authoring process, the DVDAuthor Wizard will look for text files that have the same name as the MPEG files, but the filename extension replaced with ".chapters". For example, when one of the files in the DVD playlist is called "/home/john/movie.mpg", DVDAuthor will also look for a file called "/home/john/movie.chapters". You can put the chapter definitions for each MPEG file in this chapter file. When the file exists, DVDAuthor Wizard will automatically use it.

The chapter file is a simple text file, containing only one line of text. This line should exist of comma separated time indices. Example: To create a chapter file that defines three chapters, where the second chapter starts after 30 minutes and the third chapter after one hour and 10 minutes, the line should look like:

0:0,30:00,1:10:00

NOTE: This line MUST be the very first line in the file. No blank lines, comments or anything should precede it.


The second method works just like the first. The only differences are the file format (DVDAuthor XML) and the name the file should have: If one of your MPEG files is called 'movie.mpg', then the XML file should be called 'movie-dvdauthor.xml'. DVDAuthor Wizard will automatically find this file and use any chapters information contained in the file.


It is advisable to try finalizing the DVD without building the menu first. When one of your chapter files contains an error, DVDAuthor will fail. When the authoring is successful, you can generate the menu and finalize the DVD once again.