One thing I try to do with the articles I write, is to give everyone a quick and easy way to speed up their workflow, no matter what the application is that they are using. 

For today's article, we're going to look at how to speed up your workflow in DVD Studio Pro, by having someone else (your client) create a list of Chapter Markers for you to simply import, instead of you having to create them yourself.  This process works much the same as importing .STL files, so let's take a look at how easy it really is.

For this article, we're going to assume that your clip based timecode starts at the zero hour mark, but keep in mind that this will work with clips that have timecode embedded in them as well.  The first part of this process would be to send your client either a quicktime file or VHS/DVD with burnt-in timecode, because they will need a copy to screen to create the marker list.  It is exceptionally important that the timecode you give them (burnt-in) matches the timecode of your .m2v file that you will be importing into DVD Studio Pro, or this will not work exactly the way you want.

Here is a sample shot of the type of file that your client needs to give you, so you can import chapter markers into DVD Studio Pro.

You can put as much information as you want at the top, as DVD Studio Pro will ignore anything that is not in the "timecode format" (XX:XX:XX:XX).  Also, if your client puts one space between the timecode information and the chapter information, whatever you type will become the chapter markers name, and will be imported into DVD Studio Pro as well.  Something else important to keep in mind is that DVD Studio Pro automatically puts a chapter point (Chapter 1) at the start of your timeline, so have your client start with "Chapter 2 - Whatever it's called" and work from there.  Also, whoever is creating your Chapter Marker file for you can use any text creation program (Word, TextEdit, etc), but just make sure that they save the file as a basic text file with a .txt extension on it, or DVD Studio Pro won't let you import it.  That's it, you're done.  To import the chapter markers, simply right click on the area of your timeline where the chapter markers go, select "Import Marker List", navigate to your .txt file, and press "Import".  DVD Studio Pro will now take a few seconds to import your markers, and then your timeline will look like this:

This technique will help ease up on your workflow, and let you get back to what's really important, and that's building your awesome DVD.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a line at kevinpmcauliffe@gmail.com .