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Old 12-11-02, 02:20 PM  
MsChana
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Thanks for offering to help out, Joanna!

I don't know how others do it (probably more efficiently than I do!), but here's what I do.

1) Start up the DVD, and write down what's in each menu. The reason I do this first is that they might have names for certain chapters, and on the good ones, the chapters often correspond exactly with the "mix-and-match" or "chapter selection" menu options. Saves me a lot of work.

2) I start up the workout and pause. I have a button on my remote called "Display," which has the title, chapter, and time in a blue bar across the top (I have a Sony single-disc). I then keep pressing the button called "Time/text" until it gives me the countdown for that specific chapter. The way mine works is that first it gives you the count up for the whole title (T ....), then the count down for the whole title (T - ....), then the count up for the chapter (C ....), then the count down for that chapter (C - ....). I leave it on the option to count down the minutes for the chapter.

3) Unpause. I make sure what I see on the screen lines up with whatever I've scribbled down from the menu, i.e. if it says the first chapter selection option is "warmup," am I hearing, "now we're going to warm up"?

4) From there on out, it's really fast. I just press the "next" button to go to the next chapter, record the time, "next" again, record time again, etc.

That's how I do it. You could also go straight into the programming menus, but that was a pain to me because I would never know what to "name" things, you know? To put them in context?

I hope that helps. All we really need is title, chapter, and short description (if available): 1.1 warmup, 1.2 upper body, 1.3 lower body, 1.4 cooldown.

That was a long description, but I hope it didn't sound confusing. I have a tendency to babble. Once you've done one, it's easy.
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Old 12-12-02, 09:34 AM  
Joanna
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Hi again Suzanne

Thanks for the help. I still have a few questions, if you don’t mind. Some of these might sound really dumb, but I am very new to DVD’s and they still scare me a little :-)

Firstly, how do I know what number the chapter is? I can navigate menus when they exist (for example, the Kathy Smith DVD has an on-screen menu that lists all the options) but how do I know which is number 1, number 2, etc?

Also, I am not sure how to differentiate between chapters and scenes. For example, the Kathy Smith DVD has a cardio workout, a strength workout and a stretch workout. So you can select cardio workout as an option. But once there you can hit next and it will skip the warm-up. Or in a workout like Karen Voight’s circuit workout, it seems you can do the whole thing, or just the strength, just the cardio etc. but EVERY combo apparently can be selected individually. So I am a bit confused as to what to list or not.

Are we assuming that every chapter is listed as an option in the menu? Why would they have chapters that are not selectable via the menu? Cause if it is just a question of copying down the menu, I can do that.

What I am hoping is perhaps I could post a list below of the dvd’s I have and maybe someone could do one, and I could do one and we could compare? Here are the ones I have that have not been reviewed:

Yogazone 3-pack (Abs, Conditioning and one other, I forget which one)
10-Minute Solution
Quick Fix Total Mix
Balanced Blend (Minna Lessig; due in trade in next little while)
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Old 12-12-02, 03:17 PM  
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Hmm. You know, this is something that would be so easy to show in person but so difficult to try to explain, but it's a really good idea to see about the 10-minute solution. I have that one, actually! It's one of the 6 or so DVD's I have that I haven't gotten around to chaptering yet, so I'll go do that now and show you what I did and how I did it.
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Old 12-12-02, 03:45 PM  
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10 Minute Solution

OK, that took me less than 5 minutes.

1) start DVD

2) press "menu" to get past the yakking

3) I write down what's on the main menu:

Create a Personalized Workout
Pick One Workout
Play All

4) Then I go into the "Pick One Workout" menu so I can see what the sections are named. Section names don't always line up with chapters, and it's common for there to be chapter divisions that aren't accessible from the main menu. If you have something like "Firm: Super Cardio Mix," you know how there are specific sections of the workout you can select from one of the menus? Well in that case, they line up exactly with the chapter breaks. Anyway, I write down what I see in the "Pick One Workout" menu:

Boot Camp
Pilates
Ballet
Kickbox
Yoga

5) Once that's done, I click on "Boot Camp" to see which title.chapter it's on. You can get this info either from the display on your DVD player or by pressing the "display" button on your remote, which on my player brings up a blue bar across the top with the info that looks like this:

DVD T 1-1 C -10:12

"1-1" means title 1, chapter 1 (title number is always listed first).
"C -10:12" means there are 10 minutes, 12 seconds in that chapter. The default is usually to display "T 0:00" (i.e. you're at the very start of the whole title) or "C 0:00" (i.e. you're at the very start of that particular chapter). Both those would be a count up timer rather than a count down timer. I want a count DOWN timer so that I don't have to sit through or fast forward through the whole dumb chapter just to find out how long it is.

Anyway, so next to Boot Camp, I scribble 1.1 (10:12).

It turns out on this DVD, there are not multiple chapters within a title. In other words, there is 1.1 but not 1.2, 1.3, etc. Each segment of the workout on this DVD is on a completely different chapter. On some other DVD's, you'll see a title number, but no chapter one whatsoever - the spot where it's supposed to be will be blank! I just notate something like that as 1.x, 2.x, 3.x. The numbering looks a little different, but essentially, it's the same thing. 10 Minute Solution is a bit different from most DVD's in that most will have a title for each workout, then within each title, a different chapter for each logical section. The Cathe chaptering is very typical of this. You'll have MIS, Power Hour, and Body Max on the same DVD. They are each on their own title, and within each title, they'll have chapters at (usually) logical places. Power Hour's chapters are at the song divisions, I think. Anyway, I'm getting off the subject again. I'm horrible at giving directions or car navigation because I'm guilty of giving too much info. I hope I'm not being too confusing.

Anyway, you won't be able to hit the "next" button to go to the next chapter on this particular DVD because there isn't more than 1 chapter per title. I don't know why it's not chaptered all on title 1 like so: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6.

Pilates is 2.1 (9:57)
Ballet is 3.1 (10:18)
Kick Boxing is 4.1 (9:45)
Yoga is 5.1 (9:31)

6) Now I'm all done with the chaptering. I take a peek into the "create a personalized workout" menu to see what's up with that. I'll just write down that it's a feature that allows you to select up to 3 workouts in whichever order you want.

That's it. Took me only 3 minutes to do but 20 minutes to write about how I did it. Pithy I'm not.

So let me know how yours turned out! I really hope that helps you or anyone else who wants to do them.

Colleen? Anyone? Do you have a better method? I'd love to hear it.
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Old 12-12-02, 03:58 PM  
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I just wanted to add that if it's too much of a pain, don't worry about it. If you do decide to do one, the only really necessary things are the chapters.

Menus are more useful for someone who doesn't have the DVD but wants information on layout, features before s/he buys it.

I like to put times down, but that's just a personal thing - it's nice to program mix-and-match workouts when you know how long something's going to be.
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Old 12-12-02, 04:07 PM  
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Those instructions are great! I actually followed your original set of instructions posted earlier in the thread to get the chaptering info for Christi's Fantastic Four last night. I really find the chaptering info useful, so I figured I ought to give something back! I will try to do a few more over the weekend.

I also think that having the timing info is pretty neat, since I sometimes inadvertently mix and match a workout that's longer than expected.

Christina
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Old 12-12-02, 04:08 PM  
Joanna
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Suzanne, thanks for the info. I am sorry I put you out so much. I just like doing reviews and I thought I could help out with the DVD stuff. Unfortunately I am very new at it and my competency at techy things seems to be decreasing the older I get :-) It's all still a little new and scary.

I will play around with my dvd player tonight and see how I do. Thanks for your help.

Joanna
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Old 12-12-02, 04:23 PM  
MsChana
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Joanna - I just took so long because I'm bad at explaining things and staying on topic. I was happy to do it because I'm sure there are other people who would wish to do a DVD chaptering but didn't know how. It took me months to figure out the dumb DVD player. Being a die-hard cinephile, I'm a geek about picture and sound, but I'm not very techno-literate. When I talk about my computer, I use terms like "thingies" and "doo-dads."

Christina - Thanks so much for doing the Christi! That's one I myself would like to get sometime soon. I've heard it has some picture quality issues, but I've never had the VHS verions of any of them, so I won't mind getting the DVD. The chaptering looks great for that one.

Edited to add that I agree the times are nice to make sure the workout you're planning isn't longer than you want. The last time I did a major mix-and-matching was a couple weeks ago. I neglected to check out the times first, and it ended up being 2 hours long. Oops.
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Old 05-25-03, 12:06 AM  
gmfreund
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An Amazing Resource

I just wanted to say thanks - this is such an amazing resource, I find myself using it again and again!

Gwynn F.
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Old 08-08-03, 10:30 AM  
Joanna
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Suzanne- I posted the menus for the Sharon Mann dvds in the Everything Sharon Mann thread. Did you need any other info for that to be official?

Also regarding the Power 90 dvds, each has the same menu: you can choose between Sculpt, Sweat or Abs. And each set in the workout is its own chapter so you can skip ahead. The abs play directly after the cardio or can be accessed separately via the menu.

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