Scripting Multi Language

Question

Hello. I've been authoring DVDs for about half a year, and I've got my head around the basics.
Im embarking on my first major DVD project. It has 4 language options, each language has audio and subtitle content and the menus also will need to be in the 4 languages.
I've considered making 4 sets of menus in the different languages, but as this DVD is interactive is already very complicated.
Do I need to make 4 different sets of menus in the different languages or is there another way?

Answer 1

I've one a lot of DVDs like this - with a menu or menus for each language, and a language selection menu. Most I've done is 12 subtitle tracks with two language tracks, two menus per language, and one language selection menu, 29 menus total. Subtitle and audio track selections were set in the button settings on the language selection menu - easy.
The problem is returning to the right menu when different menus call the same track(s). You have to use scripts to remember which menu you came from, then use end jump scripts with a lot of IF statements to choose the right menu to go back to. If you want to reselect the same button, that gets much nastier, particularly since you can't use prescripts in that case, as they erase SPRM 8 which hold the last button. You have to jump to a script that sets a GPRM with the menu's number, THEN the script must jump to the desired menu. A pain.
Each one I have done has been a bit different, but now I can do these fairly fast.
If you have other interactive features, it gets even more complicated. Lots of scripting required to keep it all tied together! Luckily, the scripts are usually very short. In most cases, only one script is needed for the end jump of all tracks - it handles every return case. This is good because if you fix one, you fix 'em all.