Many thanks George, will try that !

OK now that I solved most of the menu resolution issues, there's a problem I cannot seem to solve:
the return to last played clip won't work anymore. I tried with 2 different disks, 2 different players - not workong. It works in DVDA but not on the TV. I reset all the buttons and reassigned their specific targets, but as soon as I return to menu, the first clip on the first page is highlighted. It used to work but now has stopped working.
Any idea how to solve this?
Thanks!

If you are hitting return to menu, before it reaches the end of the chapter/program, it will probably not select the correct menu button. The script for the button selection doesn't run until it reaches the end of the program.

There are workarounds that involve scripting, but would be too complicated to explain.

Donald, exactly what you describe worked before on this project. It just ceased to work all of a sudden.

wow, you are having some issues. AFAIK, it is working correctly now. so again, I can't be much help.

Yes , issues, definitely...it's extremely frustrating and time consuming to constantly have to deal with errors that appear or disappear out of the blue. I stopped counting how many times I burned and erased a disc for this project.
My last attempt at this was to set the end actions exactly like the remote buttons. The result now is that at the end of a clip or when pressing title menu on the remote, the player quits the disc and returns to the player start page.
But all is still fine within DVDA.

Mindmatter, as I said before you do NOT have CONTROL of the firmware of a given set-top player. Firmware is what guides the actions of the remote control buttoning of the given player. For those who don't realize it, firmware for different companies, and even different versions of firmware from the same company vary widely.

The control of some of the unusual button situations in commercial releases is handled by what are called case programming or you might know it as if_then statements or case selection in computer language programs.

This can be done in script -language in DVDAPro, but usually is dispensed with because of the plethora of situations that may or may not exist for a given consumer's use of a one-off burned disc.

Yes I got that by now - but it is unacceptable nonetheless. I have 2 top players now, a Phillips and a Samsung, with newest firmware -it does't work on either one!
Please don't tell me that's normal.
What on earth is the best authoring software good for if there is absolutely no control on the behavioural outcome when the BD gets top the player??
Why is there a programmable remote button feature if there is no set protocol with manufacturers that they will actually work? I mean, NO CONTROL, seriously?
I appreciate your patient explanations, and I don't want to come across ungreatful or as if my frustration was directed at you, but this is just unacceptable, and makes absolutely NO sense at all.
Imagine the same thing on a CD - as a musician, how could I ever master a CD , have it printed and released while having to wonder if it even plays OK on consumer's hardware?
Whatever DVDA's qualities are, I'm now definitely convinced that there's a bug . Why did it work before? Why does it not work now anymore? Everything is set to the book. I went through the bady written and conceived manual several times. There simply is a problem - why not just accept that?

DVDA may not be the best out there, especially with BD, but it does a decent job. Many of the functions are buried below the interface. I've stuck with version 5.2 as it does everything (except pop-up menus) that I want. Version 6 seemed to have a lot of bugs on release. I've been looking for the 'perfect' software both for editing and DVD authoring for 25 years. I've yet to find it. I use TMPGEnc authoring works for BD if I want pop-ups, but it is nowhere near as flexible as DVDA.

CD is nowhere near as complex as DVD. None of the CDs I've ever burnt anyway have a customised menu system.

Merits of the Digital Versatile Disk specifications have been discussed many times over the years in this forum and many others.
All of the bantering does nothing for the fact that you must deal with - the specification was very complex and while meant to allow for many different opportunities - most have never been implemented either by the hardware or the software.

Blu-ray and forthcoming 4k optical disc specifications are in some respects subsets but in other ways super-sets of that specification writing. This adds yet more complexity to the final.

@ Mindmatter

Is this a DVD or Blu-ray disc? Reading through the thread you don't appear to have indicated which it is.

EricLNZ, it's a BD.

ArthurS. and VideoITguy, thanks for your input nonetheless.

Ok here's some good news...after a series of total errors like unrecognized discs, DVDA not saving end action settings and crashing on burn command, I disconnected and reconnected the Asus writer - things went back to normal on that end.
I then reprogrammed the end action again to be in sync with the menu button settings - and ahaaa - now the clip runs through and on ending returns to to its same highlighted item on the menu! Halleluja...!...
Now here's an interesting turn tho - when I press the menu button on the remote while the clip plays, it returns to the menu with the last completed clip highlighted. Meaning the clip that last got to complete an end action.
Interesting...

Oh, yeah! Just exactly at it should do. This is the established default position for the navigation sequence.

NOW, admittedly one could argue for a more "artful" navigation sequence to find the last clip that was started as highlighted. But in order to do that, you would enter a script with a case statement to test for which clip was last started and execute a goto of that button-link which should remain highlighted on the return trip.

Unfortunately there is no way to predict firmware execution of the remote menu button- hence the navigation default is a safe bet.