Scenchap + Scenarist Chapters (the old way)

[Bodman]

Hi,
I am have a couple of problems with scenchap, I have a mpv file which is PAL, export from Scenarist drag into Scenchap then immediatley press create new script it thinks I have a pal and NTSC video in the same scp (although in the main screnn it says PAL) so I get the error "cannot add times with different FPS". I have a screen shot here (http://www.btinternet.com/~bodman1/scenchap.jpg)

If there is no work around for this can someone tell me how to import the chapters back into Scenarist or via IFOedit (the old way before scenchap was around)so i can progress past the point in which I am stuck.

Thanks in advance


//Bodman

[daxab]

1. Try using a .d2f file. Drop it onto the D2F tab, and then use Copy From D2F (or Copy From D2F+IFO if you have a .ifo too). This should give you the most accurate chapter points anyway, so it's the recommended method.

2. Alternatively, if you don't have a .d2f, drop your .ifo on to the IFO tab. Then use Copy From IFO. Then add /25 after the times in the track page. In other words, if you have:

00:12:34;06

change it to

00:12:34;06/25

I don't recommend copying times from ChapterXtractor and pasting them in.

3. If neither option works, then wait for me to fix Scenchap. (Send me a PM with your email.)

4. As a last resort you can enter the scene points manually in Scenarist. Look at the IFO tab in Scenchap, and then for each one which has a chapter number that isn't zero, create a scene at that point.

[Bodman]

Great Thanks, ill give these a go

//Bodman

[daxab]

I did some more testing and the /25 won't work.

But I sent you a new version of ScenChap to try that should work.

[Eyes`Only]

Daxab,

I'm having continuous problems with the .scp and .ifo method (i don't use the .d2f stuff because it's not supported in the CLI version of DVD2AVI). The last chapter imported in each pgc using scenchap seems to continuously be *after* the length of the movie by just a tiny bit. Scenarist complains when importing the script with errors, which is it's way of saying the last chapter is too close to the end of the movie (in reality i think it's after the end). Could you troubleshoot this and have scenchap create the last chapter correctly? The workaround right now is to manually adjust the last chapter of each pgc. If you don't, many times scenarist will hang forever when you go to compile. It never actually starts compiling, it just says its starting and then hangs until you kill the program. It's really weird. Before, scenarist would 'add' a chapter by itself which was the last frame of the movie. This makes sense, because if you look at most ifos, the last chapter of each pgc is usually the end frame. Now, after importing .scp files, scenarist doesnt create that last chapter. Go figure, eh? Oh, by the way, I use your program religiously, and even though i have to manually adjust the last chapter, it's still the best tool for this use ever!

Eyes`Only

[Bodman]

@Eyes`Only

Yup I found the same thing...and get the last chapter error in Scenarist. I have been taking 5 seconds off the last chapter when I import it into Scenchap and that seems to work.

//Bodman

[Eyes`Only]

Bodman,

Whew! I'm glad someone else is seeing this, because I was almost convinced something was messed up on my end! 5 seconds huh? I've been doing anywhere from 15 seconds to a minute, but I'm going to try 5 seconds now since you've been successful with it. Thanks!

[daxab]

Thanks for letting me know about this.

One possibility is that the timing info in the IFO file is wrong. I know that sounds nuts, but it really does happen. I've seen it on two prominent titles (Harry Potter R1, Amelie R1). After I noticed this I stopped using the IFO files for timing.

I should say that many IFO files appear to have good timing info.

Another problem is that DVD2AVI seems to trim the end of the video stream in some situations. Not by much, but by enough. Many DVDs have a tiny end chapter, sometimes just 15 frames for NTSC -- 0.5 seconds -- to allow people to do CHAP+ to get to the end. Scenarist has a minimum chapter length of, I forget, 0.4 seconds or something like that. So if a few frames get lost, the last chapter can become too short. DVD2AVI might not even emit the last chapter at all (it might trim off the entire GOP). Or, if you're using the IFO, the last chapter position, as reported by the IFO, could even be past what DVD2AVI actually emits. Then you will definitely have a problem.

The fix that ScenChap does is to notice if the last chapter is missing, and to synthesize one at what should be the correct position. It does this for D2F only. It works well and I haven't had a problem with it as far as I can remember.

But in IFO mode, all ScenChap does it copy the times across. If the IFO points off the end of the movie, ScenChap doesn't even know it. The problem is really between the IFO files and DVD2AVI, with them not matching up correctly at the end.

Nonetheless, there are two ways that occur to me for ScenChap to help. #1 is to take the last chapter, and if it's below some threshold (2 seconds, say), then move it back even further. This should work. But it could cause problems. I've seen titles that have a stack of short chapters, all about 1 sec, at the end. Doing a move-back would break this, so I'd have to check for it. #2 a better way is to write a parser for D2V files (maybe make the D2F parser more flexible so it will take either). This of course won't give Vob/Cell info, so it can't be used the way a D2F file is -- but it can give the exact movie length. Then ScenChap can detect when a chapter is past the end (or too close) and fix it. This is more work than the first approach but should work better.

Unfortunately, I'm going out of town for about a week, so I won't be able to get to this right away, but I'll put it at the top of my queue.

[Eyes`Only]

Great! Thanks for your prompt reply, daxab. Interestingly enough, if you don't import from an .scp, and create a scenario from scratch, Scenarist will add an extra chapter automatically to each pgc.

I wonder if there's a correlation of an exact ratio to determine the amount of time the last timecode is off?

[daxab]

I just sent ScenChap 1.25 in. This version should fix the problem. Please let me know how it works. Thanks.

[Eyes`Only]

Yikes!

Scenchap 1.25 seems to not work for me.

With Scenchap 1.24 + manual last-chapter edit = no errors

With Scenchap 1.25 (using .ifo, not .d**) = 8 errors!

The Error was "Scene duration shall be more than 0.4 second." This caused a chapter to not be made at 8 different points in the video.

I switched back to 1.24 and completed my reauthoring perfectly. What method did you use to attempt to make Scenchap 1.25 better?

[daxab]

Double yikes! And I thought I was helping :).

What Scenchap 1.25 does is look in the .scp file itself to see what the length of the MPEG video stream is. Then it takes any chapter points that are after that and moves them back before the end.

If you can get these files to me I can (presumably) debug and fix the problem:
- original .scp file
- ifo file
It's probably a simple fix.

[Eyes`Only]

Thanks. I'm out of town presently and don't have any DVDs ready to reauthor, but I will soon and will definitely post my files if I have a problem. I've just recently been using scenchap 1.24+manual edit for everything so I haven't seen the problem lately.

Oh, and you ARE helping! :D

[daxab]

I believe I have found and fixed the problems you were seeing. I've sent a new version in with these fixes: Handle tracks with no cells correctly.
Allow timecode=scenename notation, so users can optionally specify the name assigned to each scene. The old notation, in which no scene name is give, still works.
Fix a bug in which length of the audio stream is taken as length of track. [This is very bad if one is using a trimmed audio stream placeholder, as described in the Doom9 guide.] Now the main video stream is used to determine the track length. Display the track duration on each track page.
Fix chapter position checking code so that minimum gap is 1.0 seconds, instead of 0.5. Although Scenarist has a minimum gap of 0.4, the scene will be at the nearest I-frame, so we need to allow 0.4 seconds + (half of the maximum GOP length) + slop between scenes. Detect chapters that are too close to each other as well as too close to the end. Thanks to Eyes`Only for discovering this problem.

[Eyes`Only]

Using scenchap 1.26, i get sporadic results. Sometimes the movie chapters import perfectly and i have no problems. Other times, the same end chapter problem rears its ugly head. For instance, using the two attached files, i got:

Info Multiplexing
Info Multiplexing VOB Main Stream
Error The number(0.0) of frame in a VOBU is less than 11.99 (around 497:08:03:08).
Warning Exiting is canceled because "ExitVobuSizeError" is 0 in the file Scenarist.ini.
Error Multiplex is terminated at 01:44:10:11 in the middle of scene "PGC1.M2V.d2v.mpv-t-scn_20", but other cells are left. Please check video data file or track <PGC1.M2V.d2v.mpv-t>.
Error dvd_mux : DoMux Multiplexing Error
Error Terminated Multiplexing (vts01-chap.scn-PGC1.M2V.d2v.mpv-t_t.vob).
Error Some CELLs which do not multiplexed are left.
Error Multiplex is failed.
Info Multiplexing failed, Track<PGC1.M2V.d2v.mpv-t>

Error MuxFromDB:MuxVTS failed
Error Multiplex failed
Error DVD files could not be created

Normally, the output just freezes and I know that it's not going to work. However this time it was late at night so i just left it hanging there and went to bed, and when I woke up this is what I saw.

Help!

[daxab]

@Eyes`Only

Thanks for finding this problem! There was a bug in the drop frame computations that would sometimes make the chapter adjustment code fail to catch out-of-position chapters when using Copy From IFO. I never would have found this on my own, since I always use D2F files. In any case, this is fixed in version 1.27, which I just sent in...

Let me know how it works.

[Eyes`Only]

Daxab,

The end chapter issue seems to be totally fixed. Great job!