Need help with menu subpic in Scenarist

[DaRat]

Hey all!

I was authorig my dvd (PAL) when I encountered the shitty problem of incorrectly placed subpics on the menus. I've read all the treads related this and still have theese probs:

- I can't display a menu correctly in Pan&Scan (using 4:3 screen). If I do so it displays like a ws picture on a 4:3 tv. Squeezed... I understand that there should be a solution to that problem (and if I get it from someone i don't give a damn about the following 2 questions... lol), but messing with this for more than a week now and... :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil: :devil:

- the subpic does not change to the letter definied one when i start the dvd in letterbox format. Scenarist displays it correctly if I run a simulation on the menu but mess up if i run it from anywhere "upper" level, eg vts, vmg, fpgc... however it does not mess it up if I make the subs 2 different languages. The only problem with this is Scenarist won't let me authorize the dvd since there should be at least 2 subs (w and l) to every language. Also, my P button is greyed out. Is that normal?

- okay, a workaround should be 1) making a 4:3 menu in vmg and add a pre cmd in the vts root but obviously this has more drawbacks than advantages... lol... or 2) adding a pre cmd which checks sprm 14 (video&display format) and then sets sprm 2 (subpic) accordingly. This SHOULD work but again, this is only a workaround. I see that mostly the menus are ws and displayed in P&S.

SO if anyone could ive me some hints about what I'm doing wrong or what should I set I'd be very happy... :D Also please xcuse me if this question seems nOOb but i really can't find a solution.

[dan]

This MIGHT be it...sort of.

First, let me apologize if this is wrong, because I don't/won't have a computer with Scenarist in front of me for a little while.

Is the source video encoded with the panscan flag on? Use restream or CCE to change/add it. [The source should be anamorphically distorted 4:3 [not 16:9]. As in, it's set at 4:3, but looks messed up.

It sounds like you have regular 4:3 [that'd explain why your P button is grayed out and why it looks squished in wide mode].

This isn't a solution [though that's what you wanted], but pretty much every hollywood dvd has panscan menus [they look "regular" on 4:3 TVs and wide [and undistorted on computers]. Not what you want to hear I'm sure, but re-make the menus at whatever the PAL 16:9 resolution is [my apologies, but I'm an NTSC'er......NTSC being 854ish by 480.....PAL hmm....576*(16/9)=1024 x 576.....maybe?] Anyway...Squeeze that down to 720 x 576 and encode with 4:3 panscan.
Sure making new menus sucks, and I'd think that having just plain 4:3's should work, but I haven't ever tried that, and I don't have the software in front of me to try now. Sorry about that.

This post is both similar and different all at the same time...
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38777

Good luck, post any problems or if this was of any help.

Dan

[DaRat]

Thanks for the tip but ur right about reencoding, it sucks. Is there any other way to add a p&s flag to the vid? The rest of the title is in 16:9 so a 4:3 menu is just pain in the @ss... :D Also I should rephrase a part of my question:

How the hell can I add a wide still image that displays correctly in PanScan?

Thanks for the help and happy new year,

[dan]

Restream .86 can add that flag [though, in my experience, it just doesn't seem to work for me, though others have had success].

To add a wide still that looks correct in panscan, see to it that it's anamorphically compressed 4:3 [it'll look like everything is too tall and thin], set the panscan [540 lines...you'll see the option and know what that 540 is] and 4:3 flags. When player with a 4:3 TV resizes it, it stretches the middle 540 pixels to 720, and it looks fine.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but you can have 4:3 menus in the same title set that has the 16:9 movie by putting the menus in a language domain within the title set. The messed-up part is that what you're talking about with panscan menus is that they look wide on a computer player, but are technically 4:3 [the panscan flag takes care of this]. If you look through the IFO file corresponding to the menus, it'll say "16:9 Pan&Scan". It seems to be actually 4:3 Panscan, because there are seemingly no provisions in Scenarist for 16:9 Panscan [that, and I'm not sure how in the world 16:9 panscan would even work]. If you author your project with the 4:3 panscan menus, the resulting IFO's say that it's 16:9 panscan, but that seems to be one of the mysteries of the format. My guess is that players set on 16:9 ignore the panscan info and scale the video to 16:9 to fill up the screen, while players on 4:3 only look for the panscan info, and if it's not there, rely on the aspect ratio given for resizing.

Ok, sorry for going off on a tangent there, but I think I answered your question in the first part.

Happy New Year and all.

Dan