Inserting Chapters at arbitrary points

[rapjp2001]

Hi 2COOL!

Infinite Thanks for your cheat sheets(that you kindly pointed me too when I asked about moving up audio tracks on a stripped audio DVD last week)...

This brought me to this thread about placing a chapter at particular cell ID's...Seems simple enough to move chapter points up by replacing them with high cell ID's and zeroing out others...

HOWEVER, I have another question related to this ---

How can you place a chapter point in a location where there *is* no cell ID?

Ex: Assume I have this Music concert footage with cell ID's every 5 min, and due to IFO edit creating chapters at every cell ID, I have as many chapters as I have cell ID's (one every five minutes)...

Now say I want to put a chapter point at a time marker of 3 mins 36 seconds...which is not where I have a cell ID (its at 0, 5 mins, 10 mins etc)...How can I place a chapter at that point...

I can do this by stripping the audio and video and then authoring using Maestro -- which allows me to place chapter markers where I please...But I wanted to do this by using IFOEdit and not have to re-author the DVD...

Please advise

Thanks

[mpucoder]

No, chapters are defined (indirectly) by cells, not time. To be more precise, a chapter points to a program within a program chain, which, in turn, points to a cell.

[rapjp2001]

By what you are saying MPUCoder, that means that if I want to insert a chapter point at 3mins 36 seconds(because a new songs begins there), I *have* to have a cell ID there...

This prompts the question then -- How can I introduce a cell ID at a location in my video stream(which is at the time code of 3 min 36 seconds) of my choosing...

That also implies that at reauthoring time in Maestro, it adds a cell ID at every location I manually decide to add a chapter marker...which is is actually what I am asking on being able to do in IFOEdit...

[mpucoder]

Cell IDs exist throughout the stream, not just at a point in time. If your clips are in seperate files VobEdit can give each a different ID when it joins clips.

All authoring tools insert the VobID/CellID, it is part of the NAV pack, a unique DVD structure multiplexed in along with the video, audio, and subpictures. DVDMaestro, Scenarist, et al do determine the ID values during the compilation.

IfoEdit can automatically make a chapter for each new ID during the creation process (after you have joined clips)

[rapjp2001]

I understand what you are saying, but it still does not answer my simple question --

Can I (as a average user and not an expert like you), go ahead and insert a chapter marker(which means it has to line up with some cell ID) in my video stream using IFOEdit or VOBEdit etc...

Its a simple question, I am not asking about joining etc...I am past all that...assume I have a set of VOB files for a titleset and now I want to be able to *add* some new chapter points and if it takes adding some additional cell ID's, then so be it -- How do I do that...

Here is the scenario to make things clearer:
(Here is the part of the IFO created by IFOEdit, My comments are in parenthesis at the end of each line)

PGC_1 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 1]

[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 1/ 2] (it is at 00:00:00:00)
[Ch 02] [Pg 02] [Cell 02] [V/C Id: 2/ 1] (it is at 00:05:00:00)
[Ch 03] [Pg 03] [Cell 03] [V/C Id: 3/ 1] (it is at 00:10:00:00)
[Ch 04] [Pg 04] [Cell 04] [V/C Id: 4/ 1] (it is at 00:15:00:00)

NOW, I want to insert a chapter #2 between the current chapter 1 and 2 at time code: 00:03:36:00)...so it looks like:

PGC_1 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 1]

[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 1/ 2] (it is at 00:00:00:00)
[Ch 02] [Pg 02] [Cell ??] [V/C Id: ?/ ?] (NEW CHAP at 00:03:36:00)
[Ch 03] [Pg 03] [Cell 02] [V/C Id: 2/ 1] (it is at 00:05:00:00)
[Ch 04] [Pg 04] [Cell 03] [V/C Id: 3/ 1] (it is at 00:10:00:00)
[Ch 05] [Pg 05] [Cell 04] [V/C Id: 4/ 1] (it is at 00:15:00:00)

As you can see, there is a new chapter thats been added...

How do I attain something like this? I may even perhaps choose to delete the current chapter points and recreate my new ones at the time locations I feel like...

Hope this make it clearer...

[mpucoder]

Not with IfoEdit or VobEdit. There are some other tools that I have not fully explored, such as DVDToolBox that may allow you to renumber Vob/Cell IDs. If not then authoring is the way.
The [Cell xx] is a note made by IfoEdit, so those comments will get renumbered to be sequential. Although I've never seen anything stating that Cell IDs must be sequential, I've never seen any that were not. In your case you're lucky, the next original cell is in a new Vob, so you could use V/C of 1/3 starting at 3:36

[abbadon]

Any progress on this thread? I have a worse problem, an authored movie (music videos) with menus and extra I want to keep, but with 3 main titles, each about 40 hour long, each with 8-10 songs, but NO CHAPTERS, and all in 1 CELL, 1 VOB.

[VidHack]

What you ask for can indeed be done. Though, not so easy. There are a couple of ways to do it. You could cut up your VOBs into segments using DVD2AVI/vStrip method. This will yield VOBs cut at NAV packs, then renumber them *VOB.001 etc... Same as 'Join Clips' mode for VOBedit (Create 1 massive VOB). Use the Cutting Credits Guide to cut them up.

You could manually change the Cell Id's using VOBedit, have fun there are thousands of them.

Or, the easy(er) way. Thanks to DIMAD and MenuEdit, he added a super usefull tool A VOBid/ CELLid byte changer. THANK YOU! So, cut up the VOBS using DVD2AVI/vstrip, use Menuedit to change Cell Id's, then feed them into VOBedit (JoinClips), then create a new IFO in IFOedit. WOW still alot of work... Have fun.

VidHack

[young707]

I understand I cannot create a new chapter marker at a specific time. Because chapter marker must be defined by cell.

So, can I use IFOEdit to creat a new chapter marker at the nearest cell?

Can you please tell me how to find this cell according to play time?
How do I use this cell to creat a chapter marker?

Thank you.

[maa]

I think you're going to have to demux with vobedit and then re-author with ifoedit using a CellTimes.txt which you can easilly write yourself.
That makes correct chapters.

[VidHack]

Sorry for the confusion. Your exact question is How to use IFOedit to insert a Chapter point. The method I have suggested will do eexactly that, but in a round about way. What I suggest is a simple VOB Hack. Lets say you have a VOB and it has a VOB ID 1 and 1 Cell of an ID of 1. If you change a Cell ID to 2 anywhere in the stream (at the arbitrary points you want), then, use IFOedit to Create NEW IFO's. You would then have a chapter point at wherever you changed the Cell ID to 2. I suggest cutting to source VOB up into pieces, then increment the chunks Cell ID's to gain these Chapter points. It will work. I hope this makes sense, or perhaps someone can elaborate on this process. Heck, if I new a simple IFOedit IFO change, I would be using it. Good Luck.

VidHack

[young707]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I used VOBEdit to demux all streams. Then use IFOEdit to re-author with new celltimes chapters. But the draw back is now, I do not have start up manu.

VidHack, I like to try your suggestion. Can you offer a step to step procedures?
If you change CellID 1 to 2. Then you still have only one cellID. Not two, correct?

Actually, would it be nice if we have a tool to:
1. insert and delete and edit chapter points
2. set default audio and subtitle
3. set subtitle to automatic comes on or do not come on.

Thank you.

[maa]

Originally posted by young707
But the draw back is now, I do not have start up manu.
Well you can import it using the "merge menu" function from the original IFO.
Make sure the xxx0.VOB is in the same directory
Actually, would it be nice if we have a tool to:
1. insert and delete and edit chapter points
2. set default audio and subtitle
3. set subtitle to automatic comes on or do not come on.Well you do - IfoEdit - and now you're learning how it works - right ?

BTW Is it Pal?

The celltimes are 25fps so 1 minute is 25 x 60 = 1500
Should be easy enough to make your own or modify the existing as I said above.

[Dimad]

Originally posted by young707
... I used VOBEdit to demux all streams. Then use IFOEdit to re-author with new celltimes chapters.

I think that is the way to go. One can't simply cut cell (even at NAV pack) and give pieces different ID's to get 2 valid cells. There are data within cell (needed for navigation) which link different parts of the cell to each other. If cell is split then each new cell will have references to another. I have no idea how important this is for the valid operation of DVD players.