GPAC Menuing System

[BoNz1]

http://gpac.sourceforge.net/ check it out. With this software it could be relatively simple to create menus and nice interactive content all completely within the MPEG-4 standard. Of course it might be a little more difficult to easily copy menus from dvds like probably a lot of people want.

[BoNz1]

Some samples here http://www.comelec.enst.fr/osmo4/#samples, just so you see how powerful this really is.
EDIT: Here is a tutorial also on how to create this interactive media http://gpac.sourceforge.net/tutorial/bifs_intro.htm. Pretty complicated, but if I had a free afternoon I would sit down and make some nice cool interactive stuff just to show that it can be done. Unfortunately, I don't think I will have a free afternoon for quite awhile.

[bond]

really interesting project!

check out especially this sample (http://www.comelec.enst.fr/osmo4/mp4/mediacontrol_animatrix.mp4) (click on the picture with your mouse ;) )
note that you have to use the gpac/osmo4 player (http://www.comelec.enst.fr/osmo4/gpac0.1.0/Osmo4v0.1.0_install.exe) to play back this advanced mp4 content!

[BoNz1]

Yes, its pretty amazing isn't it. If only I could convince someone to write a nice ds for this kind of content and a mp4splitter, ;) lol. Probably not going to happen. But the author of the project said that he has successfully copied dvd menus in this format and also has gotten multiple audio and subtitles to work in mp4. I suppose switching is done through some sort of interface like the one from animatrix sample. Too bad nobody is really interested in this,the support for interactive content is extremely powerful, many many times more powerful than dvd menuing IMO, lol. My dream is have a directshow mp4splitter that can handle this and to intergrate the 2d renderer and libs from the gpac player http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpac into mediaplayer classic. Well, I guess it is a dream, nothing more ;).

[bond]

i already tried to beat gabest about writing an opensource splitter but he disapeared one week ago or so

perhaps the matroska team can build their menue system the same way as they are in mp4:
write an authoring tool which outputs content in bifs/xmt (or bt from enst) textual format (every mp4 authoring tool should do exactly the same)
and an encoder/compiler which translates the text to binary matroska form (different to mp4 encoders already available)