Infinite looping and making root menu

[Morlock60]

Hello,

I do have two questions that I hope you can help me with:

1.) I authored a DVD with a first play video that runs for 30 secs and then the main menu shows. I would like to change that, so that the first play loops forever until the user either hits the "next track" or "menu" key on his remote. When he hits one of those keys the main menu should show up. How can I achieve that?

2.) The program that I used to create the DVD with seems not to create a root menu but instead it seems to make the starting menu a title-menu. The result is that the menu can´t be navigated to by using the "menu" key on the remote. Is there any way to change that so that it becomes the root menu?

Thanks in advance for your help - Morlock

[Dimmer]

You should have mentioned the authoring program you use.

Anyway, if you want to loop a clip, you can put LinkTopPG as a cell command for that cell with your video. Your first play clip might not actually be in First PGC on DVD. You'll have to open VIDEO_TS.IFO in IfoEdit and find the PGC with your video. If it's not there, you'll have to look in all other IFOs.

Regarding the Menu button, open VTS_01_0.IFO in IfoEdit and check whether VTSM_PGCI_UT table exists. If not, you'll be better off re-authoring your DVD in a way that creates a root menu since it's too much work to add a whole new menu domain to a titleset.

[Morlock60]

Hello,

and thanks dimmer for your reply.

I was using TmpegEnc DVD Author in this case, as it allows be best cutting of chapters in an easy way.

Regarding 1.)
I achieved what I need by chaning the cell still time to 255, that does not create a loop but as it is a still logo anyway it is fine for me. I will keep your way in mind in case I want to create a real loop sometime - although I´m not sure how I create or insert such a command - maybe you can give me some more (beginner) step by step instructions?

Regarding 2.)
I checked the VTS_01_0.IFO and it does not have a VTSM_PGCI_UT Table, there is only such a table in VIDEO_TS.IFO ??? It has a lot of entries that I have no clue about.

So I guess I have to re-auther the CD with a decent authoring program, which I thought about anyway because it gives me more flexibility.

Thanks in again - Morlock

[Dimmer]

It's very easy to achieve your goals in TMPGEnc DVD Author.

1) Title 1 is your First Play. Open VTS_01_0.IFO in IfoEdit, go to VTS_PGCITI - VTS_PGC_1 (the place where you set the cell still time - be sure to set it back to 0). In PGC Command Table, right-click on Post command #1, choose Edit Command, select LinkPGCN, and then set PGC number to 1. You got your loop. Only Menu or Title buttons will get you out of it; using Next button for that purpose is a bit more complicated task.

2) In TMPGEnc DVD Author, Main menu corresponds to Title menu on DVD, and Track menu corresponds to Root menu. Click Display Menu Settings button and select either Only Track menu or Main menu and Track menu option to create a root menu in each titleset. Of course, you'll have to output your DVD after that, and then perform the step 1).

[Morlock60]

Hi again Dimmer,

first of all - thanks for the time you spend on my issues.

1.) The way you described worked perfectly, exactly what I was looking for. I think I can consider this problem closed.

2.) On that one I agree with your findings - just that from my opinion the way DVD Author does it does not really make a lot of sense because I can´t achieve what I want. Maybe it is best to describe what I´m looking for:
My DVD has 11 tracks, each track with 4-5 chapters. I would like to have one menue with motion thumbnails where the viewer can select the track he wants to look at.
Selecting the track thumbnail he should jump to the first chapter of the respective track right away and not to a sub-menu with the chapters.
Currently I achieve exactly that be selecting "track menue only", but this results in the DVD only having a title menu, not a root menu, exactly as you described.
Unfortunately my two stand-alone DVD Players (like most stand-alones I think) only have a (root)-menu key, not a title menu key, resulting in the title menu not reachable from any track.
Any idea how to workaround that? Selecting "Main + Track" menu results in sub-menus for the chapter selection that I don´t want (also because of space reason).
I find it strange that if having only one menu this is assigned as title menu by DVD Author instead of a root-menu. I hope my understanding is right that the "root" menu usually is the starting menu of a DVD while a Title menu allows for selecting the chapters within a Title ... ?

Hope I was able to explain where the problem still is - thanks again for your kind help -

Morlock

[Dimmer]

Hi there,

Glad I could be of some help.

Regarding DVD menu structure in general. Each DVD has one Title menu, which is located in VIDEO_TS.IFO/VIDEO_TS.VOB, and one or more titlesets, each with its own root menu. Therefore, when you press Title on your remote, you're always going to get to the same menu, while Menu button brings you to the root menu corresponding to the currently played title. Check out this site for more information on the subjuct: http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/domains.php. Specifically, TDA creates a separate titleset for each title and therefore a separate root menu, which obviously causes some confusion.

Back to your issue. Since you already know your way around IfoEdit, I can explain how to make you DVD work as desired. First, build your DVD with both Main and Track menus. To save space and time, go to Display Menu Settings - Chapter Display, uncheck every chapter for every track. Once you built the DVD, open VIDEO_TS.IFO in IfoEdit, go to VMGM_PGCI_ITI - PGC-Menu_4. This is PGC that's called when you select first track on the main menu. You can confirm that by looking at the Pre commands, last of them should contain jump to VTS 1 root menu. Right-click on the first Pre command, select Edit, choose Jump_TT (Jump to title), then select 1. You just made the first title button to play the title directly without going through the chapter selection. You can play the disc from the hard drive to confirm that. Repeat the process for PGC 5,6, etc, each time selecting the next title number.

In case you're wondering where these PGC numbers came from, you can see them in VobEdit in VIDEO_TS.VOB file as title menu button commands.

Now open one by one all other IFO files (VTS_01_0.IFO, VTS_02_0.IFO, etc). All the changes here are identical. In each IFO file, go to VTSM_PGC_UT - PGC1-Menu_1 (Root menu), replace the first Pre command with JumpSS_VMGM - select Title menu. This would cause Menu button on remote to display Main menu as if you pressed Title button. Chapter selection menu will be permanently bypassed, and after each title you'll get to the Main menu as well.

Good luck.

[Morlock60]

Hi Dimmer,

sounds like you know your way around DVDs.

The way you propose seems doable for me, although I can´t claim that I have understood it full yet - I´ll try that out tomorrow.
I started checking into the page you linked with the reference material, guess I´m learning here every day - thanks for that.

I´ll let you know how it worked out - cheers - Morlock

[Morlock60]

Hi again Dimmer and all,

I got it my way! :-) Everything worked like a charm the way you told me - perfect.
I even have pretty much understood what I was doing - although I´m not sure I could replicate it without reading the thread, hehe.

One question remains for me:
Can I delete the VTS_0x_0.VOB files on my final disk as they contain the original root menues that are now not referenced anymore. They use up about 100MB of space and I would like to save that.

Thanks for teaching me and I´m afraid I might come up with new strange ideas at a later time in another thread - guess that´s how we learn.

Until sometime - Morlock

[Dimmer]

It's good to hear everything worked out for you Morlock.

Don't just delete VTS_0x_0.VOB files since it would result in a DVD not fully standard compliant. For example, when I tried to burn such a DVD with Nero, it gave me a warning that the files are referenced but not present. If your finished disc doesn't fit onto one DVD, I suggest you run it through DVD Shrink with all VTS Menus (but not Title Menus!) compression level set to Still Pictures. It will reduce the size of VTS_0x_0.VOB files to the minimum.

See ya around.

[Morlock60]

Hi,

another good use of DVD Shrink - and another good input. Shrink allows resizing down to 5%, that´s good enough for me.

Have a good day - Morlock

[Morlock60]

Hi Dimmer,

I´d ask one more question related to this if you don´t mind:
Is there a way to always jump to the main menu instead of the root menues without that I have to create track menues from DVD Author?

That would allow me to save some additional space, although DVD Shrink reduction works not too bad.
Your described way obviously does not work without track menu as VTS_0x_0.IFO does not contain a VTSM_PGC_UT - PGC1 - Menu_1 (Root menu).

Let me know if you think it is feasible to have it jump to the title menu always without track menues - if not - I´ll continue exactly as you described.

Thanks - Morlock

[Dimmer]

If you don't create Track menu in TDA, it will automatically jump to the main menu after each title. But don't forget: the Menu button on your remote won't work exactly because of that.

Instead, I suggest you try a new pretty good tool TitleSetBlanker (http://www.sysh.net/titlesetblanker.html) that can shrink menu VOBs to almost zero size within seconds. After you made all other changes, open VTS_01_0.IFO in TitleSetBlanker, uncheck all the VOB files except VTS_01_0.VOB in TitleSet Menus section, leave all the options as is (Backup, Remove audio..., Remove Stops checked, the rest are unchecked). Click Blank. Repeat for every IFO file except VIDEO_TS.IFO. After that, open VIDEO_TS.IFO in IfoEdit and click Get VTS Sectors. Once you verified that DVD works as desired with a software player, remove all TitleSetBlanker backup files that have "~" symbol at the end.

This tool is in development and actively discussed around here, have a look at other threads if you find it interesting.