Problems changing the Playback time.

[Talayero]

Hello everybody,

I've made a backup of a DVD and I'm trying to change the play time of one menu.

The original was:
Playback time (BCD) 17472 [00004400]
(hh:mm:ss.frame) 00:00:44.00 / 25 fps

and the one I wrote is:

Playback time (BCD) 4160 [00001040]
(hh:mm:ss.frame) 00:00:10.00/ 25 fps

I've saved the Ifo and played it with power dvd, but the play time is always the original: 44 seconds. What more do I have to do in order to change it? Is that not possible?

[maa]

You need to change the cell time but its tricky ....

[Talayero]

Thank you.

You're right. It's tricky. I changed the cell time but the play time is always the same, 44 seconds. Any ideas? Or do I give up?

[maa]

Ah yes it wont work like that - its ok for the entry but not the exit of a cell, the player plays on to the end. I think you need a new cell that assumes the rest and the delte its playback but I don't know how its done, maybe 2COOL ?

[Talayero]

That sounds interesting...

I hope 2COOL will know if it's possible.
For the moment I tried to change the last sector of the cell without any favorable result.

[violao]

If I understand this correctly the question is how to split a single cell in the middle and create 2 cells from it, right? Even if you manage to do that you'll probably get into trouble with IfoEdit later, since it will still "think" you have only one cell. If you increase the cell count by 1 it will probably mess with some other important tables.

I suggest you split/demux menu file/vob/cell and rebuild your cell by re-encoding the original video and audio cut to the desired lenght. Rebuild the menu file back using same vob/cell IDs and simply replace the original with the new file. Then you need to strip/keep everything with IfoEdit Menu Extras, replace original menu and IFO files with newly created and finally Get VTS Sectors.

I'm not sure what to do with subpictures (buttons). You may try to demux sup streams, remux it back vith new video/audio and see if they work. If not, then you'll probably need to recreate subpictures. I use dvdauthor/spumux whenever I need to re-author the existing menu, but what I don't like about it is that spumux is not able to set a transparency level for buttons. So if original buttons are transparent you will not be able to recreate them with spumux, but make some kind of underline, outline or any other opaque type of buttons instead.

EDIT: Have to correct myself. Spumux does have transparency level, only it isn't well documented. PNG is the format that must be used and subpicture bitmap must be saved with ALPHA transparency set in color palette (this is different from INDEX transparency that some user suggested that just marks one of the colors from palette as fully transparent, all others being fully opaque). In that way tranparency level is contained in PNG file and spumux just copies it to subpicture stream control sequence. So you CAN make your buttons semi-transparent with spumux.

[Dimad]

You can do it with DvdReMake. It can cut cell from selected frame (I-frame) and will correct everything in ifo and vob files.

[maa]

Can DVDremake output single menu vobs or does it want to do the whole DVD ? I mean can it output only changed items ?

I still have no luck with it with my projects even though they load in DVDshrink DVDRemake says its can't find VMG or doesn't like this and refuses.

[Dimad]

Can DVDremake output single menu vobs or does it want to do the whole DVD ? I mean can it output only changed items ?

It can do it in principal (DvdReMake keeps track of what was edited and what is not, even exporting functions have an option if only modified files should be exported). But it does not at the moment.

I still have no luck with it with my projects even though they load in DVDshrink DVDRemake says its can't find VMG or doesn't like this and refuses.
Sounds quite pessimistic :) Have you tried to use it not on disks you "butchered"? What version you are referring to? Latest versions will complain if cells are missing in vob files (or whole files are missing), but will just substitute blanks.

[maa]

Yes I tested 0.77b with an original DVD and it reads in ok.
I usually use DVDshrink and Marks Tray Player to verify my own projects before burning. This is enough for my Standalone and it all works.
DVDremake may check a lot more accurately, I don't know, but its hard for me to find whats wrong if a project already works on software and hardware players. Would you like to look at some IFOs ?

[Dimad]

Seems to be going off topic. I'll PM you.