PgcEdit 0.5.5 Menu buttons don't work on hardware player

[frank]

I have successfully reauthored a PAL dvd with PgcEdit 0.5.5. Menus I remuxed new.
It works fine on PC, but on my players the menu buttons don't work.

Philips DVDR520H: no button colours, buttons unvisible but cmds work.
SEG Hollywood II (Omega chipset): no colours, no function. Navigation and start not possible
:(

Do the menu buttons defined by PgcEdit only work on a PC?
What's wrong?

[jeanl]

no, they should work everywhere. There must be something wrong somewhere. Can you give us more details? What did you use to mux the menus? More details will help...

jeanl

[blutach]

Sounds like you haven't defined the buttons colours in the palette.

Regards

[jeanl]

Originally posted by blutach
Sounds like you haven't defined the buttons colours in the palette.

Regards
why would it work on the PC though?...
jeanl

[frank]

I have reauthored a NTSC dvd to PAL. Demuxed some menus with VobEdit. Muxed with MuxMan.
Exported the buttons with PgcEdit and reimported, then edited the position (for height 576). Colour table is redefined. Button text is on the background and the areas are coloured by pressing a button.
I cannot find any issues in the streams with VobEdit.

And now the news:
All buttons work fine in IfoEdit player and Nero Showtime but not in PowerDVD 5

PowerDVD has the same behavor as my hardware players. No colours but the button commands work.
??

[jeanl]

apparently, you have a problem with the subpic packs... Did you use muxman to mux them in? I've seen highlights not showing when their PTS didn't match the PTS of the video frame they were supposed to be with.
Try running menushrink on your menu and see if the result has the same problem. If so, then send it to us (blank the titles, zip and send the rest with www.yousendit.com). post the download link here so we can take a look... Maybe one of us can spot something wrong in the packs...
jeanl

[r0lZ]

In the past, I have experienced a similar behaviour with some players.

I've found that the problem was a wrong value in the VTSI_MAT table of the menu's VTS. In VTSI_MAT, at offset [00000155], the number of sub-pictures streams in VTSM must be 1, and the following entry must holds the correct sub-picture attributes.

Also, in the VMG_VTS_ATRT table in VIDEO_TS.IFO, the Number of sub-pictures streams in menu must be 1 for your menu's VTS (at offset 69 for VTS 1).

Could you verify that with IfoEdit?

Also, with PgcEdit, verify that the subpic assignments are correct in the menu PGCs. For every menu PGC, the first subpic in the list displayed in the PGC Editor must be initialized, and must holds something like "0 0 0 0" for a 4:3 menu, and "0 0 1 0" for 16:9. These values should normally be the same ones than the original values in your NTSC DVD.

[frank]

I didn't demux and mux the button pattern subpics because I cannot resize them to PAL.
What a pain.. The players MUST have a substream for buttons!!!??
They make OR/AND operations to overlay the button colors.

IfoEdit player and Nero ShowTime don't care about a pattern stream when not defined.

PgcEdit saves buttons and color tables but not the pattern subs.
I thought the buttons worked right if I only use highlighting areas. But it doesn't work, the buttons stay invisible.

My workaround:
I mux the old NTSC pattern subs and set the pattern colors to the same of background. That works for highligting the background of buttons.

But is there another way?

[r0lZ]

Originally posted by frank
What a pain.. The players MUST have a substream for buttons!!!?? Are you sure of that? On the players I have tested so far, it is possible to define transparent buttons. You have to define a subpic stream in the IFOs (as explained in my prev post), but the actual stream don't need to be present in the VOB.

If the subpic stream must be present in the VOB with your player, then my method to add a still frame presentation menu on a DVDShrink reauthored DVD (http://www.videohelp.com/~r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/r0lz/still_frame_menu/still_frame_menu.html) will not work on your player. Pitty!
BTW, it's a good test to know if something is wrong with your method. Try to import the still frame menu in a test DVD, and try it on your player. (You don't need to complete the first two steps: you may import the black menu directly. It's sufficient to test if it works. Just click anywhere in the black frame, or press your remote's Enter button, and see if the navigation continues.)

[frank]

The Ifos have that menu subpic entry
[00000071] VTS_1: Number of sub-picture streams in Menu (VTSM_VOBS): 1
...

[00000155] Number of sub-picture streams in VTSM 1
[00000156] Sub-pic_1: VTSM sub-picture stream attributes 0 0 0 0 0

As I said,
- all works fine with IfoEdit player
- you can test the issue with PowerDVD, same behaviour.

Thank you r0lZ, I will test your method.

[frank]

@r0lZ
I have tested your method and it works! But your button is invisible, and background is a picture frame.

I must clarify:
Menu buttons must have a pattern substream to be visible.

The problem is the picture mask.
The substream picture is a full picture mask (PAL 720x576, NTSC 720x480). Every pixel referes to a frame pixel, overlays it, and is used as an attribute: colors, enhancement, opacity)
The button definitions are used as stampings that cut out the button area.
If the sub stream dosn't exist, then the subs buffer is initialized with invisible attribute pixels. And so the defined buttons are invisible, but they work.

Some programs/devices may handle this in such a manner that the pixels are visible - IfoEdit and ShowTime players do so.


I now used the old NTSC sub streams with background color = pattern color in PAL menus. So you get enlighted background areas as buttons.
But... buttons at the bottom of the frame (y = 480-576) stay invisible. :(

[jeanl]

frank, I'm guessing you resized your video to convert from NTSC to PAL, right? It would seem to me that you would need to do that as well for your subpics, no? Otherwise, the highlights will not match the buttons...
Am I missing something?
In any case, I'm not sure what program can resize these guys for you...
Jeanl

[frank]

Jeanl, you are right.
For that purpose we must use authoring software.

[r0lZ]

Thanks for the info, frank.
Right. On my Sony, if there is no subpic stream in the VOB, the buttons cannot be visible, as informations from the subpic streams are missing.

If you want to see some coloured rectangles only, maybe you can remux a PAL subpic stream instead of the original? But, as jeanl said, you will see misplaced parts of the original highlights.
Maybe you can author yourself a PAL subpic stream with an authoring program, defining only a verry small button in a corner?
Of course, this trick will work only for a still menu with only one cell, or you will experience problems with the stream's duration.

[frank]

No misplaced parts visible.
I use same color values in the button color table. Then you get homogeneous enlighted button areas. Most menu buttons are text strings, and for this purpose it's suitable.

Hey, good idee remuxing a PAL subpic stream. :)

[r0lZ]

Originally posted by frank
No misplaced parts visible.
I use same color values in the button color table. Then you get homogeneous enlighted button areas. Most menu buttons are text strings, and for this purpose it's suitable. Right. Good idea!

[Zeul]

Don't forget that numenu4u will do a format for conversion for you and reauthor it properly :)