Big 3 Help with DVD Video size of 704 x 480

[Amit]

Hi,

I have an NTSC Video R1. The movie is interlaced and has a video size of 704 X 480. Is this size not supported by the latest versions of Big 3 tools available to general public?

When I run DIF4U v1.4 it creates AVS files without the resize so the re-encoded video is still 704 X 480 but the subs extracted by DIF4U are of 720 X 480 which is weird! Now when I run Scenaid v1.6 to generate Scenarist script for Scenarist version 2.7 I get the following errors

Error This Video has different size(width). [F:\Kya Kool Hai Hum\VTS01\VTS__01_P01.I-TFF.16~9_1.nopull.mpv]
Error Importing failed

Is this a Scenaid problem of DIF4U? And how can I get around it?

Thanks for your help in advance.
-Amit Chugh

[mpucoder]

That should be acceptable. Is the 704 wide video the only video? Or is it conflicting with other video in the same VTS.

[D3s7]

currently vsrip is hardcoded to create 720x480 bmp's and Scenaid probably defaults to 720x in the script too so that just needs to be modified then scenarist will except it.

MPUCoder will correct me on this if I'm wrong but isn't 704 the normal actual size and 720 is w/ overscan? - point being you shouldn't have an issue w/ the subtitles being 720x when the video is 704

[mpucoder]

Doesn't matter what the video size is, subpictures are 720 wide. 704 is the width of PAL television's active region, there is still overscan in there. NTSC's active region is wider, about 710 - the next multiple of 16 is 720.

[D3s7]

I knew you'd correct me if I was wrong :)

anyway.... we're agreed that Amit doesn't have to worry about 702 -vs- 720 for the BMP's which was my ultimate point

[mpucoder]

True - there is, or should be, something else like another video file of a different width causing the problem. If not, then it's another Scenarist bug.

[Amit]

@mpucoder and @D3s7,

Thanks for looking into this problem. Right now I am at work. As soon as I get back home, I will look into different video size. As far as I remember, I was trying to replace an extra with a dummy video created by me. I am pretty sure I set the size of this video to 720 X 480. I will re-encode this dummy video this time with 704 x 480 and try again.

I even modified the script created by scenaid to set the video width and size correctly for the MPV which had 704 x 480 width but that did not help.

@D2s7,
When using Scenaid v1.6 it does not copy the dummy audio files to the Scenaid\Dummy folder if the movie ripping folder contains spaces i.e. (see my first post for log) I was encoding the video to F:\Kya Kool Hai Hum and it has spaces in the folder name. Scenaid v1.6 does not like this folder name and hence throws a message in red Could not copy dummy file....

Also I will appreciate if any one of you can answer the following for me.

Q Since Scenaid at the moment does not offer replacing a video with a dummy and I wanted to do that to save space on the disc here's what I did.
Step 1 I ripped the movie with DIF4U v1.4 including the extra's I wanted to remove.
Step 2 Then I encoded all the AVS files except the extras I want to remove.
Step 3 I created a dummy movie from a still using CCE and changed the name of this dummy movie to name of the extra AVS file I need to remove.
Step 4 I renamed the extra audio I need to remove and copy the dummy audio from Scenaid and renamed it correctly.

If at this point I use Scenaid and BatchIFOUpdate, should everything work for me or I need to do something else to make things work for me?

NOTE I did make the mistake of encoding the dummy movie of the size 720 X 480 instead of 704 X 480 so I am going to try again today.

-Amit

[D3s7]

ah.. probably.... spaces in directory names are a big no-no... rule #1 of the big3 method.. no spaces in dir names :)

in answer to your question.. Um.. you can replace segments w/ dummies in Scenaid but if you wanna do it your way.. sure that would probably work... Scenaid would detect the Still and script it accordingly

[Amit]

@D3s7

I will remember the rule #1. Except Scenaid all other tools in the BIG 3 don't compain so I thought if you can fix it too.

Once I changed the width of the dummy video I created to 704 X 480, the import process moved on. However I am now having another problem since I am trying to replace a video with a dummy video.

I encoded the still as a video and since the duration of this video is way less than the video duration of the actual content I am getting import errors as below.

Warning This Video [ F:\Kya Kool Hai Hum\VTS02\VTS__02_P01.I-TFF.4~3_1.nopull.mpv ] has different duration.
Error The scene ( VTS02_1_Track, VTS_02_V3_C1 ) timecode ( 00:14:40:20 ) is bigger than video duration.
Error Importing failed

Can you help me in fixing this problem?

How can I encode a still as MPV so that both Scenaid and Scenarist will accept it?

Thanks for your help in advance,
-Amit

[D3s7]

well again, I'm not really sure why your trying to do it manually..

After Scanning the demux folders, click the VTS in question and click the "Assets" tab on the left which will list all video/audio/sub found for that vts

simply clear the checkbox next to the video asset you want to dummy and it'll auto do it and adjust the bitrates accordingly

Your manual way will work BUT you need to replace the original demuxed asset w/ your re-encoded dummy and rescan so that scenaid knows it's a still not a video - manually replacing encoded asset only will not workb ecause the scripting of stills/slides is different (more then duration) in the SCP

Personally, i'd do method 1 though :)

[Amit]

@D3S7,

Thanks for correcting me. Actually I did not know about disabling assets in Scenaid till now.

After doing what you said, I was able to sucessfully import the assets. I still have on equestion though.

Scenaid is currently using the dummy.m2v file which is a blank (black still). Can you tell me how can I specify a custom still image, something like "This selection has been removed from this DVD" text written on a blue background?

Thanks for hoding my fingers and showing me how to use your tool.

-Amit

[jel]

its surprisingly easy actually:

take your custom image and add it to the data editor - you can drag and drop if you like
scenarist will prompt you for the asset type - specify 'still image'
now highlight the image and choose your aspect ratio in the property manager window (bottom middle) - this aspect ratio should match your 'dummy file' ratio

open your track editor tab, and from the data assets tab in assets manager window (bottom right), drag and drop your image into the track window - again scenarist will prompt - i select slideshow
now double click on the track and it will open up the track/time scale

so ... two things
1. you may wish to adjsut the display time - scenarist defaults to 10 seconds, simply highlight the track and in the property browser you can change this - i prefer 3 seconds personally
2. match the colour palette with the dummy track you are replacing
settings > colour palette

now in your scenario editor, simply teh delete the dummy track and replace it with your slideshow track
please note if the new track is not the only asset in this pgc (or at the end of the pgc) you will have to delete the entire pgc and replace ALL the assets in order.

done

hope that made sense

j

[Amit]

@jel,

Thanks for the detailed instuctions. Actually I wanted to simply create a M2V file outside of Scenarist and replace the Scenaid dummy file with it.

Here's what I did and it worked for me:

1) Create a JPG file of 640 X 480 in any image editor.
2) Using VCDEasy I converted this image to MPEG Still of SVCD for NTSC (SVCD still are MPGE2 of size 704 x 480)
3) Using TMPGEnc demux the MPG file created by VCDEasy into M2V.
4) Replace the dummy Scenaid file with my M2V created above in Scenarist.

@D3S7,
I will really appreciate if Scenaid can detect the size of the Video. I have to manually edit the script created by Scenaid to set the correct size i.e. 704 X 480 instead of 720 X 480. If I don't edit the script Scenarist fails on the import with errors.

Thanks guys for your help. I really learned a lot from this rip.

-Amit

[D3s7]

TBH.. your the first person to have ever mentioned a 704x video... so I hadn't thought much about it..

Just out of curiosity, why did you want to replace the default still?

[Amit]

@D3S7,

The reason I want to replace the default still is because its a black screen. When I replace it with the default still the user gets no message that the selection is not available on this DVD. I love the default still Trilight is talking about in his Uber guide at http://dvdguides.trilight.net

PS: I tried to use the http:// button to place the link but it is not working for some reason.

The default still in the Trilight guide is a blue screen with a white text saying "This selection has been removed from this DVD". Personally I think its a more informative message to the person seeing the DVD than a empty black screen. I am not saying that your default still is not good its a personal perference and I think if you start asking almost everybody will come up with their own default screen.

Another thing I found is that when I replace a video with a still the converted DVD when played in a standalone player has the following issue:

Lets say a video (PGC) has three cells. Scenaid 1.6 will use 3 stills of the correct length of each cell (Chapter). When I try to play this PGC, I can see the default still being shown. But if I now press the Next Chapter button, I get the "Operation Prohibited" error icon on the TV instead of jumping to the next chapter. Do you have any clue why this is happening and how can I fix it. The only way to get out of this default still is to press the MENU button or the TITLE button at this time.

-Amit

[Amit]

@D3S7,

Don't bother about the next chapter issue. I found that its the way the original movie is authored. Using PGX Edit I removed the UOP and now everythings works fine.

-Amit