Wow. Zeul, this is incredible. I think you're babbling about buttons and highlight when you're asleep now, right?
OK, tested it with "Die Another Day" PAL R2. First got bitten by a bug in DVD2AVIdg (actually, also older versions are affected). It would crash when processing VobId 9. I identified the bug and fixed it,
download fixed version. See also
here.
Then everything basically went without a single glitch (I have some comments below, though). The generated script was imported by Scenarist 3.0 without errors or warnings. The scenario made my head spin
, absolutely amazing.
After compiling and testing in WinDVD, I got past the language selection menu which worked fine but the main menu did not. It looked OK but no active buttons. Basically I had to edit the script to remove two subpictures, set two other ones to "no Stop" and fix their duration as well as the duration of the highlight layer. I had to do this in two tracks (the English and German main menu track), import again, compile and it worked. Maybe pictures explain it better, I'm happy to send the scripts:
Before:
After:
The short (1 sec.) subs in the third scene made the highligh layer "jump back" into that scene (the start time of the highlight layer was correctly set to the start time of the last scene in the script). I removed these subs in the script and also removed the display stop from the subs in the last scene, extended their duration and the duration of the highlight layer (original 00:00:03;01) to the scene duration (00:00:51;15). That fixed it. Maybe you should have a sanity check in that a scene (cell) with highlight and buttons cannot have a sub with stop and that the sub/highlight duration must be equal to the scene duration. Also it looks like forced subs "inbetween highlights" confuse Scenarist.
The complete menu seemd to work fine, although I haven't tested with the reauthored movie yet. I don't think I need a separate script for this anymore, just replace the dummies, right?
About colors and contrast: almost like in the original, but button outlines looked a little "grainy" and not as smooth as in the original. It looks like you are trying to replicate the original palette in Scenarist. Maybe a better way is to leave the original palette in the IFO alone and simply specify the original color and contrast indexes in the .SST. See
this thread.
About CCE settings: I would suggest to not make use of the filters, they usually make the picture look worse. I would also suggest a setting for Quality Precision and GOP size. Another thing was that although I checked "Scanning Order: Alternate" in NuMenu4U, the ECLs were set up for ZigZag (alternate_scan=0). The DVD2AVI version posted above creates a log file with stream statistics (pretty much self explanatory IMHO) that you could examine to find the correct CCE settings and the correct setting for the interlaced parameter of ConvertToYUY2().
Some small bugs: although I cleared everything in AviSynth setup except for ConvertToYUY2 and AddAudio in "Footer", it still added the LoadPlugin for decomb.dll and FieldDeinterlace() to all AVS scripts. Also when you clear the "Mpeg2 Source Switches", it still adds a trailing comma after the D2V path to the Mpeg2Source() statement, causing a script error. "Pause for Script Verification" doesn't stick in the settings, it's reset with every program run.
What do you use for audio delay correction? I know BeSweet has issues,
jsoto's open source delay corrector works very well for me.
Keep up the good work!