How to change which movie the NEXT button will go to?

[manchild]

Help please.

I use DVD-LAB Pro and I'm trying figure out a better way to do my TV episodes on DVD. To save space I cut the opening credits out of each episode and have it as its own movie in the same VTS with the other episode movies. Then I have playlists set up for each of the episodes with the opening credits as the first movie, then the actual episode plays after that.

It works fine for playback but if I try to skip the opening to go to the actual episode with the NEXT button it goes to the next movie in the VTS order after the opening, which is basically a extra episode at the end and not the episode in the playlist.

What I want is the NEXT button to go to the next thing in the playlist and not the next in the VTS order. Is there a way to set a VM PRE command on that opening movie that conditionally changes which title will be next if I hit the button? Is that possible?

[manchild]

Can anyone tell me if this is even possible to do in this way? I still can't figure it out.

[Trahald]

it is possible.. it depends on how dvdlab pro is making your playlist.. you can use a GRPM value to figure out which episode to play. post your ifo summary (using ifoedit) here and we should have enough info to get you started.

[manchild]

I've trying to do something like that but don't know what VM commands to use so haven't been able to get it to work. I wasn't sure which IFO to post so here's both. Titles 1 thru 5 are the episodes, 6 is the opening I'm talking about, 7 is an additional extra. Thanks for any help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEO_TS.IFO
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VMG Overview:

Video Manager Menu attributes:
Video: MPEG-2 720x480 (NTSC) (NTSC 525/60) (4:3) (not specified perm.display)

Number of Title Play Maps: 7 (VMG_PTT_SRPT)
Title 1: VTS_01_*, TTN_1 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 2: VTS_01_*, TTN_2 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 3: VTS_01_*, TTN_3 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 4: VTS_01_*, TTN_4 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 5: VTS_01_*, TTN_5 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 6: VTS_01_*, TTN_6 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)
Title 7: VTS_01_*, TTN_7 (Angles: 1) (Chapters: 1) (Start Sector 33)

Number of Video Title Sets on this DVD: 1 (VMG_VTS_ATRT)
Title Set 1:
VTS_1 Video: MPEG-2 704x480 (NTSC) (NTSC 525/60) (4:3) (not specified perm.display)
VTS_1 Audio 1: English (Mpeg-1 ) 2ch 48Kbps 20bps


First play PGC: (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)

Menu Language Units: 1
Language Menu Unit 1: [English]

Language Menu Unit 1: [English]
Menu 1: [Title-Menu] (entry PGC) (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 1)
Menu 2: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 3: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 4: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 5: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 6: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 7: [entry only] (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
VTS_01_0.IFO
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VTS overview:

Menu attributes:
Video: MPEG-2 720x480 (NTSC) (NTSC 525/60) (4:3) (not specified perm.display)
Audio 1: Not Specified (Linear PCM) 2ch 48Kbps 16bps
SubPicture 1: Not Specified (2-bit rle )

Title Set (Movie) attributes:
Video: MPEG-2 704x480 (NTSC) (NTSC 525/60) (4:3) (not specified perm.display)
Audio 1: English (Mpeg-1 ) 2ch 48Kbps 20bps (ID: 0xc0)

PGC_1 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 1] [00:29:53.01 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 1)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 1/ 1] : time: 00:29:53.01 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:29:53.01] [Frames: 53791] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_2 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 2] [00:28:04.01 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 2)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 2/ 1] : time: 00:28:04.01 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:28:04.01] [Frames: 50521] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_3 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 3] [00:27:50.00 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 3)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 3/ 1] : time: 00:27:50.00 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:27:50.00] [Frames: 50100] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_4 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 4] [00:24:53.01 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 4)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 4/ 1] : time: 00:24:53.01 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:24:53.01] [Frames: 44791] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_5 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 5] [00:24:36.04 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 5)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 5/ 1] : time: 00:24:36.04 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:24:36.04] [Frames: 44284] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_6 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 6] [00:00:56.28 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 6)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 6/ 1] : time: 00:00:56.28 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:00:56.28] [Frames: 1708] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

PGC_7 (program chain): [Title(TTN): 7] [00:14:29.04 / 30 fps] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 7)
[Ch 01] [Pg 01] [Cell 01] [V/C Id: 7/ 1] : time: 00:14:29.04 / 30 fps [Pos: 00:14:29.04] [Frames: 26074] SP/ILVU/DISC/SA:[ no/ no/yes/ no]

Menu Language Units: 1
Language Menu Unit 1: [English]

Language Menu Unit 1: [English]
Menu 1: [Root-Menu] (entry PGC) (Programs: 0) (Cells: 0)
Menu 2: [entry only] (Programs: 1) (Cells: 1) (uses VOB-IDs: 1)

[Continuity28]

I hope you're still around Manchild, I couldn't post for 5 days while my account activated.

Anyways, your problem is a bit complex, but it's because of your approach. The easier way to solve this problem would be to treat this project like a branching movie. Professional episode DVDs would follow this route more often as well.

First of all, you need to combine your intros, endings, and episodes into one long movie instead of having them all separate like now. I'll assume you know how to do this with avisynth scripts and such. If not, just post back. Load that large file into your MPEG-2 encoder (make sure to Close all GOPs!).

Add the long movie to your project, and then add 6 "Chapter Play Lists" which will be called Branch 1, Branch 2, etc. In the movie object, make your chapters at each point, like the Intro, the Ending, and the beginning of each episode (or however you want it). Now make 5 of the branches play the chapters in such a way that it goes Intro -> Episode X -> Ending. You can make the 6th Branch object a "Play All" list if you want, like Intro -> Episode 1 -> Ending -> Intro -> Episode 2 -> etc.

You see, when you press the next/previous button on the remote, that's generally for skipping between programs in a single PGC, each program is usually but not always a "chapter". What you were trying to do is skip between PGCs, and that's a lot more difficult to set up... each PGC would have a link to a "previous" and "next" PGC, but it's limited, and require a lot of knowledge of VM commands. It's much easier to make a branching title instead (and professional).

DVD Lab PRO also has a function called "Movie Segment" which would allow you to bring in your individual clips the way you have them now into one movie file, and then you can create chapter play lists based off that... but that hardly ever seems to compile for me.

Good luck!

[manchild]

Thanks, that's much more complicated than I'd expected but I'll give that a shot - it will be a good project for me to try.