IFO parsing - Audio+Sub StreamID's

[Ghitulescu]

Adding a fictitious track to a cell which has not an associated stream may be problematic when played back on some systems. I would delete the dir comments instead and let both PGCs have the same 2 languages.

Never been interested n what the directors have to comment, if their masterwork could not conveyed that message to me they they failed their job...

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

That you do not understand the logic is not their fault - remember, the studios check every project for 100% compliance with the DVD specs, some even have various DVD players for an extra check.

Maybe your methods, I am still on serious doubts on what you intend to achieve, are "crazy" because they do not cope with the reality ?

You are right, at the moment I'm to stupid to understand the logic, no problem.
I don't use DVD's if the Bluray for a movie is available. This was a feature request and I will try it, maybe it works.

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

PS: ...Multiangle for instance can only be managed by changing the container as no muxer today can do it properly.

For DVD multi-edition it seems a bit hard to do this(for multi angle I expect no problems), but muxing multi-edition/angle blurays to mkv is an easy task.

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

I have no problems with this: I pick up the director's cut when available or the extended cut against theatrical one, and the original movie "angle" (mostly used to display an alternate credits).

Often have the Extended Cut's other video scenes inside as the theatrical one. Alien 1 or Total Recall and so on, and I like it to have both version with diffrent contents. (and like I said, for Bluray an easy task)

[r0lZ]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

It won't work because the physical disc cannot be altered , you said it before.

It's why I wrote this:

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Of course, you have to copy (or decrypt) the DVD to HDD first, but anyway, working on a physical DVD is never easy, and is even impossible if it is encrypted.

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

The Alien disc is not crazy authored. It is authored as any other big projects that have to be flexible for being launched on several incompatible markets in short times one after the other.

Well, I'm not totally convinced that that DVD has been correctly authored. It is legit, that's right, but adding a studio logo after two long titles is IMO completely stupid. Usually, the studio logos are authored in the VMGM (another bizarre decision), and I wonder why it's not the case here. The result is a strange mix of 4 audio tracks in the whole domain, with several tracks unavailable in most titles. I understand perfectly why Title 1 has no director's comments, but having to define a fourth stream just for the logo is a total nonsense.

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

That you do not understand the logic is not their fault - remember, the studios check every project for 100% compliance with the DVD specs, some even have various DVD players for an extra check.

Here also, I disagree. Almost all commercial DVDs have big authoring errors or at least severe discrepancies. (And this one is not an exception.) They work usually with the vast majority of the players, but none pass the Philips Verifier tests with full success. (I have to admit that it's almost impossible due to discrepancies in the DVD-Video specs, but they should at least try to minimize the errors, and obviously it's rarely the case.) Furthermore, the fact that the DVD must be easily modified to be sold in other countries is not an excuse to do an approximative job, especially since the DVDs are usually reauthored completely for other regions. (The division by regions is another stupidity BTW, even if in that case it's for commercial reasons.)

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Maybe your methods, I am still on serious doubts on what you intend to achieve, are "crazy" because they do not cope with the reality ?

Here, I fully agree, I haven't been able to understand why the DVD causes so many troubles, and what hubblec4 is trying to do exactly. But it's not a reason for not trying to help him.

[r0lZ]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Adding a fictitious track to a cell which has not an associated stream may be problematic when played back on some systems.

I agree, but the modified DVD will never be burned or played. I suggested to "add" the missing track only because it might be easier to use the tools to convert it to multi-story MKV later. And I wrote this (about deleting the studio logo, but the same remark is valid also for the "unhidden" track):

Originally Posted by r0lZ

If you do it, you can ignore the problems of the broken navigation, since you will never play the edited DVD. You just need the correct PGC structures.

The fact that the "missing" audio stream is missing in the shortest version of the movie and present in the director's cut means (most probably) that all cells of the short version HAVE that audio stream. My hack consists only in making it visible. And that should work without problem, although, as I said, listening to that track when watching the short version doesn't make much sense.

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

I don't understand why you need the streams in a specific order.

My cE is a simple program and I'm not an expert in DVD authoring. I will use less external programs as possible to achieve what I want. I know it will be never 100% perfect but it is Ok for me.
PgcDemux and MKVToolNix (and BDSup2Sub) are the external programs and now I know this are not the best/easy tools for handle DVD material.

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Anyway, as we have explained above, the tracks are just soft links to the real physical streams, and are what the player should present to the user. In your case, they are: English, Deutsch, English (director's comments, although it's not specified in the IFO).
They map respectively to the physical AC3 streams 0, 2 and 1, in that strange but legit order. Therefore, the English audio has the ID 0x80, Deutsch 0x82 and DC 0x81. If the program you use to demux or remux the tracks gets them directly from the VOB without taking the IFO into account (bad!), chances are that they will be presented in the order EN, DC, DE.
Anyway, if after having created the MKV, you find that the language code or track labels are not correct, it is easy to change them with MkvPropEdit (from MTX).

I hope I can code an algo for such behaviors. After editing the final mkv is not what I want.

Originally Posted by r0lZ

I'm not sure you need to create the missing track link as explained in my previous post, since apparently all tools find the 3 (or 4?) streams anyway. If you do it, you have to use PgcEdit, and no, it's not a CLI tool. Again, I don't understand why you want to use the CLI for such a simple process. Apparently, you need to make things much more complex than they are. Or is it because you work under Linux? In that case, use Wine HQ. PgcEdit works correctly under Wine (but you may have to change the default fonts, and the preview doesn't work.)

All processes (demuxing, editing, muxing) should be automatically in my DVD2mkv editor.
I work with Linux(total noob^^) too, so that cE runs there. But this is another story...

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Adding a fictitious track to a cell which has not an associated stream may be problematic when played back on some systems. I would delete the dir comments instead and let both PGCs have the same 2 languages.

Jupp I agree with you. I will make a warning for such things.

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Here, I fully agree, I haven't been able to understand why the DVD causes so many troubles, and what hubblec4 is trying to do exactly. But it's not a reason for not trying to help him.

Many thanks for this words.

My aim is to create a single mkv with both editions of the movie with "ordered chapters".
Title 1 is fully used and from Title 2 only the VobID's which not inclued in Title 1 will be used (or vise versa).
There is only one other program which can do such job: X1OneGenerator( but only Bluray). It exists no tool for DVD(at the moment).

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

The fact that the "missing" audio stream is missing in the shortest version of the movie and present in the director's cut means (most probably) that all cells of the short version HAVE that audio stream.

Exactly. When I demux the vob's by VobID's with PgcDemux then MTX identify all 3 audio track's for all VobID-segments.

[hubblec4]

@ r0IZ

Here is an other sample, Alien DVD

A german DTS audio with 0x89 as ID are inside, but I can't find this ID in the Audio Stream Control of the titles.

[r0lZ]

Originally Posted by hubblec4

All processes (demuxing, editing, muxing) should be automatically in my DVD2mkv editor.

Ah, OK, I haven't understood that you want to write your own software. Of course, it's more difficult than using existing tools.

BTW, I wrote a plugin for PgcEdit that converts a single PGC to MKV. It is integrated in PgcEdit and has a GUI, so it is not really useful for you, but if you want, you can try it. I have never released it, but afaik it works correctly. Download it here, and extract the .tcl file in the plugins folder of PgcEdit. Relaunch PgcEdit. You should see a new Plugins -> PGC2MKV menu.

Note that you need PgcDemux, MkvMerge, BDSup2Sub (java version) or BDSup2Dub++ (not really recommended) or SubtitleCreator, and optionally x264 if you want to re-encode the video. It doesn't handle multi-story titles, and if the PGC has several angles, you must select only one of them. In other words, it is unable to create a multi-edition MKV. Of course, you can select the audio and subtitle tracks you want to include in the final MKV. If you re-encode the video, you can crop and resize it to SAR 1:1 if you wish. Also, like PgcEdit, it doesn't work with an encrypted DVD, so you have to decrypt it to HDD first, or use AnyDVD to decrypt it on the fly.

Although it cannot be integrated directly in your program, it may be a good tool to verify if you present the right streams to the user.

[r0lZ]

Originally Posted by hubblec4

@ r0IZ

Here is an other sample, Alien DVD

A german DTS audio with 0x89 as ID are inside, but I can't find this ID in the Audio Stream Control of the titles.

The stream IDs of DTS audio begin at 0x88. Since the German DTS is the physical stream #1, its ID is 0x88+1 = 0x89.

Here is the list of the ID offsets for all types of subtitle and audio streams available in a DVD-Video:

Subtitles 0x20
AC3       0x80
DTS       0x88
SDDS      0x90
LPCM      0xA0
MPEG      0xC0
MPEG2-ex  0xC8

[hubblec4]

Thanks for this info r0IZ.

Bigotti5 helps me in the german forum with detailed info and now I see a bit light.

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Ah, OK, I haven't understood that you want to write your own software. Of course, it's more difficult than using existing tools.

BTW, I wrote a plugin for PgcEdit that converts a single PGC to MKV. It is integrated in PgcEdit and has a GUI, so it is not really useful for you, but if you want, you can try it. I have never released it, but afaik it works correctly. Download it here, and extract the .tcl file in the plugins folder of PgcEdit. Relaunch PgcEdit. You should see a new Plugins -> PGC2MKV menu.

Note that you need PgcDemux, MkvMerge, BDSup2Sub (java version) or BDSup2Dub++ (not really recommended) or SubtitleCreator, and optionally x264 if you want to re-encode the video. It doesn't handle multi-story titles, and if the PGC has several angles, you must select only one of them. In other words, it is unable to create a multi-edition MKV. Of course, you can select the audio and subtitle tracks you want to include in the final MKV. If you re-encode the video, you can crop and resize it to SAR 1:1 if you wish. Also, like PgcEdit, it doesn't work with an encrypted DVD, so you have to decrypt it to HDD first, or use AnyDVD to decrypt it on the fly.

Although it cannot be integrated directly in your program, it may be a good tool to verify if you present the right streams to the user.

Nice to read that you make an mkv support in PgcEdit.
Yes my DVD2mkv is software written by me and I'm sure with all your help (and all the others) I'm able to code a multi-edition mkv generator for DVD.

[hubblec4]

PGCEdit says:

PGC2MKV plugin: This feature requires PgcEdit version 9.4 or greater. .......

But I hav PgcEdit 9.3, where I can find v9.4?

[r0lZ]

Oops, I forgot that! v9.4 has not been released yet. I will try to release it very soon...

[r0lZ]

OK, I've compiled it, and you can download it here.
It's not the official release yet, but it should be OK, and certainly sufficient to run the PGC2MKV plugin.
It will be released officially soon, and when v9.4 will be officially available, you should download it and replace this version, because I may have fixed some bugs or changed a few things. In the meantime, use the unofficial v9.4 with caution.

[hubblec4]

Thanks for this new version.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Well, I'm not totally convinced that that DVD has been correctly authored. It is legit, that's right, but adding a studio logo after two long titles is IMO completely stupid.
....
Here also, I disagree. Almost all commercial DVDs have big authoring errors or at least severe discrepancies. (And this one is not an exception.) They work usually with the vast majority of the players, but none pass the Philips Verifier tests with full success. (I have to admit that it's almost impossible due to discrepancies in the DVD-Video specs, but they should at least try to minimize the errors, and obviously it's rarely the case.) Furthermore, the fact that the DVD must be easily modified to be sold in other countries is not an excuse to do an approximative job, especially since the DVDs are usually reauthored completely for other regions. (The division by regions is another stupidity BTW, even if in that case it's for commercial reasons.)

This is what I meant, actually.

Originally Posted by hubblec4

My aim is to create a single mkv with both editions of the movie with "ordered chapters".
Title 1 is fully used and from Title 2 only the VobID's which not inclued in Title 1 will be used (or vise versa).
There is only one other program which can do such job: X1OneGenerator( but only Bluray). It exists no tool for DVD(at the moment).

Well, if I would aim at one MKV for storing something (it is irrelevant at this stage "what exactly") I would remove all other things that would make problems to the tools I have.
This I have suggested you many replies ago

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Usually, the studio logos are authored in the VMGM (another bizarre decision), and I wonder why it's not the case here. The result is a strange mix of 4 audio tracks in the whole domain, with several tracks unavailable in most titles. I understand perfectly why Title 1 has no director's comments, but having to define a fourth stream just for the logo is a total nonsense.

I can't pretend I understand all the reasons why some things are done the way they are - I believe there is a reason why. Maybe the logo is in the VMG because it's part of the system space and can be reached from anywhere on that disc (for instance the logo must be annoyingly run after every single, stupid action, before the menu, after the menu, before the main movie, after the main movie, before and after trailers etc etc etc).

[hubblec4]

Originally Posted by r0lZ

Here is the list of the ID offsets for all types of subtitle and audio streams available in a DVD-Video:

Subtitles 0x20
AC3       0x80
DTS       0x88
SDDS      0x90
LPCM      0xA0
MPEG      0xC0
MPEG2-ex  0xC8

Could you tell me which Coding mode value is used for SDDS?

[r0lZ]

Originally Posted by hubblec4

Could you tell me which Coding mode value is used for SDDS?

0 AC3
2 MPEG
3 MPEG2-ext
4 LPCM
6 DTS
7 SDDS