zambelli
19th September 2005, 21:02
I'm using DVDLab studio (version 1.25) to author a single VTS DVD. The DVD is comprised of about a dozen static 4:3 menus, about a dozen 16:9 movies and a few 4:3 movies posing as motion menus. Now, this last bit might seem weird to you, but I got the idea straight out of the DVDLab manual where they explain how to combine 4:3 and 16:9 movies in a single VTS DVD:
The trick is to use your 16:9 mode video content as Movies (probably your main feature) and then use all your 4:3 mode video clips as Motion Menus. You simply drag the 4:3 video to an empty Menu window, without adding any button to that Menu. If there is audio content to go with the video, then drop that audio into the Menu audio track as well. In this sense, it's not truly a Menu, we are just taking advantage of the fact a Menu can have it's own video/audio background as a Motion Menu. It now becomes foreground really, as the intended content.
One disadvantage of this trick is that for the 4:3 video clip dropped into a Menu, you can't add Chapter Points for that video content. Fortunately, in a mixed aspect DVD the 4:3 video contents are often supplemental or bonus material where chapter points may not be needed. Also be aware that when the viewer presses a menu button on their remote while playing this Motion Menu, that menu's video contents will start playing again from the beginning.
I've checked in Connections that all menus and movies are connected and have legal outputs. When I compile the DVD (and I use the "Test" checkbox to substitute all movies with dummy clips), I get no errors but I do get a few warnings about open GOPs on some of my movies (I believe HC encoder is the culprit). I ignore the warnings and compile the DVD - and get invalid output. In my VIDEO_TS folder I get a _MENU.VOB, a few regularly named VOB files, but no IFO files. No software DVD player can recognize that structure.
I've googled for this problem and found several references to it, including many on DVDLab's own forums, but so far nobody has provided an explanation or solution to the issue.
Taking out pieces of my DVD and deconstructing it down to the barebones is the obvious troubleshooting solution. But I'd rather not have to do that. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing the bad compilation?
The trick is to use your 16:9 mode video content as Movies (probably your main feature) and then use all your 4:3 mode video clips as Motion Menus. You simply drag the 4:3 video to an empty Menu window, without adding any button to that Menu. If there is audio content to go with the video, then drop that audio into the Menu audio track as well. In this sense, it's not truly a Menu, we are just taking advantage of the fact a Menu can have it's own video/audio background as a Motion Menu. It now becomes foreground really, as the intended content.
One disadvantage of this trick is that for the 4:3 video clip dropped into a Menu, you can't add Chapter Points for that video content. Fortunately, in a mixed aspect DVD the 4:3 video contents are often supplemental or bonus material where chapter points may not be needed. Also be aware that when the viewer presses a menu button on their remote while playing this Motion Menu, that menu's video contents will start playing again from the beginning.
I've checked in Connections that all menus and movies are connected and have legal outputs. When I compile the DVD (and I use the "Test" checkbox to substitute all movies with dummy clips), I get no errors but I do get a few warnings about open GOPs on some of my movies (I believe HC encoder is the culprit). I ignore the warnings and compile the DVD - and get invalid output. In my VIDEO_TS folder I get a _MENU.VOB, a few regularly named VOB files, but no IFO files. No software DVD player can recognize that structure.
I've googled for this problem and found several references to it, including many on DVDLab's own forums, but so far nobody has provided an explanation or solution to the issue.
Taking out pieces of my DVD and deconstructing it down to the barebones is the obvious troubleshooting solution. But I'd rather not have to do that. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing the bad compilation?