PgcEdit v 8 discussion thread

[r0lZ]

PgcEdit v 8.5 released!

A. Added "Info -> Jumps from current VTS to VMG" and "Jumps from all VTSs to VMG".
A. Preview option "Real Time Playback". Enabling this option can be useful to slow the playback down on fast machines.
E. Kill PGC Playback: Improved detection of the potentially dangerous cell commands. As a consequence, some warnings are not displayed any more in some circumstances, and it is more often possible to remove the PGC cells.
E. Import Menu: When importing a VMGM menu to a VTSM menu, PgcEdit converts now the Title Menu type to Root Menu, and vice-versa. A warning is issued when a Subpic, Audio, Angle or Chapter menu is imported in the VMGM.
E. The DVD is now saved automatically after Import VTST Titles, Replace VTST Titles, Delete Last Titleset, Import Menu and Remove Menu, to keep the IFO and the VOBs synchronized on disc. An incremental backup is also made automatically after Import VTST Titles and Delete Last Titleset.
E. Menu Editor: Advanced options modified slightly to be able to specify the currently selected button as the button to be activated automatically.
E. PGC Editor -> Create New Cell: When the first cell is created in a menu domain, the user is now prompted for its aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9.)
E. Modified PGC Editor -> Del Angles to be able to clear the "First ILVU End" values from cells when the angle flags and the interleaved allocation flag have been cleared manually. This makes possible to remove manually only some angle or interleaved cells in a PGC, and keep the other ones.
F. PGC Editor: The coloured warnings and tooltips of the seamless joint flags were sometimes wrong in multi-angle PGCs.
E. Command Editor and command disassembler: LinkNoLink requires a non-zero highlighted button. The editor doesn't allow entering a LinkNoLink command without a button any more, and the disassembly of the LinkNoLink commands generates now an <ILLEGAL BUTTON 0> error when the button is not defined.
F. Delete Uncalled PGCs and Delete Uncalled VTSs: Fixed an important bug occurring when those functions were called after having used trace mode.
F. Delete Uncalled PGCs: The Chapter tables were not assigned to the right titles when a title has been deleted before another one in the same VTS.
F. Delete Uncalled PGCs: Fixed an error occurring when Delete Uncalled PGCs is invoked several times in the same PgcEdit session and needs to detete some PGCs in the same VTST domain each time.
F. Trace mode: When playing a PGC in random or shuffle playback mode, the cells of the PGC were selected randomly instead of the programs.
F. Trace mode: When a NextPGCN link was executed after playback of a PGC without post-command, the trace stopped with a Target Not Found error.
F. Trace mode and highlighting of commands target: A LinkPGCN command in a title domain and jumping to another TTN was not considered as illegal.
F. Trace mode, under Linux: The preview options "Close and Break Trace" and "Blank This Cell" were not working. PgcEdit_preview.exe v 2.6 has been modified to support those options under Linux.
F. VOBU plugin: Fixed a bug in PgcEdit (introduced in v8.3) that prevented the selection of the start and end LBAs with the preview.
F. Option "User Interface -> Play sounds with yes/no/cancel dialog boxes ?". It might be necessary to disable this option if PgcEdit hangs when displaying its dialogs on computers with dual core CPUs.
F. Some little problems in Import and Export all Menu Buttons and BOVs when a titleset is deleted have been fixed. The useless information about the deleted VTS was still saved and loaded.
F. Create ISO, under Linux: The file save dialog to select the output ISO filename was not working correctly.
F. Set Menu Type: When using Set Menu Type to modify the position of a menu (such as the Root Menu) the Entry PGC flag was left on the original PGC.


DVDShrink plugin v 2.5 (August 2, 2007)

Added "Enhance and fix authoring", a new method to assign navigation functions to the remote buttons (including arrow buttons.)
Added "Make DVD completely region free", as DVDShrink still prohibits the regions 7 (reserved) and 8 (special intl. venues).
Corrected some typos.


PgcEditPreview v 2.7, by jeanl (Included in PgcEdit v8.5)

v2.7: Added key in the ini file (RealTimePlayback) to tell the preview to display videos at the normal video rate.
v2.7: Fixed a bug in the display of the hours in the time-stamp of the info window.
v2.6: Added a CLI option to pass the ReturnFilePath in the INI file. This is necessary to support the options Close and Break Trace and Blank this Cell under Linux.

[blutach]

Thank you very much r0lZ - a terrific changelog!

Regards

[President]

My respect and thank's, RolZ!

[Rippraff]

:cool: Thanks a bunch, r0lZ! :)

Cu Rippraff

[Calimari]

Thanks for your hard work, rOLZ!

[AlienX69]

Three cheers for the BEST DVD Edit tool on the planet !!!!

:thanks: ... r0lz ....

Regards,
AX

[bourtzovlakas]

I got this error, trying to create an DL ISO,....
mkisofs log for DVD "UNIT_S2D3"
From: "M:\UNIT_S2D3"
DVD-TEXT General Name: ""
Provider ID: ""
Number of VTS: 8
Output file: "H:\UNIT_S2D3.ISO"
Volume label: "UNIT_S2D3"
Running under windows (OS type: Windows NT)

mkisofs 2.01-bootcd.ru (i686-pc-mingw32)

Error testing ISO compatibility with MKISOFS:
mkisofs: Implementation botch. Video pad for file VTS_01_0.BUP is -11
mkisofs: Either the *.IFO file is bad or you found a mkisofs bug.


Test command or batch was:

@echo off
set c="H:\Downloads\DVD Authoring\bin\mkisofs.exe"
set c=%c% -print-size -dvd-video -no-pad -p PgcEdit -m "*[bB]ackup*" -m "Copy of *"
set c=%c% -V "UNIT_S2D3"
%c% "M:\UNIT_S2D3" 2>&1
if %errorlevel% NEQ 0 echo ****** ERROR returned by mkisofs! ******



Full Disk rip, blanked some stuff with VobBlanker(no errors)

Edit: It must have been some problem with the moving of files in VIDEO_TS sub-directory...
I have "32k gap" enabled...
...but the VTS_0x_0.IFO files that moved to VIDEO_TS sub-folder, were the original(unmodified) ones...
The modified IFOs were left outside...
After i replaced the IFOs in the VIDEO_TS folder everything went fine...

[r0lZ]

The modified IFOs were left outside...
After i replaced the IFOs in the VIDEO_TS folder everything went fine...Not to worry then? Right?

BTW, you can load your DVD in DVD Shrink before burning it, just to verify if everything is correct. Although the error message of Shrink are not very informative, it is very picky on this kind of errors, and at least you will know that something is wrong.

[bourtzovlakas]

I did...
No error in Shrink....

[GravuTrad]

and still work for me lol...

[kikatu]

Thanks for the new version r0LZ.

[linx05]

Thanks for the release!

I think I have found a bug. I have to click the button I have highlighted numerous times to open up the command editor. Using 8.5.

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/9821/pgcedityo4.th.png (http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pgcedityo4.png)

[President]

I think I have found a bug. I have to click the button I have highlighted numerous times to open up the command editor. Using 8.5.
I think this is a known bug. Please read a "Known bugs" section on the official page of PgcEdit attentually.

[r0lZ]

I agree. This is probably a nasty tcl/tk bug I don't understand well, but it happens often after having used a dropdown menu button. Just click somewhere else in the background or in the title bar of the window and retry.

[linx05]

Oh ok. It just so happened I was reading the "Known bugs" section. I didn't put 2 and 2 together. Thank you.

[kumi]

Great job r0lZ, every release of yours is chock-full of useful new additions. :thanks:

I have a request for jeanl, I wonder if he'll consider it:

Usually the first thing I do when I'm backing up a DVD9 to a DVD5, is to open the DVD in PgcEdit & navigate the structure in trace mode, writing down features and menus I want to skip, blank or modify. If there was an easy way to edit a PGC's comment from within PgcEditPreview, that would simplify things a bit. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with marking PGCs is with a pencil and paper, but it feels a bit... analog. ;)

[r0lZ]

That's not really easy to do, as the preview is totally independent of PgcEdit. Everything that is passed from PgcEdit to the preview or vice-versa must be passed via INI files on disc, and I don't want to pass too many things, as it's a source of problems.
Furthermore, this method doesn't work well to pass foreign and accented characters. It's probably not your problem, but if I add this feature, I will certainly receive complains of non-english users.

[Zebrich]

Thanks for the new release, great job!
When trying to start PGC Edit with clicking on the PGC Edit exe. symbol, it lasts about 15 seconds until the programm starts. This did not happen on earlier versions. I am using Win XP SP2.

Is this a new bug or my fault?:helpful:

[itchione]

Big change log r0lZ.
You have been a busy bee :cool:

Just like to say it's a fantastic app.
I like the real time preview :D

Cheers, itchione

[r0lZ]

Zebrich, do you have the "Options -> Startup -> Check for new version at startup" option enabled? If it's the case, the startup might be slow if your ISP has some problems or if videohelp.com is down. But note that I haven't modified that in the new version. (Only the site to download the betas has changed.)

@itchione and everyone: thanks for the thanks!

[Mike89]

What is rebuilding the time maps? I notice now when using RipIt4Me and going to PgcEdit (from Tools), I get a message now saying something about incorrect time maps. PgcEdit offers to rebuild them. I have never seen this before. Should I let it rebuild them?

[blutach]

The time maps are pointers in the IFO files to sectors that correspond to time units (the unit is defined at the start of the time map in seconds based on a max of 2048 entries per map).

PgcEdit does a calc to see if the number of entries matches the length of the title. If not, it will offer to rebuild the time map.

Most changes to the time map are caused by eliminating/blanking cells/titles.

If you have more editing to do later, you can answer no and only rebuild the map at the end of your editing. As well, most, if not all, transcoders and encoding solutions will rebuild the time map anyway so if you are encoding, it might not be anything to worry about.

But if you end up with a wrong time map, your seek/slider might not work correctly.

Regards

[BigCondor]

Thanks once again for the new release, and now I have more things to play with. Every version is a collection of bundles of efforts you spent!

[Mike89]

Is this finding time map problems new with PgcEdit 8.5? I had never seen this message before. I'm actually getting that message quite a bit now, probably around 3 or 4 out of 5 DVDs I open with it. Is this issue caused by the RipIt4Me rip (as I'm always opening PgcEdit from the RipIt4Me Tools after a rip)?

[blutach]

MOre than likely, it is caused by incorrect authoring (many DVDs have 1 or 2 less entries in the time map). DVDs with advanced protection schemes may exhibit this more tha others. RipIt4Me does not rebuild the time map.

Regards

[Mike89]

So you're saying these retail DVDs already had incorrect time maps? If so, that's kind of sloppy on their part isn't it?

Two other questions:

Is this new to PgcEdit 8.5 (because I would think I would have seen this message before in previous versions since I open a lot of DVD's with it)?

Does DVD Shrink correct the time maps (if I didn't do it with PgcEdit)?


One more thing. When I stated that I saw this message opening a rip with PgcEdit (through Tools in RipIt4Me), this was all after movie only rips. Could that have anything to do with it (the movie only rip somehow changing the time maps)?

[blutach]

So you're saying these retail DVDs already had incorrect time maps? If so, that's kind of sloppy on their part isn't it?Yes and no. Missing the last entry (usually the last tiny cell) is no biggie. The time map is a pretty boring table anyway, and only if it is very wrong, will you notice it difficult to fast forwards and reverse, or skip to a time. One entry usually won't make a lotta difference.

The time map computation was introduced around 8.1, I think - check the version history.

DVD Shrink does make correct time maps.

I doubt that movie only rips make any difference.

Regards

[Mike89]

Thanks for the info. I had been using all of PgcEdit version 8s and never saw that message once, then all of a sudden A LOT of the rips are displaying this. Coincidence I guess but seemed kind of strange that most of the rips were now showing incorrect time maps.

[r0lZ]

As blu said, the original time maps are not always wrong, even when PgcEdit complains. Often, a very short black chapter is added at the end of the movie to allow the user to skip to the end of the movie with the next chapter button. Including this tiny cell in the time map is not necessary, as it doesn't make sense to seek to the last frame of the movie, and because this cell is not really a part of the movie. But PgcEdit includes it.

Also, the ARccOS/RipGuard protected DVDs have tiny cells at the beginning of the movie (and sometimes also at the end.) Those cells have totally wrong durations. If RI4M removes them or replace them with valid cells (and it's its job!) the time map can be completely different.

Note also that the entries in the time maps are only approximative. For example, an entry that points theoretically to 10 seconds cannot usually point exactly to that time. Some authoring programs set it to the nav pack directly before that point, other ones to the nav pack after, and some to the nearest point. PgcEdit uses the first method.

However, unless the DVD has been deeply butchered by ARccOS or RipGuard, the durations of the cells and the total duration of the movie should be approximately identical after the PgcEdit processing. If the difference is greater than, say, one second, that could indicate a problem.

BTW, are you in NTSC land? I'm sure my method is correct for PAL, but as NTSC is much more complex and I haven't much NTSC DVDs at home, I may have introduced a bug. I don't think so, however, as my method has been deeply analyzed by Jinjin_JP (here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=128603)), and he has proved that it is correct. IIRC, the test were made on NTSC material.

[Mike89]

By NTSC land, I am assuming that would be Region 1 (US)? If so, yes I am.

I guess all of this time map stuff PgcEdit is showing isn't a big deal. I was just curious because I would say of the last 10 DVD's I've ripped (with RI4M) and then opened with PgcEdit, probably 8 of those showed incorrect time maps. It just raised my questions as I had never seen this before now (and was doing nothing different other than using a different version of PgcEdit).

[blutach]

Remember, many blank PGCs need have no time map (but PgcEdit will offer to build one for you anyway - which will happen in the blink of an eye for these PGCs). However, on movie only rips, this will not be the case.

Regards

[Garambone]

r0lZ, since v8.4 PGCEdit has been behaving oddly when I use "Delete Uncalled PGCs" or "Remap Titlesets". Apparently it works correctly, but after saving the project I try to close PGCEdit and receive the error message: "Error: can't read ':: original_pgc_comments': no such variable". I can't go through unless I use task manager to close the program. Very often the project is ruined and even restoring the backup can't make it work. BTW, this functions used to work flawlessly on previous versions. Any help is appreciated. Thx.

This is the debug msg:

can't read "::original_pgc_comments": no such variable
can't read "::original_pgc_comments": no such variable
while executing
"if {$new_pgc_comments != $::original_pgc_comments} {
set msg "Your PGC comments and/or GPRM labels have been modified"
set msg "$msg\nsince t..."
(procedure "::utils::save_pgc_comments_with_confirm" line 12)
invoked from within
"::utils::save_pgc_comments_with_confirm"
(procedure "cleanexit" line 18)
invoked from within
"cleanexit 0"
(command for "WM_DELETE_WINDOW" window manager protocol)

[r0lZ]

Hum, that's strange. I've read my code, and this bug should not occur. But maybe I have fixed it recently. Honestly, I don't remember. Could you try this beta (http://home.tele2allin.be/vt6328799/pgcedit/beta/PgcEdit_winexe_8.6beta4.zip)? Thanks!

[Garambone]

Great! Works again! Thank you very much for your attention and dedication. Please allow me to point out a little typo and also make a suggestion:

TYPO: When calling the "Remove Parental Management" function a window appears entitled: "Remove Parental Managment".

SUGGESTION: If you judge it worthful, I sugest an option like "Define Idiomatic Defaults (Audio, Subpicture, Menu)". The idea is to search the DVD for sentences like "Set gprm(9) = preferred menu language" and automatically replace with "Set gprm(9) == 28788 ('pt') ", I mean, if the user has chosen portuguese ("pt") as the menu language default. Similarly with Audio and Subpicture. Just an idea though.
Once again, thanks for the great job.

[blutach]

Nice idea Garambone, but can't this be done with the search and replace plugin?

Regards

[brownmj]

I hope this is the right place to post my question. Since upgrading Pcgedit, when I try to run the program it fails to launch and gives me the following message:

Error sourcing /Tcl/work/PGCEDIT/PgcEdit.tcl: invalid command name ".mf.st.f.status"

I have tried re-installing and going back to older versions but with the same problem. I am running on XP home and as far as I know everything is up to date. Any help or advice is much appreciated.

[r0lZ]

Nice idea Garambone, but can't this be done with the search and replace plugin?
Yes. Use:

Search string:
61 .. .. .. 00 ((80)|(90)|(92)) .. ..
Replace string:
71 .. .. .. 70 74 .. ..You can, of course, change the "70 74" ('pt', Portuguese) codes in the replace string by the hex codes equivalent to any language code. For example, use 65 6E for 'en' (English) or 66 72 for 'fr' (French.)
You can convert any language code to hex with View -> Tcl calculator/converter. Type the language code in the small field at the right side and press enter to convert it.

The example above changes the Set commands that uses the SPRMs 0, 16 and 18 (preferred menu, audio and subpic language) in one shot. You can of course limit the change to only one of those SPRMs like this:

Search string:
61 .. .. .. 00 80 .. ..
Replace string:
71 .. .. .. 70 74 .. ..This will change only the set commands that sets any GPRM to the value of the SPRM 0 (preferred menu language.)

With the latest Search and Replace plugin, you can save your search and replace strings in preset files. But I have just noticed and fixed a bug in the plugin, so please download this updated version: search_replace_plugin_v25.zip (http://home.tele2allin.be/vt6328799/pgcedit/plugins/search_replace_plugin_v25.zip).

[r0lZ]

I hope this is the right place to post my question. Since upgrading Pcgedit, when I try to run the program it fails to launch and gives me the following message:

Error sourcing /Tcl/work/PGCEDIT/PgcEdit.tcl: invalid command name ".mf.st.f.status"

I have tried re-installing and going back to older versions but with the same problem. I am running on XP home and as far as I know everything is up to date. Any help or advice is much appreciated.This problem can be caused by two things.

Try to download the latest PgcEdit again, and download preferably the .ZIP version. When PgcEdit.exe is downloaded directly, it might have been corrupted.

If that doesn't work, open C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\PgcEdit, and move the configuration files out of that folder. Try to launch PgcEdit again. You will have to do your setups again, but you can try to replace each config file in the folder one at a time to find the file that causes the problem. Usually, it's pgcedit.cfg.
(Note that Application Data is normally an hidden folder, so, you might have to go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View tab, and tick "Show hidden files and folders".)

Let me know if that works.

[blutach]

@r0lZ - maybe make that one a fixed preset like SetGPRMMD?

Regards

[r0lZ]

Difficult. The language code in the replace string is different for each user.

[blutach]

Perhaps they could specify it in the cfg - oir just do it for English (dangerous, I know for other users). ANyway, the user defined preset makes it a breeze. It's a very good one to have.

Another might be for stream strippers to automatically change the SetSTNs to the retained stream.

Regards

[Garambone]

Nice idea Garambone, but can't this be done with the search and replace plugin?

Regards

You're right blu. It can be done with the plugin as described by r0lZ in details. Sometimes I just forget how useful can plugins be.

[Garambone]

Yes. Use:

Search string:
61 .. .. .. 00 (80)|(90)|(92) .. ..
Replace string:
71 .. .. .. 70 74 .. ..You can, of course, change the "70 74" ('pt', Portuguese) codes in the replace string by the hex codes equivalent to any language code. For example, use 65 6E for 'en' (English) or 66 72 for 'fr' (French.)
You can convert any language code to hex with View -> Tcl calculator/converter. Type the language code in the small field at the right side and press enter to convert it.

The example above changes the Set commands that uses the SPRMs 0, 16 and 18 (preferred menu, audio and subpic language) in one shot. You can of course limit the change to only one of those SPRMs like this:

Search string:
61 .. .. .. 00 80 .. ..
Replace string:
71 .. .. .. 70 74 .. ..This will change only the set commands that sets any GPRM to the value of the SPRM 0 (preferred menu language.)

With the latest Search and Replace plugin, you can save your search and replace strings in preset files. But I have just noticed and fixed a bug in the plugin, so please download this updated version: search_replace_plugin_v24.zip (http://home.tele2allin.be/vt6328799/pgcedit/plugins/search_replace_plugin_v24.zip).


Thanks r0lZ, the "forced preferences" can be achieved with the search/replace plugin as described above. The new save feature makes it effortless. In my case I like to force the menu and audio to English, and subpic to Portuguese.

[r0lZ]

Just wondering why you want to force the streams. Setting up your player correctly should be sufficient. But I agree that it's not easy or even impossible with some players (especially with most software players.)

[brownmj]

This problem can be caused by two things.

Try to download the latest PgcEdit again, and download preferably the .ZIP version. When PgcEdit.exe is downloaded directly, it might have been corrupted.

If that doesn't work, open C:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\PgcEdit, and move the configuration files out of that folder. Try to launch PgcEdit again. You will have to do your setups again, but you can try to replace each config file in the folder one at a time to find the file that causes the problem. Usually, it's pgcedit.cfg.
(Note that Application Data is normally an hidden folder, so, you might have to go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View tab, and tick "Show hidden files and folders".)

Let me know if that works.

The second approach worked - it was a problem with the pgcedit.cfg file. I have set my options again and it is now working fine. Many thanks for your help - it is really appreciated.

[Garambone]

Just wondering why you want to force the streams. Setting up your player correctly should be sufficient. But I agree that it's not easy or even impossible with some players (especially with most software players.)

Well I guess it's just about the fun of messing around with the DVD navigation :o . Besides, it makes my backups even more taylored and customized for me. One thing that I enjoy doing is search the DVD structure for disposeable instructions and try to trim the code for an optimized, lightning fast DVD navigation :D:D:D

[blutach]

I must also confess to being in the same boat as Garambone - not that you'd see any diminution in how quickly instructions are executed.

But it is fun.

Regards

[r0lZ]

Removing or simplifying instructions has probably no speed impact. But you can improve the overall speed by skipping useless PGCs (especially when several PGCs are visited in different VTSs) and jumping directly to the menu upon DVD insert. Removing the ARccOS protected cells has also an appreciable impact on the performance. The gain is significant on slow hardware players like... my Sony!

[blutach]

Here's a little tip.

Oftentimes, if you have blanked a title, the precommands will contain nothing but register setting instructions and a call back to another PGC in VMG. Same holds true of blanked menus in VTSs other than the main menu (eg a language selection menu in a different VTS to the main movie).

You can make a new PGC in VMG to mimic these instructions and change all jumps to the title/menu PGC to the new VMG PGC. That will speed things up too, as you are not going backwards and forwards past the main video to just set a few registers. Sometimes (in fact, most times), you can get rid of entire VTSs this way.

Note - you can not issue a SetSTN from VMG, so if these are set in the title, either leave the jump to the title alone or ensure the audio and subpic SPRMs are always already set the way they would be after calling the title.

Regards

[r0lZ]

Sorry, guys, I forgot two parenthesis in the search string to search the Set commands using SPRM 0, 16 or 18. Without those parenthesis, much more commands are found and replaced!

The correct syntax is:

Search string:
61 .. .. .. 00 ((80)|(90)|(92)) .. ..
Replace string:
71 .. .. .. 70 74 .. ..

I have edited the original post (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1067033#post1067033). It is correct now.

Thanks to blutach for the bug report!