Simple DVD Authoring software (needed :))

[Ghitulescu]

Well, I do have 2, 3 or more small movies, laid as VOB+IFO on my HDD.

What I need is a "bloody stupid" application to create a small and simple menu (background + icons for each movie) that launches one of the movies. At the end return to this menu.

I am aware of many applications, but all of them require remuxing (even worse, TMPGenc DVD Author unnecessarily reencodes the material - without warning, at least in versions higher than 2, that's why I'm still using the old 1.5, when needed).

[manolito]

Hi Ghitulescu,

I think that DVDStyler would be right for you. It is easy to use, but can be quite powerful. (For me the older version 1.62 works better than the current version).

I am aware of many applications, but all of them require remuxing
No authoring application I am aware of accepts VOBs and IFOs as input. You will either need demuxed elementary streams (wich will be remuxed by the authoring application), or you can use already muxed MPEG2 files as your input.

To convert your VOB and IFO files to MPEG2 there is a free software called VOB2MPG which you can download at www.svcd2dvd.com

Cheers
manolito

[Ghitulescu]

No authoring application I am aware of accepts VOBs and IFOs as input. You will either need demuxed elementary streams (wich will be remuxed by the authoring application), or you can use already muxed MPEG2 files as your input.

Cheers
manolito

Well, TMPGenc DVD author takes a DVD as a source. ;).

Nevertheless, I don't think that authoring a simple menu needs [internal] demuxing and remuxing of a VOB series. It simply needs to create a new VIDEO_TS./IFO/VOB/BUP, while parsing the existing IFO/VOBs for informations. The existing files can be copied to their final destination (automatic renaming).

[manolito]

I think you should forget about this idea (or write your own app for this purpose).

The most powerful app I know to manipulate already authored DVD structures without reauthoring is DVDRemake(Pro) by Dimad. And even this software cannot add a menue to a DVD structure which had no menue before.
Well, TMPGenc DVD author takes a DVD as a source.
Others can do that, too. But they all "unauthor" the source before they can add a menue.

Cheers
manolito

[goonix]

Hi Ghitulescu!

Here is the procedure I do in this case:

1. Create a menu with TMPGenc using dummy movies (short black frames are sufficient).
(Ok, I create the menu with MuxMan, muxing background and subpicture, but TMPGenc works too of course.)
2. PgcEdit -> File -> New DVD
3. PgcEdit -> File -> Import title 1 (and 2 and 3 etc.)
4. PgcEdit -> Menu -> Import menu in VMGM domain
5. Correct button commands if needed
6. Correct and add VM commands if needed
7. Save

Thats all...

The movies remain untouched (no de-/remuxing, no reencoding).

goonix

[Ghitulescu]

Hi Ghitulescu!

Here is the procedure I do in this case:

1. Create a menu with TMPGenc using dummy movies (short black frames are sufficient).
(Ok, I create the menu with MuxMan, muxing background and subpicture, but TMPGenc works too of course.)
2. PgcEdit -> File -> New DVD
3. PgcEdit -> File -> Import title 1 (and 2 and 3 etc.)
4. PgcEdit -> Menu -> Import menu in VMGM domain
5. Correct button commands if needed
6. Correct and add VM commands if needed
7. Save

Thats all...

The movies remain untouched (no de-/remuxing, no reencoding).

goonix

Thanks goonix,

that was the kind of answer I expected. I'll have a try maybe this week if I'll find some time.
:thanks::thanks::thanks:

[skaleton]

A very simple and easy solution is
1) DvdShrink to combine your movies in a single Dvd in the Author section, without compression
2) TitleWriter to make a simple menu with the option of chapter and setup menus

[Ghitulescu]

A very simple and easy solution is
1) DvdShrink to combine your movies in a single Dvd in the Author section, without compression
2) TitleWriter to make a simple menu with the option of chapter and setup menus

How can I use DVDShrink to combine my movies into a single DVD since they do not belong to the same disc (not referenced)? So far I know, DVDShrink can only do this for title sets belonging (derivable from) to a single .IFO. Where is the ADD button? You can only pick up title sets from the list below. If they are not there bye bye.

Now I suggest you do the following:
1. pick a DVD with many titles
2. load VTS_02_0.IFO and not as usual VIDEO_TS.IFO
3. and try to add the clips belonging to VTS_05_0.IFO.

4. Let me know how you managed to do this. The numbers are arbitrary.

[skaleton]

I'm not an expert. Sorry if I misunderstood what you were asking for.
I assumed that your movies were in separate folders
In DvdShrink, I would go to Re-Author
Then in the Dvd Browser, open the first folder and add the title to the compilation (double click or drag-and-drop) and repeat the procedure for the other titles.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8927/capture526200992305am.jpg
If your titles are in the same dvd, yoou can just add the title 2 and the title 5 to the compilation, to take your example

[Ghitulescu]

I'm not an expert. Sorry if I misunderstood what you were asking for.
I assumed that your movies were in separate folders
In DvdShrink, I would go to Re-Author
Then in the Dvd Browser, open the first folder and add the title to the compilation (double click or drag-and-drop) and repeat the procedure for the other titles.
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8927/capture526200992305am.jpg
If your titles are in the same dvd, yoou can just add the title 2 and the title 5 to the compilation, to take your example
Gosh, I'm still using version 2.3 and it's now 3.2. That explains.

You're right, with the new version (3.2.0.15 I think) it works. Now I have to check TitleWriter (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/TitleWriter) since the first comment there exactly this says: no reencoding.

[skaleton]

TitleWriter doesn't even touch the vobs of the titles.
IMHO it makes nice menus considering how quick and easy it is to use as everything is pretty much automated.

[Ghitulescu]

TitleWriter doesn't even touch the vobs of the titles.
IMHO it makes nice menus considering how quick and easy it is to use as everything is pretty much automated.

Is there any guide for idiots like me, since I cannot manage to have the simplest menu possible: 8 short movies with no chapters (because it aint no one - why would one a chapter menu for only one chapter???). Main menu -> movie 1/2/3/4/etc. -> return to Main menu. And play all.

It seems to be the perfect tool - but I have to make it work.

[Ghitulescu]

I couldn't manage to make TitleWriter work. Again.
I browsed again the net, and I've found this GUI for PgcEdit and DVD Styler ->http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=100260 - its author said he had the same problem and no answer, therefore he designed this little proggy to do this simple job: a menu for DVD where the clips/movies are already present.
I'll have a test run towards the week end.

[rjd0309]

I use DVD Styler (as manolito suggested earlier in this thread), but it insists on re-encoding my titles, which unfortunately strips out any Closed Captions.

So I trick DVD Styler by using a dummy VOB (a short, unimportant video clip) for all of my titles. Once DVD Styler has generated the VMGM menu, I use PGC Edit to replace the dummy VOBs with the actual VOBs.

[Robert N.]

Maybe DVD Flick can help you,it accepts about 54 types of video files including Flash and MKV. Might work for you

[manolito]

I couldn't manage to make TitleWriter work. Again.
I browsed again the net, and I've found this GUI for PgcEdit and DVD Styler ->http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=100260 - its author said he had the same problem and no answer, therefore he designed this little proggy to do this simple job: a menu for DVD where the clips/movies are already present.
I'll have a test run towards the week end.
Did you get this Rapid Menue Writer to work for you? I gave it a try, but no success. I suppose it was my version of DVDStyler (1.62 and 1.80.1, both set up to German language). And frankly, the menues created by this app are a little too simple (=Ugly) for me.

I decided to do a few more tests, and the method suggested by rjd0309 works very well. The only thing you have to know is that DVDStyler by default creates a VTS menue and combines several titles into one VTS. PGCEdit does not seem to like this approach, so you should delete the default VTS menue in DVDStyler and add a VideoManager menue instead. Then drag a dummy VOB (or MPG) into the time line. For every additional title just add a new VTS, drag the same dummy VOB or MPG into this new VTS and delete the VTS menue for this VTS.

The DVD creation just takes a couple of seconds within DVStyler (if your dummy file is short enough, a few seconds is all you need). Then open this newly created DVD structure in PGCEdit and replace all the VTS titles with your own title sets.


Cheers
manolito

[Ghitulescu]

Did you get this Rapid Menue Writer to work for you? I gave it a try, but no success. I suppose it was my version of DVDStyler (1.62 and 1.80.1, both set up to German language). And frankly, the menues created by this app are a little too simple (=Ugly) for me.
No, I couldn't make it work. The main issue was that most settings were forgotten when flipping back and forth through its menus and options, images were wrongly linked (image of movie 1 to movie 2 and 3 or viceversa, highlighted image was a black image instead of the original image and so on).
I decided to do a few more tests, and the method suggested by rjd0309 works very well. The only thing you have to know is that DVDStyler by default creates a VTS menue and combines several titles into one VTS. PGCEdit does not seem to like this approach, so you should delete the default VTS menue in DVDStyler and add a VideoManager menue instead. Then drag a dummy VOB (or MPG) into the time line. For every additional title just add a new VTS, drag the same dummy VOB or MPG into this new VTS and delete the VTS menue for this VTS.
I noticed that but I had no idea how to trick it or pgcedit. Thanx for the hint.
There's another issue with dvdstyler. I cannot create a menu with thumbnails in the VMG, it creates by default a VMG menu with PLAY and CHAPTERS (I don't remember right now, this is my Internet PC), then the thumbnails-menu, on step more, and a lot of work in PGCedit to change its behaviour.

Now I do what I was suggested by goonix few posts below (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1289970#post1289970), use TDA then reimport the menus in VMG and modify the links if needed.

[manolito]

I also tried the method suggested by goonix, but I had no success importing the menu created by DVDStyler. The other method described by rjd0309 does work every time, I also find it much easier to use, and it is in no way restricted to DVDStyler. Any authoring app which is able to create a decent menu and make a DVD structure on your HDD will do. So far I tested it with DVDStyler, DeVeDe, AVStoDVD and Nero 6. One restriction, though: The app must must be able to create a video manager menu. If it can only create VTS menus then PGCEdit is unable to replace the VTS titles. (This excludes DVDAuthorGUI from the compatible authoring apps)

The main trick is to use a very short dummy file to create the DVD structure. I found that an MPG dummy file works better than a VOB because most authoring apps will first demux the VOB file.

Here is the work flow using DVDStyler:
I use DVDStyler v. 1.62 because this is the last version which does not contain ffmpeg so it will never try to reencode / transcode your source files. But v. 1.80.1 also works. For PGCEdit my favourite version is 8.6 (last version which is not nagware).

First you need to create your dummy MPG (1 sec length will do). Fire up DVDStyler, do NOT use templates to avoid the issues you mentioned. Make sure that jumppads are enabled in the "Options" menu (this is the default for v. 1.62, but in v. 1.80 jumppads are disabled by default. Another reason to use the older version).

The time line now just contains a VTS menu. Select the "Folders" tab and drag your dummy MPG into the time line. Now add a new title set by rightclicking in the time line. Again drag your dummy file into this new title set. Repeat this procedure up to the desired number of titles for your DVD.

When you are finished you have to add a new video manager menu to the timeline (it is called vmMenu here). Then delete all the VTS menus in every title set so you end up with just one vmMenu to the left of the timeline.

Now select the "Buttons" tab, drag as many buttons as you need into the empty menu window. For each button you must set the properties by rightclicking on it. As the desired action select "jump to titleset1, title1, chapter1" for the first title, select a different title set for the following titles. Specify your fonts and colours, edit the button text, maybe pick a background, add some text boxes...

When you are done you may want to save the project for later use as a template. Click "Burn", make sure you select "create only". After a few seconds you will have a DVD structure saved to your HDD.


Now fire up PGCEdit, under "File" click "Open DVD" to open the DVD structure you just created. If PGCEdit wants to correct some tables let it do it. Scanning BOVs is not needed, you should abort this window.

Highlight the VTST title for your first title in the left pane, under "File" click "Replace VTST Titles". Import your first title here to copy or move your orginal already authored title into this VTS. PGCEdit will ask you if you want to keep all settings from the original (=dummy) VTS, answer YES. Repeat for all remaining titles, close PGCEdit, done.


Cheers
manolito

[laserfan]

I couldn't manage to make TitleWriter work. Again.Although I have never used this GUI, I used to use TyTool to make DVDs which had dvdauthor as its underlying engine and it worked wonderfully well. Maybe you want to take a look at DVDAuthorGUI--looks promising to me!

http://download.videohelp.com/liquid217/dvdauthorgui.pl?p=guide1

[manolito]

Unfortunately DVDAuthorGUI is one of the few authoring apps which will not work with the PgcEdit trick. Reason: DVDAuthorGUI cannot create a video manager menu, it just creates titleset menus.

Cheers
manolito

[Ghitulescu]

This is what I like to have -> http://download.videohelp.com/GFD/3FilmsNoChapters.html. I haven't yet tried the solution of manolito, for lack of time reasons (I have access to my video PC only during the WEs).

In the end, there are two approaches:

1. author a dummy DVD for getting the menus and stuff

2A. import both the menu and the titlesets into a new DVD structure
or alternatively
2B. replace the dummy titlesets with the real movies

3. some VM editing if necessary.

What is the most confortable method depends probably on the complexity of menus and navigation.

[manolito]

This is what I like to have -> http://download.videohelp.com/GFD/3FilmsNoChapters.html. I haven't yet tried the solution of manolito, for lack of time reasons (I have access to my video PC only during the WEs).
Just for clarification: Do you want to jump back to the menu after every title, or do you want all titles to play consecutively and only go back to the menu after the last title? (In DVDStyler the first option is the default, for the second option you need to edit some post commands.)

In the end, there are two approaches:
1. author a dummy DVD for getting the menus and stuff

2A. import both the menu and the titlesets into a new DVD structure
or alternatively
2B. replace the dummy titlesets with the real movies

3. some VM editing if necessary.
1. Absolutely. Just make sure the authoring app can create a VMG menu and use jumppads.

2A. This also requires 3. Without some editing of button commands and the VM this will not work. Since I was too lazy to figure out what editing had to be done, I reverted to

2B. This method does not require any additional editing. Just open the DVD with the dummy titles and replace every dummy title with the real one. Done...


Cheers
manolito

[Ghitulescu]

Just for clarification: Do you want to jump back to the menu after every title, or do you want all titles to play consecutively and only go back to the menu after the last title? (In DVDStyler the first option is the default, for the second option you need to edit some post commands.)

Actually both. There are times when I pack 2 different movies on the same DVDR DL (no PLAY ALL), and there are times when I pack both (or all) parts of a movie/miniseries (PLAY ALL comes in handy).

TDA has the option for a PLAY ALL by default, DVD styler not (by default, one can made it by himself).

Maybe I'll write a guide on this, with images, don't know yet, have first to test them both methods.

[manolito]

TDA has the option for a PLAY ALL by default, DVD styler not (by default, one can made it by himself).
You know that in the properties window for each button there is a checkbox "Play all titles". First I thought that when this box is checked only all titles in the current VTS are played, but fortunately this is not true. If you want to make a "Play all" button then all you have to do is specify the action as: "Jump to titleset 1 title 1 chapter1" and mark the "Play all" checkbox. The result will be that all titles in every titleset will be played consecutively, after the last title in the last titleset it will jump back to the VMG menu. Pretty easy...

Cheers
manolito

[rjd0309]

With each version released, DVDStyler has become more powerful. It's now quite good, though a few bugs remain.

1. Closed Captions
The reason that I felt that I needed to trick DVDStyler in the first place -- using a short VOB or MPG title that I would replace with the real title, using PgcEdit -- is that DVDStyler would strip out any Closed Captions that were present in the video stream. Apparently.

But this turns out not to be quite true. DVDStyler, which is based on the DVDAuthor engine, has been updated so that it won't automatically re-encode your video. You can tell it to "copy, but don't re-encode/transcode." So, it will copy your video stream exactly, including any Closed Caption data (stored in the User Data segment of the GOP headers).

But it somehow turns off a flag that indicates the presence of Closed Captions. Therefore, your software player may incorrectly believe that no Closed Captions are present. But play the dvd on your TV, and the Closed Captions will appear as normal.

2. SetSTN within VMGM menu
Another bug in DVDStyler involves DVDStyler placing SetSTN commands (set audio/subtitle/angle streams) within a VMGM (video manager) menu. PgcEdit complains whenever it sees a SetSTN command in a VMGM menu, and setting the stream within a VMGM has never worked for me. (I'm not sure if the dvd specification even permits the SetSTN command within a VMGM menu.) SetSTN works fine within a titleset menu (VTS menu), or as a pre-title command, though.

3. Button attributes - Subtitle stream
One of the biggest improvements in the releases of DVDStyler is the continuing refinement of button attributes. At one time, a button command might have only been capable of initiating a jump to a title. Now, button commands can also be used to specify which audio or subtitle stream to play in that title. The audio attribute works fine, but so far (version 1.8.0.1), the subtitle attribute doesn't.

4. Chapter timing
Maybe this is a bug in DVDStyler/DVDAuthor, or maybe my math is just screwed up. If so, will somebody please tell me what I've been doing wrong?

Here is an example to illustrate. Let's say that I've got an NTSC title (29.97 fps) as a VOB file, with its chapter marks stored in an IFO file. I'll use a utility such as ChapterXtractor to extract the chapter timing from the IFO file. Let's say that there is a chapter mark at 00:12:34.56.

Now I'll use DVDStyler/DVDAuthor to create a menu for this title. I specify that DVDStyler should not re-encode/transcode the title. Since DVDStyler/DVDAuthor will create its own IFO file, I need to tell it where I want the chapter mark. But giving it the existing chapter location at 00:12:34.56 won't work! I have to specify 00:12:34.56 * (30/29.97), or 00:12:35.32.

If someone knows why, or can tell me that this is all due to some sort of math error that I'm making, please tell me. (You guys who only work in the PAL world of 25 fps don't know the fun you're missing.)

5. IFO CLUT
I suppose that this is not strictly a bug in DVDStyler, but it sure would be nice if DVDStyler would copy the color lookup table from the title's existing IFO file, if the file is present. I hate having to reassign the same color values again and again, in the new IFO files that DVDStyler/DVDAuthor creates, just so that my subtitles will have the correct colors.

6. Play All / Jumppads
This is not a bug in DVDStyler, but a general comment regarding video manager (VMGM) menus versus titleset (VTS) menus. The "Play All" feature works great if all of your titles belong to the same titleset. As soon as one title has finished playing, a JumpVTS_TT command (jump to title in same titleset) is executed, and hey presto, the next title begins playing. But if your titles reside in different titlesets, then things get tricky.

If you're using the trick of specifying a dummy VOB to DVDStyler, so that you can replace it later using PgcEdit, then each dummy VOB (or MPG) must belong to a different titleset (because PgcEdit replaces an entire titleset, not just one title, unless they're one and the same).

If you're doing this from a VMGM menu, you'll soon discover that there's no equivalent to the JumpVTS_TT command. You won't be able to simply jump from one titleset to another, to implement a "Play All" feature. You'll need to enable jumppads.

With "jumppads" enabled, DVDStyler will be able to implement a Play All feature from a VMGM menu. After a title is finished playing, execution returns to the VMGM menu, where a bunch of pre-command spaghetti code (jumppads) makes decisions based upon user flags (general-purpose registers), and decides which title to call next.

If jumpads work for you, great. They don't work on some of my players, though, so I've steered clear of them. This means that if I need a "Play All" feature, I have to have all of my titles in the same titleset.

Robert

[manolito]

Hi rjd0309,

interesting thoughts about DVDStyler, looks like we are hijacking this thread...

Just my two cents:
My DVD authoring needs are very basic, I do not want to spend money on a commercial authoring package, so when I was looking for a free authoring app some time ago there were only three alternatives: DVDAuthorGUI, DVDStyler and GUI for DVDAuthor. (DVDPlanner and MuxMan were just too complicated for me.)

I discarded DVDAuthorGUI immediately because it does not offer any support for creating menus. And GUI for DVDAuthor intimidated me at that time (right now I start to like it more and more). So I concentrated on DVDStyler, and I made many many DVDs using DVDStyler.

Starting with version 1.70 the author (Alex Thuering) decided that he wanted to move his software into a different direction. He integrated ffmpeg to be able to reencode / transcode source files. I always questioned this philosophy (and still do). An authoring app should be just this, there is much better software out there to prepare the source streams. Plus the integration of ffmpeg is quite lousy, the user has no means to control encoding parameters except bitrate. After version 1.70 I tested every new version, but I always went back to version 1.62 which is just a lot easier to use and does not try things it can't do well anyways. (I do replace Mplex and DVDAuthor with newer versions.)


Back to your complaints:
1. Closed Captions
No idea

2. SetSTN within VMGM menu
I had no problems so far, and when I open such a DVD structure in PGCEdit, I just let PGCEdit fix whatever it wants to.

3. Button attributes - Subtitle stream
I just don't know, I do not use subtitle streams

4. Chapter timing
The nasty old drop frames problem. I live in PAL land, but I did get a taste of this fun when I wrote some scripts to automate PAL2NTSC conversion for DVD2SVCD. GUI for DVDAuthor has a checkbox to correct this chapter error. Otherwise you can use a software called ChapterGen to do the math for you. Have a look here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1334729#post1334729
You can convert the result to a DVDAuthor compatible format by using the batch file from the last post in this thread.

6. Play All / Jumppads
Are jumppads evil per se? I always have them enabled, never any problems with any of my hardware players.


Maybe you should give GUI for DVDAuthor a try. Menu creation is a little less intuitive than for DVDStyler, but it can mux and author using MuxMan, it can fix NTSC chapter timing, and it does not try to reencode / transcode your source files.


Cheers
manolito

[rjd0309]

Thanks for your comments, manolito. I've authored a lot if dvds using DVDStyler, but as you said, it has its limitations.

Thanks also for your advice re: GUI for dvdauthor. I've just downloaded and installed it. It looks promising. I'll need to spend some time with it.

Are jumppads evil per se? No idea. I'd like to hear if others have had problems with jumppads.

Cheers,
Robert

[Adub]

Actually, I believe AVStoDVD supports DVD sources now, and it has a built in menu editor so you can layout your titles by hand if you are so inclined.

[manolito]

Any authoring app which is able to create a decent menu and make a DVD structure on your HDD will do. So far I tested it with DVDStyler, DeVeDe, AVStoDVD and Nero 6. One restriction, though: The app must must be able to create a video manager menu. If it can only create VTS menus then PGCEdit is unable to replace the VTS titles. (This excludes DVDAuthorGUI from the compatible authoring apps)
Yes, AVStoDVD works nicely...

Cheers
manolito