Scenarist PiP Help

[superleo]

I'm creating a compilation of vido clips for a bluray demo disc. The disc is divided into different categories. The different categories have 8 clips.

The menu for each category consist of 10 pages. One page for main menu, a page for "Play All Menu" and, a page Menu per clip,

Once you select the clip the information for that clip is displayed.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm148/CastilloLeo/MusicAnimusicVesion2013.jpg

This is already implemented and it gives a very cool effect as you navigate from clip to clip.

The question about PiP... What I would like to do is to add a Picture in Picture clip as the clip is selected. Like this.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm148/CastilloLeo/MusicAnimusicVesion2013PiP.jpg

I know I can implement this by navigating to a different menu, and create a different menu per clip. However if I do this the navigation will be very slow and very sloppy.

Is there a way that I can implement the PiP with in the same menu page?

[rik1138]

Well, the video background is just a piece of video (even if it's a static image). You can easily put a PIP stream in it and activate it whenever (if it's an in-mux PIP, it'll just start playing at that point though. I can't remember if you can do an out-of-mux PIP video or not, never tried...)

You can have multiple PIPs too, so if your bitrate allows it, you might be able to have all of them in one stream (not sure what the limit on numbers of PIPs is though, Scenarist will be nice enough to tell you when you hit it... :) )

But, basically, even though you think it's a 'menu', the blu-ray players just see a video stream and an IG layer (menu). If you can do it in a movie, you can do it in your menu video.

If your background is a static image, you might have to encode it as a video with a duration of some amount of seconds (how ever long your PIP is).

[superleo]

Thanks rik for taking the time. That is exactly how its designed. The background image is actually a 30 seconds of an encoded 1080P video that loops and it has the IG menu with in it.

Having an in-mux PiP will only work if I use a different menu and it navigates to that menu when selected (auto select). The problem that I see by implementing it this way is that there would be a pause/brake while going to the next menu. It would have to be out-of-mux PiP, but then I have the challenge that the PiP video needs to loop until the button is selected or navigated to another button, plus if done in the same "background video" as secondary video, I guess I would need to have 8 out-of-mux secondary videos with in the same PlayItem?

[superleo]

I did a lot more reading and a little testing. The PiP in this case would have to be out-of-mux and according to Scenarist the PiP video needs to be the same codec as the main video, also and I'm somewhat unclear on the secondary video resolution, since as per the manual it states that BD standards do not support full HD resolution video for the secondary video and recommends using SD video for the secondary video.

In the case of this specific project some clips have different codecs and different scan ration making it even more challenging. I'm still researching the PiP... I let everyone know either way.

[rik1138]

Yeah, in mux or out of mux, Codecs and frame rates have to match. (Out of mux _might_ be more flexible, but I don't think so).

And you'd want to do SD resolution video (you can do 720p also, but it's not necessary for what you want).

Once you pick your clips, you can convert them to SD size and even do framerate conversion on them and get them the same codec as the menu. Depending on how the frame rate conversion is done, it might make them slightly stutter-y, but it probably wouldn't be too noticeable in the tiny window.

While PiP is definitely a cool feature, it really isn't very user friendly (especially when doing what you are trying to do... :) )

[superleo]

At this moment it seems that this disc will probably skip the PiP implementation. I'll still research it and test it for the next disc. Re-encoding just 20-30 seconds of each clip to SD and all to the same codec and ratio won't be as bad, but when you have to do 50 or so ... which would include cutting and then re-encoding, then your talking some extra time for the coolness factor.

Does any one know of any BDs that would have PiP implementation?

[rik1138]

You mean which ones have PIPs in the movie? Try these:
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/search.php?action=search&other_bonusview=1&sortby=title

Check the description of the Extras to make sure it has PIP, but 'Bonus View' on Blu-ray.com usually means PIP.