Mark Types in Scenarist BD

[dvdboy]

The Scenarist manual talks very little about Mark Types, other than there are two types - Entry Mark and Link Point.

Are these like cells and chapters in DVD? Entry Marks are classic 'Chapter Points' but Link Points are 'chapters' that can only be accessed by programming?

[mp3dom]

Yes, the usefulness of Link Point is for mainly (but not only) for layer break. You can have a 'mark' for layer break that can't be accessed with the remote controller (and indeed you don't want a chapter on layer break).

[dvdboy]

Thanks. Out of interest, why would you not want a chapter on a layer break? I've never had an issue before, and in fact a couple of times I have placed a layer break on a timecode in Scenarist BD.

[mp3dom]

A chapter on layer break is fine as long as that chapter is intended (i.e. it is needed in the movie). If you have 12 chapters on the movie and you don't have a valid layer break (using those chapters) there's no need to add a 13th chapter only for a layer break. Also layer break is one of the latest thing you do (while pre-mastering) which means that all the menu have already been done (both graphic and programming side).

[rik1138]

Actually, there's no reason to use a link-point for a layer break. Scenarist can place the layer break anywhere you want by timecode. Layer breaks are invisible to the user on Blu-ray, so all you have to do is set the layer break anywhere in the video that makes layer 0 larger than layer 1 and you are set... No need to mess with link points (if you don't want to...).

Link points are used a lot in Java programming though (I never used them in HDMV programming that I can recall). Warner Bros, for example, has these 'Maximum Movie Modes' on some of their titles that have PIP interviews and such. They don't want the normal feature chapter stops to be altered, but want the user to be able to jump to the start of each PIP point, so they put link points before each PIP start time. Then, if the user hits 'Chapter forward' on the remote, they get the normal feature chapter points. If they press the Left or Right arrow on the remote, it jumps to the 'Pods' (where the PIPs start, or other interesting things). It makes the code simple (jump to next link point) vs keeping a list of all the timecodes you want to jump to (especially if they change for any reason...), and the same code can be used on multiple discs.

I use them in interactive features a lot too, hitting chapter points can mean one thing, hitting link points means another, hitting PlayItem boundries can even be a third thing...