HDMV Browsable Slideshows for menus

[oglaf]

Hi everyone! I'm using Scenarist BD 5.7.2.

So a client wants a DVD-style menu for their Blu-ray, with background still pages with video transitions instead of a hierarchical IG on one looping still or video.

I'm attempting to do this with a browsable slideshow. So for example, let's say I have pages A B and C with IGs A B and C. I can make a browsable slideshow playlist with Playtimes A, B and C. Each PlayItem is a single clip of the corresponding background video and IG. When the user presses the button to change pages, the disc changes IG and executes a PlayPLatMk command. It seems to work well on disc, in SQC and on TMT.

The problem I have now is getting animated transitions to work. I have added video to the playlist, so there are five PlayItems, but still only three PlayMks. So the clips in the Playlist are in order

1. A
2. transition A to B
3. B
4. transition A to C
5. C

All video clips are encoded at 20 Mbps AVC CBR, MUI'd as Browsable Slideshow. When I mux, I get a video buffer underflow error on part 2, the transition from A to B.

Any ideas? Anything I'm not taking into account, encoding-wise or spec-wise?

[sneaker_ger]

Anything I'm not taking into account, encoding-wise or spec-wise?
You haven't really told us much about how you are enconding.

[oglaf]

I have a number of encoders at hand--Cinevision/TotalCode, Sirius Pixels, CinemaCraft HDe, Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder, and x264.

For menus I typically use x264 with the following non-standard options: bitrate=20000 / ratetol=1.0 / vbv_maxrate=20000 / vbv_bufsize=20000 / nal_hrd=cbr. The other encoders make these options very hard or impossible to set.

I remember reading somewhere that the vbv_bufsize/CPB had to be greater than or equal to the bitrate/vbv_maxrate... or am I misremembering that?

[sneaker_ger]

I remember reading somewhere that the vbv_bufsize/CPB had to be greater than or equal to the bitrate/vbv_maxrate... or am I misremembering that?
It's the other way around.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533
http://www.x264bluray.com/home/1080i-p

[dvdboy]

I didn't think you could mix video and 'browsable slideshow' stills. Perhaps if you encoded your stills as 5s videos which hold infinitely it might work...