Programmable Playback

[Jimi]

I want to put 8 short Video clips on a few identical DVD-R but program the playback order on each disc (differently each time I play it). Or even use Random. Using Reel DVD to author the disc, I can't get the Pioneer standalone player to go into program mode or use Random.

Is this a limitation of DVD-R General Media or is it my authoring program ? Or is it me ? Could I do it in Scenarist ?

Would greatly appreciate some help with this one.

[auenf]

Originally posted by Jimi
I want to put 8 short Video clips on a few identical DVD-R but program the playback order on each disc (differently each time I play it). Or even use Random. Using Reel DVD to author the disc, I can't get the Pioneer standalone player to go into program mode or use Random.

Is this a limitation of DVD-R General Media or is it my authoring program ? Or is it me ? Could I do it in Scenarist ?

Would greatly appreciate some help with this one.

depending on the DVD player random is handled differently.

some do random chapters in the current VTS, others do random VTS.

the pioneer 535 here ive only seen it do random chapters in the current VTS, altho DVDVirtuoso can only create 1 VTS.

what you might want to try (on a rw preferably) is put all the clips in the one VTS with chapter points separating them, and try the random in your player.

to do random in the authoring software, you need command sequences.

Enf...

[Jimi]

Thanks very much for your reply. I must stress that I am interested in Random Playback but what I really want to do is have a disc with 8 short movies on it and choose which of the movies to show each time I play the disc. On one occasion,for example,I might show only movies 3,5 and 6 looping. So really I want to program the player, not initiate Random.

Thanks to Jestorius, I realise that Reel DVD can not help me here...This has to be a Scenarist project, right, a program I do not currently have although I have made a simple disc on Scenarist 2.0 before.

If you have any suggestions about how I can author a disc which I can program I would be very grateful ( using Scenarist ?). I don't have much experience but this is important to me and I really want to learn.

I have my 8 M2Vs as seperate tracks and also as one long M2V which I split with Chapter points in Reel DVD.

Very grateful for any pointers.

mjtxxx@hotmail.com

[Jestorius]

It isn't easy to guess what you wanna do with this disc.
"each time I play the disc" - each time you insert the disc or each time the loop beginns to play?

If you have a structure than you have a x-number of variations to author.

Make a Menu in the FistPlay with unvisible buttons. Each button has a number. It can be a motion menu so it isn't look like a menu. Make x-number buttons. Set the end action as you wanna determine to each sequence.
You can do it in ReelDVD.

I don't have any smart solution without advanced programming.

[Jimi]

Thanks for reply. I think I am making some confusion, I can explain what I want to do with the disk :

I am using the disc to make shows for the public. I will make three identical discs and show them at the same time through three video monitors. There are eight short movies on the disc. When I set the show up, I want to be able to decide which movies should play back from each disc. For one show, I may need to show movies 1 and 2 looping on Monitor 1 and movies 6 and 7 on Monitor 2. The choice of movies would be different each time I set up the show. This is why I cannot have a preditermined order run from a menu and need to program the player.

I don't understand what level of structure I need on the disc to acess the programming features of the standalone playback unit. Could it be something to do with GPRM settings? No chance to see anything like that in Reel DVD !

I tried with the movies as seperate tracks and as 1 long M2V with chapter points - 'next' worked fine but trying to program the disc remained impossible.

[Jestorius]

Sorry, DVD isn't the right media for this showtime.

[Jimi]

...and with VCD it's so easy...

[Jestorius]

This kind of showtime needs a system like Bossanova for Tv-studios.
It costs you more than you can....

[Jimi]

You are right about affording stuff !

Can you answer, though, what the conditions of the authoring must be in order to allow any access to the programming functions of the player ?

[Jestorius]

Sorry, I can't help you with this.
Because you wanna make something I never did before.

Here is a trick:

Make only Motion Menus with your video-clipps. Each of the clip gonna be a background for a MotionMenu with 8 unvisible buttons on each of it.

Fistplay(MotionMenu 8 buttons, each button has a number. You can use DVDMaestro, if not...,I don't have time) -> Each menu-button is linked to other motionmenu etc. You can assign timeout for each menu. If you don't choose a menubutton than it goes to the next menu which is a motinmenu, a movie.

Can you follow..

So, each motionmenu (videoclipp) has a timeout (the time of the videoclipp). If you push a number on the remote it goes to an other menu, if not after timeout it jumps to the end-action-selection.

GoodLuck

[Jestorius]

Just one more thing abouth menubuttons.

In DVDMaestro, menu editor . You can see in the midle of the navigation editor a number. It is a corresponding number to the button.

[Jimi]

Thanks for helping, I certainly learned some stuff.
Non-Linear Access from a Versatile disc, it's got to happen.
I'll post if I get anywhere interesting with this.

[auenf]

Originally posted by Jimi
Thanks very much for your reply. I must stress that I am interested in Random Playback but what I really want to do is have a disc with 8 short movies on it and choose which of the movies to show each time I play the disc. On one occasion,for example,I might show only movies 3,5 and 6 looping. So really I want to program the player, not initiate Random.

Thanks to Jestorius, I realise that Reel DVD can not help me here...This has to be a Scenarist project, right, a program I do not currently have although I have made a simple disc on Scenarist 2.0 before.

If you have any suggestions about how I can author a disc which I can program I would be very grateful ( using Scenarist ?). I don't have much experience but this is important to me and I really want to learn.

I have my 8 M2Vs as seperate tracks and also as one long M2V which I split with Chapter points in Reel DVD.

Very grateful for any pointers.

mjtxxx@hotmail.com

use a playlist then if you want a specific playback order.

Enf...

[Jimi]

The thing is, I need to change the order of playback each time I use the disc. A playlist will just give me one fixed order.

On VCDs burned in Roxio Platinum, had no problem programming the Pioneer standalone to program-play back the tracks in any order I chose...

[Jestorius]

How did you program the standalone from the VCD? You didn't. You made a playlist in the standalone player.

The problem is that you want to control the random playback each and every given time. It is like to make a playlist for every time you play the disc.

The only way to make it as I sad: Author a MotionMenus only DVD with invisible buttons. Define the time-out for the menu. It is the play-time of the background video. Define end-action for the menu.

With the remote you can jump to other MotionMenu which is playing an other movie. Like a disc-jockey you can play what ever you like.

[easy2Bcheesy]

A video randomiser would be a very simple thing to do in Maestro. First of all, set up a GPRM to set random play on/off.

Now, set up a command sequence. After having checked to see if random play is set on, randomise another GPRMs between 1 and 8, then jump to each video depending on the value of the GPRM. If random play isn't on, have it jump back to the main menu.

Now just set the end point of each video to jump to the randomiser command sequence.

The concept of being able to set up a playlist via the authoring software is too complex, even for Maestro or especially the more complicated Scenarist. This is because every conceivable combination of video orders would have to be programmed. And the interface you'd need to produce on-screen would be just as torturous to program.

The idea of having each of the eight movies set up as motion menus with invisible buttons is an interesting idea, but better yet would be to use buttons over video in the VTS. This way you wouldn't be limited to the 1gig limit on the menu system.

You could use invisible buttons, but you'd only have four possible destinations (for Up, Down, Left and Right) meaning you couldn't access all 7 of the remaining other videos. Maybe you could have a discrete number of buttons on-screen as the videos run?

[Jestorius]

It is a very good solution but he wants to control the random play.

28.02.2002 1,2,3,5,6,7,5 loop
01.03.2002 2,3,8,7,6,8,2,4,5 loop
next time 1,1,1,2,3,8, etc.
It's not possible I guess.

With my suggestion he could push the number pad on the remote and jump to any of the 8 movies. If you don't define a Up, Down etc to the menu-button than the only way to make action is to push the corresponding number. The buttons are invisible so nobody can see that it's a menu.

[Jestorius]

easy2Bcheesy

Can you post the randomiser command sequence here.

[easy2Bcheesy]

Ahhhhhhh yes, I get it now - using the 1-8 buttons but keeping them invisible. Yes that would work.

Off the top of my head

Jump to Main Menu if GP0=0
RAN GP1(8)
Jump to Movie1 if GP=1
Jump to Movie2 if GP=2
Jump to Movie3 if GP=3
Jump to Movie4 if GP=4
Jump to Movie5 if GP=5
Jump to Movie6 if GP=6
Jump to Movie7 if GP=7
Jump to Movie8

In this case, GP0 is the flag to say whether the randomiser should be on or off, 0 for not, anything else for on.

GP1 is the randomised GPRM.

Simple!

[Jestorius]

That's nice, thank you.

[Jestorius]

easy2Bcheesy

Can you make this sequence in Maestro and save it as a NavCommand Table and post it here as a attachment?

Or are you using Scenarist?

[Jestorius]

easy2Bcheesy

Can you take a look if the Command Sequence is ok? It's a Maestro .nct file.

It isn't a ZIP file, just rename the extention to nct.

[Jestorius]

Ok the attachment doesn't work. Try this:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dvdmaestro/files/Code/random.nct

[Jestorius]

It isn't correct after saving and reloading the tabel.
I don't get it.

Jump to movieNumber is always 1.

[Jestorius]

1 Jump To Menu1[#1] if [GPO = 0]
2 RAN GP1 , 8
3 Jump To Movie1[#1]if[GP1 = 1]
3 Jump To Movie2[#1]if[GP1 = 2]
4 Jump To Movie3[#1]if[GP1 = 3]
5 .....
6 .....
7 .....
8 Jump To Movie8[#1]if[GP1 = 8]

[auenf]

or (heres my brain working overtime thinking of it and trying to work it out in maestro at the same time)

setup a menu with 8 x 8 buttons, movies 1-8 from top to bottom, order 1-8 left to right

setup the menu so you pick the order, (look at the shrek dvd for a simpler bit of this) then hit play.

i really should use a pic for this...

Enf...



ok, the idea is that you pick one item from each row (like in shrek dvd where you pick one head, one torso and one legs, ie, king head, donkey torso and shrek legs is quite amusing), then when one from each line is selected, you hit play and it plays back in order.

now to actually do this, i guess you'd have to setup a command sequence for each button to set a GPRM value (there is 8 GPRM available right?) for each playback item, and then another command sequence that acts as the play which takes each GPRM in order and plays back the movie that it is refering too.

now if easy understood what i said, hed probably know how to do it too ;)

if your confused, draw it on a piece of paper, then think about it a little.

[Jestorius]

Your suggestion is very good, the only problem is the command sequence.

Is anyone here to post a command sequence for this?

[easy2Bcheesy]

Sorry I've been away. And Jestorius, sorry I can't check your file - but just use my original command sequence and you'd be OK. I've recently used this technique myself.

auenf - what a guy! Yes, everything you are suggesting here would be fine and could work with a fairly minor set of command sequences. BUT... you would need 8 menus, one for each row of eight buttons. So you'd select 1-8 for the first row, then move onto the next menu which highlights the second row of eight, and so on. The reason for this is that Maestro can only handle a maximum of 25 buttons per menu, not the 64+ required here.

You would need to breakdown two GPRMs into four 4-bit registers though otherwise ALL eight of your GPRMs would be used up on this.

It all sounds complicated but so long as you have your Spruce manual and some Maestro experience, you could do this in half an hour with no problems.

[Jestorius]

Do you start allways with ADD GPRM0?

I made a few test sequence for randomized play and it works.

Auenf's solution is the best one. But how the Command Sequence is looking like?

[easy2Bcheesy]

I've done it here, but it's a lot more complicated than I thought it would be. Still, it's fairly easy - it just needs careful planning and a VERY good knowledge of command sequences.

Jestorius - you really need to read the Spruce manual. Command sequences are the toughest part of Spruce to master. I guess I have a big advantage over you guys in that I actually bought Maestro so I get technical support and the manual.

I would give you the outline here but the finished article needed 20 command sequences to get it working and I just don't have the time or the space... sorry... :(

[Jestorius]

Actually the Command Sequence section isn't so good explained. I was expecting much more of the Command Sequence explonation after reading it. It isn't so difficult but the manual needs some source of help to get what each commands means.

Did you get any extra documentation to the software? More exemples?

[auenf]

i think you get command sequence samples on the maestro disc.

my example was just me taking the shrek example (4x3) and not thinking about limitations but your right, 65 buttons will be a little bit of a problem, but using a menu for each row would work, a few different ways to make the menus link to each other, and you could even make it act like it was the one menu with lots of menus if you write it nicely.

as for the command sequence for each button, i only know what to do with command sequences as i play with it a little, but i guess you:

Set GPRMx = n
goto menu

that may not be the exact code, but is basically what you need for each button, x and n changes for each.

for the actual play, i dont know what you'd need, i havent thought that far yet...

Enf...

[Jestorius]

Could you post some samples here or other place to have a discution abouth the function it has. Why did you use this and that , how can we make it better or something like that.

[easy2Bcheesy]

You could have one command sequence per row of buttons, thusly:

MOV GP0, SPRM8
DIV GP0, 1024
MOV GP1, GP0
JUMP to ROW2 (row2 being a menu)

GP1 would be the the number of the first movie you go to.

SPRM8 is system register of which button is highlighted. This stays in memory when you jump to the command sequence, so you can read it off, divide it by 1024 to give you a number between 1-8.

The big problem is that all eight GRPMs will be used on the playlist! You need to split up the GPRMs down (right click on command sequences and change the registers). Splitting two GPRMs into four 4-bit registers will do the job just fine - otherwise all your GPRMs will be used up!

The reason it gets more complicated after this is because you need a lot more command sequences, including a counter that increases after each movie ends plus eight more to see where to jump to next. It's all rather complicated to explain here, but it can be done.

[Jestorius]

To make it easyer I gonna make a simple 4 movie selection project.
To be able to make a "playlist" on the fly I make 4 menus with the 4 buttons targeted to movies. On each menu I place a 5. button (next button) targeted to a Command Sequence:

1 MOV GP0, SPRM8 - GP0 get the same value as it is in the SPRM8, each button has a number like 1. - 1024, 2. - 2048 etc.
2 DIV GP0, 1024 - divide the value in GP0 to get a more handy number from 1-4
3 MOV GP1, GP0 - the result number after dividing GP0 takes place in GP1 for menu nr. 1 and it gonna be GP2 for menu nr.2 etc.
4 JUMP TO, MENU2 - Menu2 is the next menu from Menu1

I make the same for all the 4 Menus. The GP number I gonna watch goes from GP1-GP4. The Jump to Menu number goes from Menu2-Menu4.

Each Movie get a next -> Command Sequence setting.
This is for Movie1:

I have to check which movie was playing last. I guess it is only possible if all the 4 movies are in the same PGC or they are just a Chapters in the same movie. If they are chapters than I can check the current playing chapter by checking the SPRM7 and MOVE the value to GPRMx. How can I check the last played chapter or movie?

1 Jump to Movie1 if GP1 = 1
2 Jump to Movie2 if GP1 = 2
3 Jump to Movie3 if GP1 = 3
4 Jump to Movie4 if GP1 = 4

I'm still thinking, more is comming ....

[Jestorius]

In this case my problem is that I have to choose one of the same four videos. If I had 4 groups of videos with 4 videos in each than I could make SmdSeq.:
1 Jump to Movie1 if GP1 = 1
2 Jump to Movie2 if GP1 = 2
3 Jump to Movie3 if GP1 = 3
4 Jump to Movie4 if GP1 = 4

GP1 at the first time, GP2 after playing the first movie, GP3 after 2. video and GP4 after the 3. video has been played.

The end action for all the videos gonna be a CommandSequence. For the last (4.) group the end action is the Jump to Menu1.

The selections has been made before so all the values is in one of GPRMs.

[auenf]

there is no need to work out which movie plays last, just create 4 command sequences that looks up the apropriate GPRM and plays the right movie, then create a playlist, and make it play all of the command sequences, that should make it go thru each of the command sequences in order, which will playback the movies in the order selected.

i should really try this as well, would be very good maestro practice (altho i only use Virtuoso at work anyway).

Enf...

[Alekstraks]

Hi guy's!

I'd like to come back to Jimi's initial problem:
Then pushing the "program" button on Pioneer's (and Sony's in my case) remote, the programming menu just doesn't appear. His problem was with ReelDVD.
My problem is exactly the same, I'm using DVDmaestro.

When the disc is authored using simple drag'n'drop programs:
DVDit, SpruceUp etc. the programming is possible.
The task is same as Jimi's: every time the disc is played, different sequence on 20 clips should be programmed.

Just any ideas?

Regards,
Aleks