UOP Items?

[JMorgan]

I've recently discovered the joys of prohibiting UOP!

Some of them are confusing to me:

TimePlay, TimeSearch
PTT_Play,PTT_Search
TitlePlay
TimeSearch, PTTSearch
Resume
Still Off
Pause On

What are the differences between these and does anyone know what prohibiting these will do?

Thanks in advance.

[mpucoder]

Prohibiting a UOP prevents the user from pressing the associated button - real buttons, that is, on the player or remote.
TimePlay and TimeSearch - going to arbitrary points in the movie based on timecode
PTT_Play and PTT_search - using the player's chapter menu (not the one on disk)
TitlePlay - using the player's title menu (again, not the menu on the disk)
Resume - pressing the resume button (which will interrupt a menu, and return to the movie)
StillOff - usually the pause button does this, but it means "unpause"
PauseOn - pause, freeze (used by some to keep you from getting a good look at a single frame that would be rated "X" and got by the censors)

Usual uses are obnoxious things like forcing you to watch a trailer, or the FBI warning, by disabling next, forward scan, stop, etc.

[JMorgan]

I have a PGC with 4 chapters set in it - I went through and marked "Prohibited" on almost all of the UOPs in that PGC because I don't want the user to be able to jump to other PGCs.

But now you can't skip to the different chapters within that PGC (using the "Skip" button on my remote) Which ones allow you to do that?

I left "TimeSearch, PTT Search" on Permitted but that didn't seem to do the trick. I'm guessing "Next PGC" and "Prev PGC"
are the ones.

Incidentally, I haven't made any "Next PGC" or "Prev PGC" links within that PGC. Perhaps I should do that as well?

Thanks again for your help.

[mpucoder]

The UOP you allowed is the "search", or UOP5. Skip should be UOP1 (PTT play/search), but it may be considered "forward scan", which is UOP8. There is a list of the UOPs, and at what granularity they are (title, PGC, or VOBU) at http://mpucoder.kewlhair.com/DVD/uops.html
I should probably add the most common button names to that chart.

No, you don't need to make any links, that is another set of operations, and would require more PGCs.

[JMorgan]

I know I left "Forward Scan" and "Backward Search" permitted as well and the "Skip" button still didn't work - so it must be UOP1 like you suggested - I will try that as well.

But won't doing this also open up all the other chapters as well? In other words, in WinDVD, they'll be able to right click, Chapter, and then select any other chapter?

Would changing the Access Restriction Flag on the PGCs I don't want selected keep them off the chapter menu?

[mpucoder]

UOP 5 will block the ability to select a chapter at random.
Note: to use the chapter menu UOP 1 and 5 must both be 0 (allowed), to seek by time UOP 0 and 5 must both be 0 (not to mention it must be a one-sequential PGC to have a time map).
Restricted access has nothing to do with chapter points, those are set seperately to programs within the PGC. While we're on the subject, the next button does not go to the next chapter, but to the next program (which may be mid-chapter).

[JMorgan]

I tried it again last night -

set UOP1 and UOP5 to 0 (permit.) others to 1.

On my computer it worked great, chapter menu came up for the four chapters in the one PGC.

But on my standalone player, Skip still gave me the No Operation sign. It's an older player (3 yrs.) - could it be that my Skip button is actually a Next button (there is no Next button on the remote). Is this something that is common on other players? Or is there another UOP I should try?

On earlier burns, when I had it all on 0 (permitted) - the Skip button jumped to the next chapter.

Also, you mention one-sequential PGC to have time map. I've read in other posts that to get the time code to display on the player that you need this. In another post they mentioned that all links need to be set to O as well. Could you elaborate?

[mpucoder]

Setting all links to zero is the major part of creating a one-sequential PGC. The other is no looping or stills. The term one-sequential means one PGC, and it plays sequentially. The reason only these can have a timeline should be obvious, linking in another PGC, or looping would complicate the timeline. What timecode would be in the video itself? And how could a table which indexes the video by time be constructed?
You might think, well, a simple straight timeline of more than one PGC should be possible, but to simplify player design the decision was made not to allow that. Without any links, it's certain that there is a linear timeline.

As for which UOP disables that particular button, I guess you'll have to experiment. I hope you are using RW media. Try them one at a time.

[JMorgan]

Then I have one more question -

What happens after a PGC with no links finishes?

I have 2 titles - the first has the root, entry menus, and different clips. The 2nd title has the one PGC. Right now it has a Post link back to a menu in the first title. If I leave Post empty - where does it go?

[mpucoder]

What happens if there are no post commands or next link depends on the player. Mine just stops with the Sony logo (the same as if I eject the disk).
A post command back to a menu is normal, the PGC is still a one-sequential. In fact, post commands to anywhere will not upset that, just each PGC starts from time 0:00, and the change from one to another will not be seamless.

[JMorgan]

Well that did it.

Set Next and Prev UOPs to 0 and all worked fine. And I finally got timecode to display on the standalone!

Thanks much, mpucoder.