D2SCCD: a "Movie Frame Change CD Picture" plugin for DVD2SVCD

[RB]

Hi,

I'm releasing D2SCCD v1.2 to the public, a "plugin" for DVD2SVCD if you want to call it so. Read http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39653 and below for more information. I hope this will be useful for someone. It is for me :) Comments welcome.

Download here: http://64.33.11.249/files/d2sccd.zip
Screenshot here: http://64.33.11.249/files/d2sccd.jpg

[EDIT:] New version and thread is at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44445. Please don't post here anymore!

Here's the readme:



DVD2SVCD Change CD Picture (D2SCCD) 1.2 by RB
=============================================

Release : 1.2
Date : Thursday, January 9, 2003


1. What's this?
2. How to install
3. Settings
4. Known issues
5. Help!
6. Freeware
7. History


1. What's this?
---------------

D2SCCD is an utility you can use with DVD2SVCD (see
http://www.dvd2svcd.org) to dynamically generate "Change CD Pictures"
during DVD2SVCD's conversion process.

With D2SCCD installed, if you set up DVD2SVCD to use a Change CD
Picture, then for each (but the last, of course) CD image file DVD2SVCD
builds, D2SCCD will create a Change CD Picture from either the last
movie frame on the current CD or the first movie frame on the next CD
(see 2. How to install). It will also put some configurable text on that
picture. All you need to do is to install D2SCCD as described below,
configure it, and your CD image files created by DVD2SVCD will use this
"movie based" Change CD Picture.

To make a long story short, the visual effect of this is that at the
time the current CD has finished playing, the movie pauses and your
custom "Need next CD" text is being displayed.

This is something I wanted for my SVCDs for a long time. It's a pity we
have to change CDs most of the time, I think this makes it a little more
bearable :-)

D2SCCD can also "fix" DVD2SVCD's handling of Title and Last CD pictures
and add audio to your Title pictures, see "3. Settings", below.


2. How to install
-----------------

First, create a subdirectory for D2SCCD in your DVD2SVCD installation
folder, like 'C:\Program Files\dvd2svcd\d2sccd'. The name of the
directory doesn't matter, but it must be in the DVD2SVCD installation
folder.

Next, unzip all the files in the ZIP file to this directory (you don't
need the 'Source' directory, though) and run d2sccd.exe to configure it.
If there are any missing files, you'll get a warning.


3. Settings
-----------

---Preview---

The Preview frame provides a preview as to how a a dynamically
generated Change CD picture with text will look like.

---Text Settings---

Enter the text you want to place on each generated Change CD picture.
Note that as shown in the default Text Setting, you can use the %d
token to insert the next CD number at runtime. For instance, for a 3 CD
movie, if you enter "Need CD %d, please..." in the Text box, you'll see

Need CD 2, please...
Need CD 3, please...

on your screen when you play the movie and it's time to change CDs. If
the text is too long to fit into a single line, it will be wrapped
automatically. You can force a line break using an '\n' in your text
(example: Please insert disk %d...\n\nCome on, get up!)

Click "Font..." to choose a different font for the text, check "Drop
Shadow" to add a drop shadow effect to the text.

---Picture Frame---

Select which frame from the film to use for the Change CD pictures.
This can be either the last frame on the current CD or the first on the
next CD. If you want to use the latter, you should uncheck "CD Overlap
seconds" on the bbMPEG tab in DVD2SVCD, otherwise the "movie paused"
effect is gone when the Change CD picture is displayed because the
picture will be actually a few frames back.

If you want a specific first/last picture frame, just use Frame
Selection in DVD2SVCD and split at the desired frame.

Note that D2SCCD will generate Change CD pictures only if you actually
check "ChangeCD pic." on the CD Image tab in DVD2SVCD.

---Configuration---

[ ] Integrate with DVD2SVCD

This needs to be checked for D2SCCD to be called by DVD2SVCD during
the CD image creation process so D2SCCD can do its work. If you put
D2SCCD in the wrong directory (i.e. not a directory inside the
DVD2SVCD folder), this option will be unavailable.

Checking this option will actually change the 'VCDXBuild' path on
DVD2SVCD's CD Image tab to point at D2SCCD. D2SCCD does it's work
and then in turn calls VCDXBuild to generate images. As you may
guess, this also means that D2SCCD is only useful if you mark the
'VCDXBuild' radio button in DVD2SVCD - CD Image tab.

[ ] Handle Title Picture/Handle Last CD Picture

This is a "fix" for DVD2SVCD's somewhat strange handling of Title
and LastCD pictures. DVD2SVCD does some resizing and adds borders
around the pictures which most of the times screws up the pictures
aspect ratio and well, looks not so well. So if you check "Title
picture" and/or "LastCD pic." on DVD2SVCD's CD Image tab and check
the appropriate boxes in D2SCCD, D2SCCD will also take over the
task of generating the Title/LastCD MPEG stills from the pictures
you pointed at in DVD2SVCD. For best results, use 768x576 pictures
for PAL SVCDs and 640x480 pictures for NTSC SVCDs. Images should be
true color and must be in the Windows Bitmap (.BMP) format.

[ ] Add Audio to Title Picture

This let's you play an MPEG-2 audio file while the Title picture is
being displayed. While the audio plays, press either Next, Play,
Return or key 1 on your remote to start the main movie. By default,
the audio is played once and then after a 5 seconds delay the main
movie starts automatically.

For this to work, 'Title picture' has to be checked in DVD2SVCD on
the CD Image tab and the audio file name must exist with the same
file name as the Title picture, but an .MP2 extension. For example,
if your Title picture in DVD2SVCD is C:\Program
Files\DVD2SVCD\DefaultTitlePicture.bmp, then the expected audio
file name is C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DefaultTitlePicture.mp2. It
doesn't harm if you check this option but the audio file doesn't
exist, just audio won't be added to the Title picture then.

Note that the audio file needs to be really an MP2 (MPEG Layer 2
Audio) file, it cannot be some other format renamed to *.mp2. You
can use BeSweet that comes with DVD2SVCD to convert your favorite
audio file to MP2.

You may want to lower the CD sizes on DVD2SVCD's Bitrate tab a
little bit (just type it in) if you plan on using larger audio
files (~ more than 500 kB) because DVD2SVCD is unaware of the audio
file addition which may result in slightly too large CD image
files.

[ ] Loop infinitely

As you may guess, this plays the title audio forever in a loop.
Press either Next, Play, Return or key 1 on your remote to
start the main movie.

---MPEG Stills Quality (kB)---

This controls the maximum size (and thus quality) of the various
Title/Last CD/Change CD MPEG "picture" stills generated by D2SCCD
(still frames on SVCDs are not really pictures but special MPEG Still
Picture streams). Leave this at maximum quality (200 kB) unless you get
slightly too large CD image files. The MPEG stills will be usually
smaller, but never larger than what you specify here.

Click OK to save your custom settings. Of course you can re-configure
D2SCCD this way at any time.

D2SCCD will log it's activities to file D2SCCD_MJPEGTools_log.txt in the
directory where the bin/cue files are created. Tile/Change CD/Last CD
Pictures (converted to JPEG) generated by D2SCCD can be found in the
'Muxed' folder of the current encode.


4. Known issues
---------------

- D2SCCD will only work properly when you use DVD2SVCD to create
SVCDs, NOT VCDs.

- picture quality will not be optimal for Win9x/ME users. Sorry, no fix
for this unless I find some free high quality image resizing code so
I no longer have to use StretchBlt() (Win9x/ME does not support the
HALFTONE stretch blit mode which produces high quality images in
NT/2000/XP).

- tested with PAL movies only so far, but designed to work with both
PAL and NTSC.


5. Help!
--------

For suggestions, bug reports and general discussion, please register at
http://forum.doom9.org and post to the following thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40374

If you feel like you absolutely need to contact me directly, again
register at http://forum.doom9.org and send member RB (me) a private
message.


6. Freeware
-----------

D2SCCD is freeware. No strings attached. D2SCCD was basically written by
"plugging it into" the DVD2AVI source code and also uses Smalleranimal's
free jpeglib library (http://www.smalleranimals.com/jpegfile.htm).
Source code for D2SCCD is included and released under GPL. The
MJPEGTools included with D2SCCD are not written by me, they are a Win32
compilation of the MJPEG/Linux tools
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/mjpeg), the binaries included here can
be found at ftp://ftp.vcdimager.org/pub/mjpegtools/.


7. History
----------

01/09/2003 v1.2

- Added: Title audio looping is now optional
- Added: Change CD Text can now be multiple lines
- Added: warning when title audio file cannot be found
- Changed: Title audio file is now expected in non-multiplexed
MP2 format (*.mp2)


12/17/2002 v1.1

- Added: handling of Title/Last CD pictures
- Added: option to add audio to Title picture
- Added: MPEG Stills quality setting
- Added: Integrate with DVD2SVCD option (you no loner need to
change the VCDXBuild path in DVD2SVCD manually)

- Fixed: %d token was sometimes replaced by the number 2 in the
.INI file when clicking OK
- Fixed: preview was sometimes not properly repainted


12/13/2002 v1.0

- First release on Friday the 13th... :-)

________________________________________________________________________________
Germany, January 2003

[markrb]

You couldn't wait a day? You realize you are jinxed now. :) Unless you are Jewish and the number 13 is actually good. I am not leaving my house today.

Quick question. Is there a way to choose the frame to use? What if the first and/or last frame are blank?

Thanks for this tool,
Mark

[RB]

Originally posted by markrb
Quick question. Is there a way to choose the frame to use? What if the first and/or last frame are blank?


Unfortunately, no, you cannot choose a specific frame. This goes a little beyond the scope of this utility, I'm afraid :).

If you want a specific frame, use frame selection in DVD2SVCD or don't make images and use the latest version of VCDEasy for building. In VCDEasy, you can now play the MPEG and save a picture from it, next convert it to MPEG still ... you get the idea.

RB

[winxi]

Hi!

Thanks for that tool, works fine so far. But i recogniced, that i can´t do a crash recovery after using it because of a "file not found" error message from DVD2SVCD.

greetings, winxi

[RB]

From what step are you trying the crash recovery? What operating system? Does it say which file is missing? I don't delete any files that I didn't create.

[RB]

I think I found a potential problem. Just uploaded a new version. Download and try again.

[winxi]

Ok, error of mine. I made a second attempt and this time it let me do the crach recovery. So, it obviously has nothing to do with your tool.
Another thing: Some time ago I also tried to make a small plugin for DVD2SVCD to let the title pic be played infinite. I experimented around and made a program which also let me put a backround music to the titlepic.
Could you add something like that to your GUI? If you would take my help, i could also write a function in C to change the xml-file (with parameters: time for title pic, path of background music, path of the xml), which you could easily add to your tool. The time for the title pic and the path of audio are user-specified, and the path of the xml is in the VCDXVBuild commandline.

Just a suggestion, winxi

PS: please excuse my bad english

[winxi]

Here the plugin for the plugin. Now the titlepic is shown with music, till you press play on your remote in addition to the great change cd pictures.
Please try out, when you are intersested.

greetings, winxi

[RB]

Thanks. I'm waiting for the attachment to be approved and then I'll integrate it with D2SCCD.

[winxi]

You can download the zip also here (www.free.pages.at/winxi/editxml.zip)!

winxi

[The eDealer]

select 'All Files (*.*)' from the File Type list and select d2sccd.exe in the folder we used above, click Open.

Sorry, this is in Version 1.1.0 build 1c not possible. There ist no option to select an exe File. And simply to overwrite is also not possible.
What can i do, i couldn't activate it ??

Sorry for my english :rolleyes:

[winxi]

Hi!

For sure you can choose it. Have you really tried to choose d2sccd.exe instead of the VCDBuild.exe under the cd image tab? Have you really choosen "All files (*.*)" before, just as rb described?
If you don´t get the clue, you can try to edit the dvd2svcd.ini manually. Open it in an editor an search for a line like this:

VCDXBuild Executable=C:\Programme\DVD2SVCD\VCDXBuild\VCDXbuild.exe

and change it into a line like this:

VCDXBuild Executable=C:\Programme\DVD2SVCD\d2sccd\d2sccd.exe

Save it and restart DVD2SVCD. Now it should work!

greetings, winxi

[RB]

Originally posted by winxi
You can download the zip also here (www.free.pages.at/winxi/editxml.zip)!


OK, got it and needed to eliminate the bugs first ;) I'll post a new version this week.

[winxi]

I'll post a new version this week.
Yeah, I´m looking forward to it.


OK, got it and needed to eliminate the bugs first
I thought it worked :confused:

winxi

[RB]

Your EXE crashed on me when I tried it with an existing, valid XML file. I recompiled it in VC++ 6.0 and it sort of "worked", but the new XML was like 29 megs. That's because you don't null-terminate the lines as you read the file into the 'puffer' array and you later use fputs() to write back... I really wonder how it could work for you :)

[winxi]

Strange...
You are right, i forgot the \0 at the end of the lines. But since it worked without any problems on my machine, i didn´t notice that.

thanks, winxi

just uploaded a version, that should work

[starwars_phan]

Dealer,

I may know what your problem is, make sure you are clicking the small folder icon next to "VCDXBuild" NOT the one next to "changeCD pic" to select the d2sccd.exe. I tried it the wrong way around for about 10 minutes before I went back and re-read the instructions. So if english is not your first language you may have mixed it up too (at least you have an excuse).

Cheers

Phan

[RB]

Originally posted by starwars_phan
I tried it the wrong way around for about 10 minutes before I went back and re-read the instructions. So if english is not your first language you may have mixed it up too (at least you have an excuse).
Well, English is not my native language either (I'm German), so maybe that's why it's confusing :). Can you suggest a better way to write that sentence, so it is clear where one should click to change the executable path?

[RB]

Just uploaded new version 1.1 (see updated readme on top).

@winxi: please test the title picture audio stuff. I don't have a standalone player to test, but I needed to make a few changes to your audio XML code so the audio would loop infinitely in WinDVD and I could click 'Play' to start the main movie. Thanks.

[winxi]

Hi RB!
First of all: Nice and pretty useful tool, it works pretty fine ;) !

Now to the title audio stuff:
the changes to my audio xml code I see, are:

<prev ref="chapter-00"/>
<default ref="chapter-01"/>
<loop jump-timing="immediate">0</loop>

1) I tested it, and for me in WinDVD the only button was "next" to start the main movie. On my standalone player "play" and "next" work - it seems that my standalone takes "deafult" as "play". But I think, that´s from player to player different.

2) My code was supposed to play the audio only once.

I´m happy to use d2sccd with dvd2svcd :cool:, as it helps a lot, so please take the following just as suggestions for a possible future release:

-path selection for the audio, because now you can´t select a already encoded titlepic in DVD2SVCD, because it would have the exact same filename as the titleaudio.
-it would be great, if you could choose even an other format for the audio than *.mpg. You could encode it with besweet commandline to mp2 and multiplex it with mplex.exe commandline to mpg (automatically with d2sccd).
-selection between playing the audio once or in loop.

best regards, winxi :)

[RB]

What version of WinDVD do you use? Mine is 4.0.11.215.

Audio looping: I thought it was pretty pointless to play the audio only once :)

About the audio MPEG path problem: are you saying that in DVD2SVCD, you can set "Title picture" to an MPEG rather than a BMP file and it will work as expected (never tried that)? I tried to somehow "automate" the audio selection so you don't have to run D2SCCD every time you want a different title audio.

It's pretty unlikely that I'll add audio conversion/muxing code, it's not a major hassle to do it manually, IMHO. But adding an option for looping/non looping audio won't be too hard. New version won't be out this year anymore, though :)

Thanks for testing!

[arlsair]

Nice tool, really.

When I set my favorite text, it not fits in one line. So is there a command to switch to the next line ?

[winxi]

What version of WinDVD do you use? Mine is 4.0.11.215.
I use a much older version (3.0). That may be the problem.
Audio looping: I thought it was pretty pointless to play the audio only once
I don´t agree. Imagine to use a very short audio, like the "audience is listening" for example. It would be quite annoying to here it in a loop.
About the audio MPEG path problem: are you saying that in DVD2SVCD, you can set "Title picture" to an MPEG rather than a BMP file and it will work as expected (never tried that)?
Yes, when you choose a *.mpg as titlepicture in DVD2SVCD, it won´t be converted. I used this before because I encoded the MPEG Stills myself. It´s now impossible because audio and titlepic would have the same filename. It´s not a serious issue since d2sccd overtakes the title pic encoding. But if somebody wants for some reason to choose an already encoded MPEG Sill for title picture in DVD2SVCD together with audio in d2sccd, it´s now impossible.
I tried to somehow "automate" the audio selection so you don't have to run D2SCCD every time you want a different title audio.
Wouldn´t it have the same effect to choose the audio - path once in the GUI and leave it untouched?
New version won't be out this year anymore
I didn´t want to stress you. As I said - just suggestions!;)

thanks for the tool again, winxi

[RB]

Originally posted by arlsair
Nice tool, really.

When I set my favorite text, it not fits in one line. So is there a command to switch to the next line ?

Have you tried a smaller font? Just click the Font... button.

[RB]

Originally posted by winxi
I don´t agree. Imagine to use a very short audio, like the "audience is listening" for example. It would be quite annoying to here it in a loop.

OK, point taken.


Wouldn´t it have the same effect to choose the audio - path once in the GUI and leave it untouched?

No, unless I'm missing something. The objective was to make the audio "depend" on the title picture you choose in DVD2SVCD. So if you want a different title picture with audio, just copy/rename the audio file and point at the picture in DVD2SVCD, no need to reconfigure D2SCCD. Am I making sense?

[RB]

@markrb (moderator): as some people actually seem to find this tool useful :), what about making this thread sticky? Hope I don't trying to make this more important than it is, though...

[winxi]

So if you want a different title picture with audio, just copy/rename the audio file and point at the picture in DVD2SVCD, no need to reconfigure D2SCCD. Am I making sense?
Yes

[arlsair]

Originally posted by RB
Have you tried a smaller font? Just click the Font... button.

Yes, but when I sit more than 2 meters away from my TV, I have to clean my classes to be able to read the text.
The text is so long, that I have to set the font-size to 16. And that is too small.

[RB]

OK, next version will allow for multiple lines of text.

[arlsair]

Thanks

[RB]

New version 1.2 is out.

[winxi]

Thank you...
Quite flexible right now! Short question: is it still possible to choose an already multiplexed *.mpg for title audio, or has it to be a *.mp2?

winxi

[RB]

No, now it's got to be a non-multiplexed MP2 file, no way around that :)

[onesoul]

Hi, first I wanna say very nice work RB and winxi for the contributions.
I just want to ask if it's possible instead of having a mpeg still as title picture, could it be a mpeg2 video file?

Cheers

[winxi]

Try this:
-uncheck Handle Title Picture in d2sccd
-simple choose your mpeg2 video file as titlepicture in dvd2svcd, it won´t be converted!

But take care of disc space, since the title picture (movie) doesn´t effect the bitrate calculation of dvd2svcd.

greets, winxi

[RB]

Right, that should work. You should even be able to leave "Handle Title Picture" checked in D2SCCD. It will see that it is really an MPEG already and will not do any conversion.

[onesoul]

Ok, thanks :)
Another thing, at the known issues it says it is only compatible with svcds but is also compatible with vcd 2.0. Which leads to another issue envolving the new vcd header trick plugin @ http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42406 , for the ones using that plugin (it's not my case) which tricks the dvd player changing the header for playing mpeg2 files (ok, I know it was obvious :)) will have problems when using D2SCCD because it uses the path for vcdxbuild. I think there's a way to chain the 2 plugins, any suggestions?

Cheers

[RB]

Great to see it works with VCD. I simply wrote it because I didn't test it :).

The next version will coexist with other plugins. Can't tell yet when I'll have the time to implement this, though.

[onesoul]

Great :)
The universe gets wider then :)
But please note that I said vcd 2.0 and not vcd 1.1. Vcd 2.0 supports pbc and picture stills, vcd 1.1 doesn't.
Thanks

[dacow]

Actually, I guess it's quite simple to chain d2sccd and vcd header trick. You have to do a vcdxbuild to vcdxbuild transfer, preferrably vcd header trick plugin last since it modifies .xml file used by vcdxbuild.

[RB]

Actually, it just occured to me that you can chain any number of "VCDXBuild plugins" yourself. Create a batch file that calls every "plugin" as follows:

start /wait c:\progra~1\dvd2scvd\d2sccd\d2sccd.exe %*
start /wait c:\progra~1\dvd2scvd\someplugin\plugin.exe %*
start /wait c:\progra~1\dvd2scvd\yetanotherplugin\plugin.exe %*

etc. Then simply change the path to VCDXBuild to point to this batch file on the CD Image tab in DVD2SVCD and you are done. Note however that every time you run d2sccd.exe manually to configure it and leave "Integrate with DVD2SVCD" checked it will reset the VCDXBuild path spec in DVD2SVCD to point to itself. You can simply uncheck this option because you "manually" integrated D2SCCD with DVD2SVCD by means of the batch file.

The only drawback is that every plugin will run vcdxbuild because they are unaware of each other...

[RB]

I should add that if using this batch method, D2SCCD should be the last plugin because it captures the VCDXBuild output to a file (see readme) because DVD2SVCD is unable to do so by itself any longer when VCDXBuild is run through a "plugin". I'm not sure the other plugin mentioned here does this.

[onesoul]

This tool you made is great, for some reason now the svcd with title picture will play at synch at the stand alone player even without audio. Before, it wouldn't stay at synch (Toshiba sd210 issue).
But I would like to point that when I let d2sccd handle the title picture, the svcd that would have an anamorphic flag, no longer have it, I noticed that when I played it in powerdvd at computer, the image isn't stretched to have a correct display ratio. With title picture handled by dvd2svcd the flag won't disappear. I haven't tested if this happens when you use the d2sccd with the chance cd picture.

Thanks

[RB]

I don't know how D2SCCD could fix audio sync issues, but anyway I'm happy that it does :)

About the anamorphic problem: right, D2SCCD currently doesn't create anamorphic title and last CD pictures when you do an anamorphic SVCD. But the main movie and the Change CD picture should be anamorphic. D2SCCD doesn't do anything to the main movie. Please clarify: does the main movie and the Change CD pictures appear OK in PowerDVD and a standalone?

[onesoul]

I'd like to make a note for the synch issue (specially for other toshiba sd210e owners or with the same issues this player have, don't get me wrong, this player is still great :)), the primary problem of synch won't be resolved by using the d2sccd to handle title picture, you still have to solve the problem like it is described at the toshiba sd210 thread.
When I didn't let d2sccd handle title picture even with the synch problem solved, it would stay out of synch again but letting d2sccd handle the title picture it won't. I hope I made some sense :).

Now responding to RB, the anamorphic main movie won't display correctly at powerdvd when you let d2sccd handle the title picture, I haven't tested with the change cd picture. With my standalone player (and I guess most of them) it doesn't really matter because for some reason it won't detect the anamorphic flag (I wish it would :().

[RB]

OK, looks like PowerDVD can't switch aspect ratios on a SVCD. New version with support for anamorphic Title/Last CD pictures will be out soon.

[onesoul]

:D Cool. You and dvd2svcd make a great team. :)

[RB]

OK, new version is out at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44445. Will generate anamorphic title/last CD pictures now if you are creating an anamorphic SVCD.

[RB]

@markrb:

As you suggested, I've opened a new thread for my plugins at http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44445. I think it would be best if we close this thread now, or, if possible, move existing replies to the new thread. Thanks.

[NateDawg11]

Hey Rb I've been trying to write that batch file to get the vcd header plugin work side by side with your d2sccd plugin, but I cant seem to write the batch file right.

The error that I get is a invalid path error to what ever plugin I want to run.

my bat file is as follows

start /wait c:\progra~1\dvd2scvd\VCDHeader\vcdheader.exe %*
start /wait c:\progra~1\dvd2scvd\d2sccd\d2sccd.exe %*

and Ive altered it in many different ways by changing the path where the programs are installed, each time the same result.

I've checked the .ini's for each plugin and all the file paths are the right paths to where my programs are located.

Im hoping you can help me build a proper batch file that works to run both plugins.

Thanks

NateDawg11