disable button....

[fabiovan]

Hi all,

I've read that is possible to disable buttons in menu on DVD using Vobedit but I cannot be able to do this.
Is there anyone that can help me to understand or give me a link as guide....
thanks all in advance....:)

[Silix_s]

There are basically two kinds of commands related to the buttons: direct jump commands and "IFO-related" commands.
In the first case you have to find the VOB and VOB-ID which contain the buttons, then locate the appropriate Nav pack with Vobedit and manually change the command. Unfortunately there are sometimes hundred of entries to change and thus it could be a bit frustrating. It is also a little dangerous since a wrong edit could cause your entire VOB to become unplayable.
In the second case you can work with IFOEdit and change the actions related to the buttons by simply modifying some IFO files. Unfortunately also this case is strongly movie-dependant, so there aren't general rules.
With the first method (VOB editing) you can completely disable a button (that means you can make it unselectable) while with IFO editing you may disable only its functionality (for example you can always select the button, but it simply does nothing -> Command=NOP).

Regards.

Silix.

[Mattia Pascal]

But I can't find the command associated to the button...
For example: I have to re-link a button to another Vob-ID, where can I find the command of the button for to make the change?

[2COOL]

Mattia Pascal,

What movie are you working on? Maybe I've done it along the way.

It's hard to write a guide for disabling menu buttons as DVDs are authored a million ways. I've disabled alot of buttons whether its in IFOedit or VOBedit. I don't have a guide written as of yet though. I'm one of those hands-on guys who try to become one with the navigation stream and sooner or later, I'll starting seeing the matrix.

[Silix_s]

The command is in the VOB file.
As previously told, you should open the VOB with VOBEdit, then search for the VOB-ID which contains the buttons, select the corresponding Nav Pack and finally click on "buttons" on the lower part of the program window. In the right side you can see all the buttons and the last line is the associated command.
If you see something like (LinkPGCN) Link PGC xx or LinkTail PGC or Jump to VMG PGC you are lucky since you need only to modify the IFO with IFOEdit.
Also simple register settings like Set GPreg<0> mov (set-val)<x> refer to compare instructions in the IFOs.
But in the case you have a direct jump command (Jump to chapter, Jump to Title or Jump to Titleset) you have to manually modify the VOB (most likely with an Hex editor, since the commandis normally present more than once).

Hope this can help you.

Regards.

Silix.

[UTec]

Originally posted by Silix_s
There are basically two kinds of commands related to the buttons: direct jump commands and "IFO-related" commands.
In the first case you have to find the VOB and VOB-ID which contain the buttons, then locate the appropriate Nav pack with Vobedit and manually change the command. Unfortunately there are sometimes hundred of entries to change and thus it could be a bit frustrating. It is also a little dangerous since a wrong edit could cause your entire VOB to become unplayable.
In the second case you can work with IFOEdit and change the actions related to the buttons by simply modifying some IFO files. Unfortunately also this case is strongly movie-dependant, so there aren't general rules.
With the first method (VOB editing) you can completely disable a button (that means you can make it unselectable) while with IFO editing you may disable only its functionality (for example you can always select the button, but it simply does nothing -> Command=NOP).

Regards.

Silix.

Exactly. But making a button unselectable with VOBedit requires a LOT more work than just disabling its functionality to NOP (which must also be done in VOBedit). The reason is that you have to remove arrow navigation on ALL the OTHER buttons of the menu which have "access" to the button(s) you want to make unselectable.

To make matters worse, when you double click on the button, the fields are not actually filled with the Button's real parameters but a set of default parameters... so you have no choice but to set all the fields for all instances of all buttons in ALL the navigation packs of that particular VOBid-Cell#... whew!! This could take several days of excrutiatingly tedious work.

And to make matters EVEN worse (as if all this weren't bad enough), sometimes the functions of the menu buttons are "mirrored" in another set of buttons numbers that are present in the navigation packs but don't actually exist in the menu.

Example:

Men in Black 2, Main menu: 7 buttons. I needed to disable buttons 4 and 5 (Frank's Favorites and Alien Broadcast). In VTS01_0.VOB, those reside in VOB1, cells 2 and 3

I disabled buttons 4 and 5 in ALL the navigation packs of VOB1, cells 2 and 3 (119 nav packs x 2 buttons, thus 238 manual edits). Took me almost all day to do it. Then I burn a disc with the new VOB... Buttons 4 and 5 still work!! :mad:

I re-open VTS01_0.VOB in VOBedit and saw that buttons 4 and 5 are "mirrored" to buttons 22 and 23. In fact, all 7 buttons (1-7) are mirrored to Buttons 19-25 in the VOB file (don't ask why, I have no idea).

So I'm now faced with starting over and changing all the buttons 22 and 23 to NOP's so that the actual buttons 4 and 5 in the menu won't do anything .... And to think I chose this path because I thought I would save time over re-authoring the disc from scratch. Boy, was I ever wrong... Live and learn :(

If only these editing functions could be automated. For eg. "change Button 4 command to NOP for all VOB1, cell 2". It would make all the difference in the world. VOBedit would be 100 times more powerful. These tasks instead of taking days would take mere seconds.

[Silix_s]

@UTec:
In fact I don't use VobEdit to disable buttons but an hex editor :D :D :D
In this way you have to spend only few seconds (and it solves also the problem of the "mirrored" buttons).
Of course you should select a unique sequence (=a long string containing all the parameters) for the search and replace function :p
Obviously I'm not telling it always works but often it does.

Bye.

Silix.

[UTec]

Hmmm... a Hex editor, yes of course. Thanks for the suggestion Silix. I'll back up my VOB file and give it a shot. I just hope the 8 byte command string is unique enough not to screw up other parts of the VOB file. At least I know the exact number of instances that need to be replaced so I can compare that with what the editor tells me after the search & replace is complete.

Opening and working on a 336MB file in my Hex editor (UltraEdit32) should be interesting to say the least :)

Update:
Silix, it worked perfectly :) At first, I replaced buttons 4, 5, 22 & 23 commands with NOP but this caused the buttons to "stick" in selected mode and disabled arrow navigation until the main menu looped back to the beginning. So I redid it but this time replaced the button commands with a Link PGC1 (PGC1 being the Root Menu) and that did the trick. Now when I press buttons 4 or 5 in the menu, it just starts the main menu loop from the beginning. All of this was done in 5 minutes. Thank you so much for saving me all this time and work. You litteraly made my day :)

[2COOL]

Originally posted by UTec
All of this was done in 5 minutes.

You can actually disable a menu button in main menu in less than a minute. You just need to find what PGC-Menu, through viewing the VOB-IDs, and editing the first pre-command. It's a pretty common method. You get quicker when you start to do more.

I'm not starting a speed contest. I'm just saying there are more than one method to disable menu buttons. Main menu buttons are easy to disable. It's the buttons, other than in main menu, that can be more difficult. I'm always open for other working methods.

2C:cool::cool:L

[Silix_s]

@UTec: I'm happy for your results :p

@ 2COOL: It's not a speed problem. Whenever there is a call to a PGC or a Set GPreg command associated with a button is quite easy and fast to disable or modify its behaviour, since you only need to change something in the IFOs. But when there are direct Jumps (in the scene selection, for example) the only solution I've actually found is the hex editor. If you know other tricks, please let me know: we are here to learn ;)

Bye.

Silix.

[Dimad]

Take a look:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46178