Creating a 'shuffle' link in the dvd menu for music

[Rogue3]

I'm putting together my wedding video and I have enough space to put on our wedding soundtrack, which consists of 26 songs. I'd like to make a separate soundtrack menu(s) that lists the songs and lets you choose which one to play. I am using Maestro to do this. I know how to get them all to play back to back, but how can I add a 'shuffle' option? I own a Bach classical dvd that has a 'shuffle' command in the menu so I know it's somehow possible.

Ideally I'd like to set it up like this:

main menu: video tracks, soundtrack menu link
soundtrack menu: song selections, link to next songs menu, shuffle link, play all link

Any ideas on this? Can this be done in maestro or am I going to have to do some external editing?

[dan]

This isn't a Maestro specific solution [as I'm used to Scenarist], but the DVD standard allows for a random number generation. The simplest and least impressive way to do it would be to just have a command somewhere in the navigation [selecting the "shuffle" button or something similar that would be part of a command sequence that calls the number generator which would store that number in a GPRM, where the next command in the sequence would be a 'jump to' to play the audio asset [probably a program] corresponding to that number. I assume the audio would be program with a still image for each song, and once one song finished, navigation was sent back to a PGC [most likely] which would generate another number, which would play the song corresponding to that new generated number. You could do some fancier stuff with the number that is generated [meaning the song that gets played] by checking to make sure it hasn't already been played in the shuffle, and so on. I'm no computer programmer, but with 26 songs, that check may not be possible because there are only 16 available registers. Maybe someone could think of a bit of an algorithm to do that, with more songs to keep track of than registers, but I can't think of any. What would be simple is to check to make sure it doesn't play the same one twice in a row. Just a simple "if==" sort of deal.

I really don't know how Maestro functions, so if any talk of PGCs or programs sounds like gibberish, it's from only having used Scenarist. "They" say Maestro is very powerful, so I assume it includes some implementation of the random number thing. I'm sure someone reading your post would know a solution specifically for Maestro.

So, to actually answer your question: YES, it's possible. In Maestro? I don't know, but I assume so.

BUT, I could've misread your question... is the concept to merely play the songs while a video or a still that corresponds ONLY to that song is also playing? OR Do you mean you have one video and you want to play it so that its audio is different, playing a different one of the 26 songs according to the shuffle?

If you want to do the latter, without throwing the video on the disc multiple times, you're limited to 8 audio tracks per video. You could still do the random number thing and a "setAUDIO=[I]your random number" command, which might be pretty cool, even with only 8 different tracks. If you wanted all 26, you'd have to make 4 video tracks, 3 with 8 of the songs, 1 with 2 songs, then make a relative zoo of player navigation so that it works. ['player navigation' meaning the user would just press the 'play' button once, and the player would do its thing transparently].

Sorry to be confusing if Maestro doesn't handle this stuff [terminology too] like Scenarist does...

Hope this helps,
Dan

[maa]

I own a Bach classical dvd that has a 'shuffle' command in the menu so I know it's somehow possible Interesting one that - follow the button command and see which menu PGC it calls on and post the command table here so we can all analyze it :)

[Rogue3]

Originally posted by maa
Interesting one that - follow the button command and see which menu PGC it calls on and post the command table here so we can all analyze it :)

What is the best way to analyze the menu command? I'll happily post it here.

As for your question Dan, I just want to make a button called 'shuffle' and have it randomly play the songs. I was going to use a single black bmp still for all the video tracks so that it wouldn't use much space. I'll then just create 26 movie files.

[influenza]

In scenarist you can put all those tracks into one PGC. In the properties of the PGC you can set it to play randomly and something else. Besides that you can set a number (# of randomly selected chapters if I recall correctly)

[auenf]

RAN GP0, 10
Jump To Movie1[GP0]


basically:

create a random number up to 10 (in this example)
jump to the chapter picked in the RAN of the movie.

what you would want to do is create a playlist for the random, then you can set all the end actions to the script.

Enf...

[maa]

I like the Short Version - wheres the Detailed Version thats do-able ?

:D ;) :D