What are "Angles," PuOp's and ILVU's

[farmer dan]

I have a conceptual question and abbreviation interpretation questions.

I have made a discovery which, if I am correct, would have eliminated many woes in trying to back up a DVD. As luck would have it, the first movie I chose to back up turns out to be not simple--I hate to say complicated. But that's a story for a different post.

To complete my investigation, however, I need to clear up some "foggy" areas:1. Other than "White Rabbits," what is an angle? What does an angle do? How does an angle work?
2. What is a PUoP--or is it PuOP--and is it the same as a PUO?
3. What is an ILVU? If it is not clear from the name--for example GOP=Group Of Pictures--what is it?
Thanks

[killingspree]

"As luck would have it, the first movie I chose to back up turns out to be not simple"
seems to happen more frequent :P my first DVD to backup also had some multiangles with seamless branching :) can be pretty confusing

to 1): in the traditional meaning 'angle' could be described as camera position. so a multiangle feature would actually mean that there's a clip which shows the exact same happening, but from a couple of different camera positions. most of the time this is used for extras as in 'The Cell' 'Pearl Harbor - Directors Cut' or 'Se7en - Platinum edition' (all R2).
apart from that, multiangles are sometimes used to spare space on a DVD. frequently, a movie in different languages only has very slight parts which are different (from a picture perspective), mostly if some text is written into the picture. Now on cheap DVDs you simply get the english 'letters' and if you are lucky some german, french, spanish subs...
on DVDs which have been properly done (imho at least) you get the original AND the foreign language picture. But instead of including the whole feature movie twice on the DVD (once with the german texts and once with english ones) only those parts that actually differ are kept seperately. But the big part of the movie (90%+) is kept only once. now these parts that actually exist twice are also handled as 'angles' - although there actually never was more than one camera position. To ensure that playback is fluent, those scenes are connected seamlessly.
(be aware, seamless branching is something different though)

to 2):
those are so called 'user restrictions'! it's those commands in the ifos that prevent you from switching off subs although they are not hard coded, or prevent you from fast forwarding to the menu to skip the intros etc...

to 3):
sorry no clue :o

hth
steVe

[jel]

hi farmer dan,
a ILVU is an 'interleaved video unit' used in multi-angle titles and is basically (cos thats all i understand ;) )a group of different angles for the same piece of film ie angle1, angle2, angle3, etc 'interleaved' (joined) together to make one VOBU.
i am sure someone else could give you a more technical explanation but i hope this helps.
j
ps just found this link that may help a bit more (link) (http://dvd.sourceforge.net/dvdnav-docs/dvdnavissues.html)

[farmer dan]

killingspree and jel--

Thanks very much for the answers. They helped me move towards a goal. I'm hot on the trail of analyzing and IFO to find out how the angles and ILVU's are manipulated. I split a large movie to two Discs using IFO Edit and after I thought I was completely ready to burn it, the movie gave me fits. I discovered one "blank" frame that was used as a PGC. I tracked it back to an angel and an ILVU. If I had been aware of how to handle this I would not have encountered the problems I had with my movie.

I'm being quite obscure about the situation right now because I want to make sure that my "hunch" is right before I say something and lead someone down the wrong path.

By the way, jel, that link is really informative.

Thanks to you both again.

[jel]

no worries farmer dan,
glad to be of service.
sounds like an interesting project. be sure to let us know how it goes.
:D
j