Creating SVCD Menus with DVD2SVCD

[earthlybeings]

DVD2SVCD will automatically create the same chapters as the DVD while creating an SVCD but it does not create a menu, perhaps saving space and maximizing quality in the process. My questions are:

1. Is there anyway you can rip the same menus as they are on the DVD and put it on the SVCD, just as D2S does with the chapters?

2. How much average space does a menu occupy?....any rough approximation? I am sure a motion menu will occupy more than a still menu but have no idea as to trade off in size and quality.

I have searched and found several guides and tutorials on making menus in VCDs and SVCDs but they involve the use of different tools other than DVD2SVCD and I am not sure how to integrate that into DVD2SVCD.

Any help or perhaps pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kasauli

[jsoto]

AFAIK, there is not any tool to rip menus to be automatically used in a SVCD. There are some guides to do that, but it is a manual job (interesting , btw).

I've done some SVCD menus (still based)in the past using VCDEasy to author the CD. Changing the colors in the button areas of the bitmaps and coding one still per each, let say, "selected button", you can simulate the behavior of a DVD menu. It takes a lot of manual work, but the result is impressive.

In addition you can use hotspots, but they only work with PowerDVD and not in your desktop.

jsoto

[earthlybeings]

Thanks jsoto. I expected the same as I did not find much in the way of any automated tool on the web. Doing it manually is too much of work. I will stick to the chapters alone at this point.

Thanks again for the reply.

Kasauli.