Need help on a fairly complex personal DVD

[RF]

Alright, I would say I'm at an intermediate level when it comes to DVD Authoring to a certain extent but more of a beginner with Scenarist. Right now I'm trying to do my first complicated DVD in Scenarist which I'm authoring from scratch. I need some help on how I'm supposed to set this up. First I'll describe what I'm trying to achieve


Goal:

-I have two movies on this DVD which we'll call Movie1 and Movie2.

-I start with a Menu that allows me to select which movie I want to watch.

-Selecting either movie in this first menu will bring me to the Main Menu of the selected movie.

-The Main Menu of each movie has buttons which link to an Audio Setup Menu, A Scene Index Menu (One movie has 5 pages of scene menus, the other has 6 pages), a Special Features Menu (which simply says that the extras have been cut from both movies) and back to the original Selection Menu for choosing between the movies.

- Obviously I want Movie1 to start playing when I select "Play Movie" from its Main Menu and the same goes for Movie2.

-I also want the scene index menus to work properly so that I can click on a scene in the menu and jump to the corresponding scene in the appropriate movie and then continue playing seamlessly to the end of that movie.


Problems:

- While all the video sources are in 4:3 for both menus and movies, the ac3 audio files in the movies don't match up with those in the menus . . . or at least that's what Scenarist is telling me because it gives me an error about the audio in my movie being 6 or 7 channels whereas the audio in my menu is only 2 channels. My Solution was to put Movie1 and Movie2 in VTS_2 and VTS_3 consecutively. This fixed my audio mismatch issues but caused my next problem.

- I couldn't link from my Menus in VTS_1 to my movies in VTS_2 and _3. I looked through the forums here and found the part about adding a language to the video manager and adding dummy PGCs with PRE links to the titles in VTS_2 and _3 where my movies are. I was able to accomplish this but it doesn't seem very efficient because I'll need a dummy pgc for each button in each menu (which is a staggering amount of dummy PGCs). This also raises two more problems.

- The dummy PGCs don't seem to let me link to particular cells (or even PGCs) in a different VTS which means my Scene Index menus won't work. The Dummy PGCs don't seem to let me set angle/audio/ subpicture either, which means my Audio Setup menus won't work.


Scenario Setup:

Here's how my Scenario is currently setup (minus and dummy PGCs cause I haven't implemented them yet for the reasons I just mentioned above) . . . but I'm thinking there must a better way to set this up.

- I have 3 VTS (VTS_1, VTS_2, VTS_3)

- VTS_1 has three titles. Title_1 contains the initial Selection Menu (in 1 PGC) to decide between the two movies. Title_2 contains all the Menus for Movie1 (each menu page being in its own PGC). Title_3 contains all the Menus for Movie2 (each menu page being in its own PGC).

- VTS_2 contains Movie1 (in 1 PGC which is split into scenes/chapters using ChapterXtractor and Scenchap).

- VTS_3 contains Movie2 (in 1 PGC which is also split into scenes/chapters using ChapterXtractor and Scenchap).

Can anybody tell me how I can achieve my Goal, resolve my Problems and fix my Scenario Setup to operate in a way that is efficient and - even more importantly - will actually work?

P.S. Just to be clear all my assets are already prepared and imported.

[cona812]

First you have to know a lot about DVD-Spec and DVD-struktur when authoring with Scenarist.

So read as much as you can about this. Try this (http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/vmcmdset.php)

What you mixed up are the domains of DVDs (read the Scenarist manual page 163++).

Menus has to be in "Languagefolders" as they represent the menudomain (VMGM_DOM, VTSM_DOM). The videomanager and the titlesets must contain one languagefolder (each the same language).

You have to build your menuPGC's in these folders.

If you do so you can use different footage for menus and titles (even 4:3 menus and 16:9 titles).

For your project you need one languagefolder in your videomanager, two VTS, each with one languagefolder (for example all languagefolders "english").

Create a PGC inside your videomanager, this will be the "titlemenu" (you can reach this by pressing the "Title" button on your remote). Drop your movie-selection-menu here.

Create one Title in each VTS and drop your two movietracks there.

Create a PGC inside the languagefolder of VTS_1, this will be the "rootmenu" and drop here your mainmenu for your Title_1-movie. Create a second PGC for your chaptermenu. Create a new program for each part of the chaptermenu (rightclick on the PGC and choose "add program"). Drop your chaptermenutracks on the programs. Select your chaptermenuPGC and set the menu ID to "PTT". Create PGC's for all your menus on same way.

Setup the menudomain for your second movie (VTS_2, Title_2) like you've done befor with with VTS_1 menus.

If you want to jump between Titlesets (like a buttoncmd from VTS_1 to VTS_2) you have to go over the videomanager. For this you create a dummyPGC inside the videomanager containing a precmd to VTS_2. The buttoncmd inside VTS_1 have link to this PGC's.

I think this have to be enough for now, the rest has to be learning by doing (going deeper could be to complicated and may only cause confusion).

So read, learn and try. If you come to serious problems ask again ;)!

regards, Cona

[cona812]

And this is how it could look.

The screenshot is not shown

[RF]

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm reading through the Scenarist Manual right now. I think doom9 should remove that comment about having to read through it at least 3 times and it being incomprehensible cause it detered me from even looking at till now.

Believe it or not I was not lost at all with your explanation ... at least I don't think I am, I still have to try it :). The explanation seems to make perfect sense. Only question I have so far is about the original entry PGC. Would the "Entry PGC" be considered that one that appears at the very top left of the scenario window? Or is it the first PGC in the first title of a VTS? And how do I set it up so that the 1st Movie Selection Menu is the FirstPlay if it's in the language folder of the Video Manger? It doesn't seem like I can hook up a pre command to play it from the Entry PGC of the first Title or from the PGC at the top left called "First PGC".

Oh, two more questions. Will setting it up the way you've suggested allow me to directly select the cells\chapters from the Scene Index Menus? And is there any need to use GPRMs to accomplish what I want?

Thanks again.

[cona812]

The "entry PGC" is the first PGC of any Title. Usually you should only have one PGC per title.

The "First Play" icon in Scenario editor represent the "first play domain" FP_DOM. To set your selectionmenu as the first shown PGC you just have to drag the Pre-Flag of the First Play icon to your selectionmenuPGC. If you set the project up like i said it must be the first PGC in the languagefolder of your videomanager (It will have a "Title"-flag as this is your titlemenu). You will be ask if you want to add "ass only precommand" or "to set at the end of existing commandlist" (could be a bit different). If you choose "set as only..." you will see (after doubleclicking the "Pre"-flag) the command in simulationwindow, it will be "1. JumpSS Titlemenu".

Oh, two more questions. Will setting it up the way you've suggested allow me to directly select the cells\chapters from the Scene Index Menus?
Yes, the choose "Jump to PartOfTitle in VTS" as buttoncommand (#: JumpVTS_PTT program#@Title#).
And is there any need to use GPRMs to accomplish what I want?
to keep it easy first --> No

Cona

[RF]

I'm really appreciating the quick responses.

Here's the status of my project.

I pretty much have everything working. I've hooked up almost everything for Movie1 and now have to hook up the menus and stuff for Movie 2.

Now I have a few more questions:

1) For my Main Menu for Movie1 I have an intro movie with a fade in and effect to bring the menu up in one track, then I switch to a second track with the Main Menu movie and overlay subpicture (the actual Menu). I only want the intro part to play the first time when I select Movie1 from my Movie Selection Menu. But when I return to the main menu from another menu (like the setup menu for example) I want it to skip straight to the track with the subpicture (i.e. the actual menu instead of the intro movie for it). The way it's setup right now is that I made a PGC from the intro movie track and added the actual menu track as the next cell within the same PGC. This works pretty well to give me a seamless play between my intro to the menu and the menu itself but I can't figure how to jump directly to the cell containing the actual menu track when I click a "Main Menu button" from one of the other menus in the VTS. Is there any way I can accomplish this? Or a better way to set up the same effect?

2) I have an audio setup menu for each movie that gives me the option of playing the 5.1 surround movie track or the director's commentary (as well as "play movie", "resume movie" and "main menu" buttons). How do I use this menu to set the audio track of my main movie in the VTS to the track I want and then highlight the "play movie" button to start the movie from the beginning with the selected audio track or the "resume movie" if the movie has been playing and jump back to the spot in the movie that was being played? Is this something that requires GPRMs? And if so, is the concept of GPRMs sufficiently explained in the Scenarist Manual (cause I don't mind reading and learning things on my own if the info is there in an understandable way)?

Thanks again. I hope my questions aren't annoying and recycled because I really did try to read around quite a bit here and other places before asking questions.

RF

[cona812]

1.) Read this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81032)

2.) choose "Set Angle/Audio/Sub-picture" and select the streams you want to have displayed. Check the "Link" Option and choose "Jump to PGC" --> "Jump by subinstruction", here you have to select "Current Cell". Select the buttonnumber you want to have highlighted at the dropdownmenu.

and then highlight the "play movie" button to start the movie from the beginning with the selected audio track or the "resume movie" if the movie has been playing and jump back to the spot in the movie that was being played? Is this something that requires GPRMs?
Yes.

You have to add a dummy-PGC to start your movie.
Add a precommand to your movie
Precommand of movie:
1: mov GPRMx, 1
Postcommand of movie:
1: mov GPRMx, 0
Precommand of dummy:
1: if (GPRMx==1) goto 3
2: JumpVTS_TT Title_x
3: RSM, button=0
Link your "resume"-button to this dummy

For the highlight of the correct button you first have to set the "Forced selected button" for your Track to "non existend".
Add a precommand to your menu:
1: if (GPRMx==1) SetHL_BTN...
2: if (GPRMx==0) SetHL_BTN=1

Thanks again. I hope my questions aren't annoying..
As long I've enough time no problem

[RF]

After reading most of the manual today I get most of your instructions here.

One question though: Are cell commands initiated when a cell starts playing (like a pre command) or when it finishes playing (like a post command)?

Here's why. Without giving the code itself I'm going to explain what I'm doing for my Movie1 Main Menu which has the intro movie and then jumps to the actual menu seamlessly.

What I want to happen is that when the second cell in my VTS_1 Root PGC (i.e. the cell containing the actual menu) starts playing, I want to set GPRM1 to a value of 1. Then I have a POST command that loops back to the beginning of my PGC. Then I have a PRE command that compares GPRM1 to see if it is equal to 1 and if it is it skips to the cell containing the actual menu so that the intro movie is only played once. This would create a loop if cell commands are initiated right away . . . but it might screw up my seamless play in looping that second cell. Finally I have a PRE command in my Title Menu PGC which sets the value of GPRM1 to 0 so that if I choose Movie1 again from the Movie Selection Menu (Title Menu) then the intro movie of Movie1 will play again before loading the actual Menu.

But if a cell command is activated when the cell finishes playing then that's not going to work because someone may choose an option before the menu has a chance to play all the way through in which case GPRM1 would never get set to 1 and the intro movie would play every time. Does that make sense?

If the cell command happens at the end of the cell playing then I'll instead have to put a Jump to Cell command in the actual menu cell to have it jump back to its own start so I can create a loop that excludes the intro movie and then add a PRE command to my movie and all the other Menu PGCs in the VTS that will set the value of GPRM1 to 1 so that the next time the main menu gets linked to by a menu button or from the movie it will skip the intro movie and jump right into my loop. Does THAT make sense?

I'm working with somewhat limited time so if your answers are as quick as your other replies have been you'll have my undying gratitude.

Thanks.

RF

[cona812]

A cellcommand is executed after the cell has been played, so you have to add your GPRM1=1 command to your first cell. Don't use a postcommand for the menuloop, use a cell command (cellcommand of cell_2 links to itself). Just drag the "Cell"-flag onto the cell itself.

The loop can't be seamless, but with a cellcommand only one command will be executed and the navigation is quite fast.

I have posted the exact way to set this up in my last post

1.) Read this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81032)

[RF]

Sorry, I had read that thread both before posting my original question and when you linked to it in your earlier post in this thread. Problem was that when I read it I didn't understand GPRM commands and now I do . . . so thanks.

RF

[hendrix]

Originally posted by cona812
Menus has to be in "Languagefolders" as they represent the menudomain (VMGM_DOM, VTSM_DOM). The videomanager and the titlesets must contain one languagefolder (each the same language).

You have to build your menuPGC's in these folders.
well...you really dont have to put menus into the Language folders but 99% of ALL DVDs have their menus in them...i've seen some DVDs where the menus are in the titlesets, The Lion King being one of them (perhaps the author was too lazy - the lion king was authoring very poorly) - i always put my menus in the Language folders.

[RF]

Alright. So I thought I'd give a final status report on my project.

I have completed it and it is 99% successful.

I was able to implement all the stuff on the setup page for choosing between Audio tracks then skipping to the play button and I successfully implemented the resume button connected to the dummy pgc (may not seem all that impressive but considering I didn't know anything about how a dvd was properly set up and authored in Scenarist when the day started *I'm* fairly impressed with myself).

The only thing that I wasn't able to get to work was the Main Menu intro cell in the Root PGC of the VTS playing into the actual menu cell in the same PGC and then looping back only on that second cell. I put in the proper commands but the two cells in that PGC seemed to inherit eachothers commands. For example, I put the Jump command to go back to the start of the cell in the menu cell, then put the command to make GPRM1 == 1 in the intro movie cell. In the PRE of the PGC I put the command that if GPRM1 == 1 Jump to the menu cell. For some reason that PRE command didn't "take" and when I put the command to make GPRM1 == 1 in the intro movie cell it seemed to overwrite my cell command in the menu cell which told it to loop.

Maybe it was because I dragged the track for the menu onto the program icon of the PGC and therefore only created an additional cell for the menu instead of dragging the track onto the actual PGC icon and creating an additional program AND cell for the menu.

Don't know if all that came out in an understandable way but I'm going to experiment some more in the next few days to figure out where I went wrong and how to resolve it . . . unless of course can see a glaring error that I've missed in my description above.

Anyway, all things considered it turned out quite well for my first attempt.

Thanks everyone for your help . . . especially cona812, you were a life-saver.

RF

[cona812]

You can put the GPRM1=1 command in the postcommands, the test into the precommands. The cellcommand of the second cell links back to itself.

Cells can only holdup one command (have you tried to put two into the econd cell?).

If Attachments are working you can see how it could look.

Cona

[RF]

I think what I would need to do is put the GPRM1=1 command as the cell command, the loop back to cell two as the Post command and the test as the Pre command. Cause if I put the GPRM1=1 command as the Post command for the PGC there's a chance that the user would make a selection in the menu before it had fully played through . . .meaning the next time they went back to the main menu, GPRM1 would not yet have been set to 1 and the intro movie would play again. By putting GPRM1=1 in the cell command you could be sure that it would get set to 1 as soon as the intro movie has played through for the first time.

The way I ended up solving the problem last night (cause I was short on time) was to cheat and have the intro movie in one pgc with a post command to the next pgc containing the actual menu which had a post command to loop. Then all the "main menu" buttons in the other menus were directed to the actual menu pgc instead of the intro movie pgc.

[cona812]

You're right. The way i suggested is the way i use and i setup any navigationcommands by postcommands.

I use GPRM's to test which button has been activated and then link to postcommandlist. For example:
Button 1: mov GPRM1, 1; LinkTailPGC, button=0 Button 2: mov GPRM1, 2; LinkTailPGC, button=0 Button 3: mov GPRM1, 3; LinkTailPGC, button=0 ...the first postcommands are to set the highlighted button and the testvalue.
Pre:
SetHL_BTNN = GPRM2 if(GPRM0==1), LinkCN Cell_2 ...[/list=1]Post:[list=1] mov GPRM0, 1 mov GPRM2, SPRM8 if (GPRM1==1), Goto... if (GPRM1==2), Goto... ...[/list=1]Cell_1:[list] No commmandCell_2: LinkCN Cell_2
Cona

[RF]

Ok, you lose me on the 3rd post command I think.

If I understand you correctly . . .

Post:

1. mov GPRM0, 1
2. mov GPRM2, SPRM8

After the PGC has finished playing through you set the value of GPRM0 to 1 and set the value of GPRM2 to whatever the highlighted button was that you just pressed (SPRM8).

Pre:

1. SetHL_BTNN = GPRM2
2. if(GPRM0==1), LinkCN Cell_2
3. ...

The next time the PGC begins to play you set the highlighted button to whatever it was on the last time the PGC played and if GPRM0=1 (meaning the PGC has already been played through once) then the 1st cell is skipped and you go straight to the second cell where the menu is located.

Now is command "3. ..." just meant to say there may be more commands? Or is something specific required?

But what I'm really not sure about is the last few post commands:

3. if (GPRM1==1), Goto...
4. if (GPRM1==2), Goto...
5. ...

Where did GPRM1 suddenly come from? And what command is it jumping to if the value matches? We used GPRM0 and GPRM2 in your example so far so I don't understand what variable GPRM1 is supposed to be holding a value for.

Another question I have is does the post command of a PGC get activated when you hit a button in a menu? Or does it only get activated if the PGC is allowed to play all the way through once? Because I have been under the possibly mistaken impression that it was the latter. But if it was the former that would have allowed me to solve my intro movie\main menu problem very easily in the way that I didn't bother trying cause I thought my post command would only be activated if the PGC was allowed to run to its end uninterrupted.

[cona812]

Where did GPRM1 suddenly come from?The buttons ;) Button 1: mov GPRM1, 1; LinkTailPGC, button=0 Button 2: mov GPRM1, 2; LinkTailPGC, button=0 Button 3: mov GPRM1, 3; LinkTailPGC, button=0 ...originally posted by RF
does the post command of a PGC get activated when you hit a button in a menu?if you link the buttons to postcommands --> yes (see above buttoncmd = mov GPRM1, x; LinkTailPGC)

Cona

[DaRat]

RF, if I understand you correctly you have a main menu with intro and want to skip that after playing it once. Here's one solution, quite simple:

Make a track of your menu, 2 cells (guess you've already done that :D), set precommand something like:

1. if (GprmX==Y) LinCn main_menu_cell2
2. SetGprmX, Y

That way when you access the main menu the player checks if the intro has been played already, if not, set the status of gprmx "true" (whatever value this might be) and play it, else you already had that and made the jump in command 1 instead. For cell2 (main_menu_cell2 in the above) you have to set a link back to the cell itself (drag the cell command to the cell). This has two advantages: first, you have your post command section free of looping garbage and second, you won't loose highlight info (the same button will be highlighted after the loop) if you link back to the current cell. You also have to turn off forced highlight in the second cell tough. Don't worry, when you access the menu again it gets the forced highlighted info from cell1 even if it's skipped.

Hope that helps.


For your post command q: the post commads are executed if the pgc runs trough and no other commands link elsewhere (like the cell command in the above example) or you link to the post command section via a other command (like a button activated command).

[RF]

Cona812: Right :) for some reason I missed seeing the reference to GPRM1 in the buttons sections there. Sorry bout that.

DaRat: that also might be useful. Thanks.

[RF]

Hey Cona,

I'm working on another DVD now (the Transporter). I've decided to include special features from both sides of the Special Edition. I'm having some trouble figuring out how to set things up so I can access everything properly.

- I have my Menus (Main,Chapters,Setup,Features) in the language folder of my VTS_01.

- The movie is in the Title1 folder of VTS_01 (1 PGC).

- The "Making of" Featurette is the Title Folder of VTS_02 (1 PGC)

- The 3 Extended Fight scenes are in the Title folder of VTS_03 (each scene having its own PGC).

What I would like to be able to do is:

1. From my features menu (located in VTS_01 language folder), when I choose the Featurette, Jump to it in Title1 of VTS_02. And when I press the root menu button during the Featurette - or if the Featurette is allowed to play through - jump back to my features menu.

2. From my features menu, when I choose one of the fight scenes, jump within the current cell to choose whether I want commentary for it on or off (which I already know how to do), and have it retain my stream settings and Jump to the Title1 folder in VTS_03 and to the particular PGC that the fight scene is in. And again, once a fight scene is done - or when I press root menu button - jump back to my features menu.

That's mainly what I want to accomplish. I thought about putting my features menu in my vts_02 language folder (and redirect to it using a dummy PGC in the VMG) for easier navigating through the featurette, but then I remembered I also had my fight scenes which I want in a separate VTS so that doesn't really seem to help.

I also thought about using a redirect pgc in the VMG for all my special features selections but when jumping through PGC's in the system space or jumping to titles in the different VTS, compare doesn't allow me to set an immediate value for a GPRM so I'd have to keep setting two different GPRMs to the same value for each button selected just to make use of selection variables which seems rather inefficient.

Did all that make sense?

Can you suggest the best way to set up this kind of thing (since I'm sure you and many others have set up DVDs with this type of structure before)?

Thanks a lot.

[cona812]

Your plan seams to be logic. I use VMG-dummies to navigate between titlesets too. You can use more dummies (one for each link), that makes the precmd-lists easier. I normally use dummies called "Menu-call", "VTS-Jump" to make the setup clearly laid out.compare doesn't allow me to set an immediate value for a GPRMset another GPRM to the value to be compared and compare to this GPRM.
And you should read the manual about "type 3 commands", could be helpful in some cases.

I think you will make it as you really learned much allready, to discribe the hole setup will be to much to write here (and even not very useful).

Cona

[DaRat]

You might want to put all your extras into VTS2, into different Titles. If you can't do this for some reason (like different video mode) you still get better results by putting the 3 extended scenes or whazzits in their own separate Titles. That way you can link directly to the Title from the VMG domain, thus eliminating one GPRM (I guess you're using one for tracking selected scene and one for comment yes/no). Also, you will be able to do time serach in the scenes (like dragging the timeline in a sw player). For your other problem you don't need a GPRM at all, just set the audio stream number with the button selection and link to a dummy PGC in the VMG domain to jump to the scene. If the scene has the audio stream what you set last it will play, if not, I think it will play audio#1.

One quick tought: when you return from a domain to a menu in a different domain the player will return to the last menu displaed so you might want to set a yes/no state for a GPRM, like:

Pre: 1. if (gprmX==Y) link extras_menu/main_meun/whatever
Button: Set Audio Stream Number to X, Link dummy PGC in VMG

Well, something like that. :D

(I might be wrong about things, haven't even started S for months now.. but never hurt to try and watch the sprm/gprm values in the sim window. ;))

[RF]

Alright, I'm having what may be a bit of a strange problem.

I've accomplished what I was trying to do with the navigating between different VTS for features (and setting the audio stream) using dummy PGCs. It was none too simple and in the end I used 9 GPRMs throughout the project to accomplish what I set out to do.

Now that it's all done, my muxed DVD files play perfectly on both PowerDVD and WinDVD, but for some reason when I try to access my special features on my standalone player the Disc just stops playing (the Menu loads fine but when I made a selection the player stops). Now, I should mention that the project is currently burned to a DVD-RW because I wanted to test it on a standalone before final production. Is it possible that my read problem is simply being caused by the RW media that's been written on - and read by my standalone player - several times? Or is it more likely that I have a command somewhere in my project that is used for changing between VTS that is causing a read error on my standalone?

Here's how it's setup for the special features menu and all the pgcs that route to the features themselves and back again.

First, my features menu PGC includes 2 cells. Cell 1 is the brief intro clip that gets played before moving into the menu (I've made an intro clip that gets played before each menu). Cell 2 is the Features menu itself with the subpicture and buttons and all that which has a cell command to loop within that cell. The following is my button setup (what button number is assigned to what selection) and my button commands:

Features Menu Button setup:

Btn 1 - "Making of" Featurette.
Btn 2 - On (for setting commentary for extended fights to "on".
Btn 3 - Off (for setting commentary for extended fights to "off".
Btn 4 - Extended Fight Scene 1
Btn 5 - Extended Fight Scene 2
Btn 6 - Extended Fight Scene 3
Btn 7 - Main Menu

Features Menu Button Commands:

1. JumpSS pgc_3 (Jump to "FeaturetteRedirect" PGC in VMG).
2. {SetSTN audio=2;LinkTailPGC, button=0} (Set to Commentary stream for fight scenes and jump to post commands)
3. {SetSTN audio=1;LinkTailPGC, button=0} (Set to normal audio stream for fight scenes and jump to post commands)
4. {Mov GPRM4,3;LinkTopC,button=2} (This sets the var for which fight scene then highlights the "on" button (2) to turn on commentary).
5. {Mov GPRM4,4;LinkTopC,button=2}
6. {Mov GPRM4,5;LinkTopC,button=2}
7. {Mov GPRM5,0; LinkPGCN toMainTrans-t-pgc_1} (Sets GPRM5 to 0 and jumps to the secondary intro clip to the main menu. GPRM5=1 is the var I'm using to know when Features Menu is the last accessed menu - which I don't know is necessary - so when I click the main menu button on that menu I reset GPRM5 to 0 so the menu button wont jump to features anymore.

Now as you can see, button 2 and 3 link to the post of the current PGC. Those commands are:

1. Mov GPRM5,1 (I mentioned the use of this just above)
2. Mov GPRM6,1 (I'll show the purpose of this in a second)
3. if (GPRM4==3) Mov GPRM7,3 (setting a variable to compare later for which fight scene is selected).
4. if (GPRM4==4) Mov GPRM8,4 (same thing again).
5. if (GPRM4==5) Mov GPRM9,5 (same)
6. if (GPRM4 > GPRM6) JumpSS pgc_4 (so here I'm saying if a fight scene is selected then GPRM4 will equal either 3,4, or 5 - all greater than 1 - so if GPRM4 is greater than 1 which is what I set GPRM6 to then it should jump to "ExFightRedirect" PGC in the VMG).

I think maybe I should add:

7. LinkCN featuresMenu-t-scn_01-cel,button=0

By adding that last command then, if someone presses button 2 or 3 (which sets audio stream for the selected fight scene) before actually choosing a fight scene that they would like to set the audio stream for then it will still jump to the post menu but other than setting GPRM5=1 to show Features Menu as the last active Menu and GPRM6=1 for a comparison value to make sure a fight scene has been selected, it will just skip everything else and go back to the actual Menu cell. Does that seem right and reasonable? Or maybe I should make command #1 to be if GPRM4 < 3 jump back to the menu cell. What do you think?

Next thing is the "FeaturetteRedirect" PGC in the VMG that I jump to in the Button 1 command above. The Pre commands of that PGC are:

1. Mov GPRM5,1 (I'm doing this again here because when accessing the Featurette I don't filter through the FeatureMenuPGC post command which is where I set this value before accessing the fight scenes. So again, this is just to specify the FeaturesMenu is the active/last accessed menu so I can jump back to it from the special features . . . still don't know if this is necessary)
2. JumpTT Title_2 (this jumps to the first Title of VTS02 which is where my featurette is contained).

The next thing is the "ExFightRedirect" PGC in the VMG that I use to jump to my fight scenes in VTS03 and which is referenced in #6 of the Post commands above. The Pre commands of that PGC are:

1. if (GPRM4==GPRM7) JumpTT Title_3 (you'll recall I set GPRM 7,8 and 9 in the post commands above so that I could use them for comparison here. This command will read if Fight Scene 1 is selected and will then Jump to the first Title of VTS03).
2. if (GPRM4==GPRM8) JumpTT Title_4 (if the second fight scene is selected then it will Jump to the second Title of VTS03).
3. if (GPRM4==GPRM9) JumpTT Title_5 (you get the picture, jumps to 3rd title of VTS03).

The final two things are the "RootMenu" PGCs of VTS02 and 03. I've set the Pre command of both as follows:

1. JumpSS pgc_2 (this jumps to "FeatureMenuRedirect" PGC in the VMG. This is so that if you push the "menu" button while viewing any of the special features it will jump to this PGC that has a pre command which routs through the root menu in VTS01 (the Main Menu PGC). The pre command of my VTS01 Root PGC (Main Menu) checks if the Features Menu was the last accessed Menu (i.e. GPRM5=1) and if was skips to the Features Menu PGC. That PGC also has a pre command which checks if GPRM5=1 and if it is it skips the intro clip and goes straight to the actual menu in cell 2. Of course, I read someone say on here that when the menu button is pressed from a VTS other than the one that has all the menus in it (and the VTS you're in doesn't have a root menu of its own in the language folder) then it automatically goes back to the last accessed menu in the vts containing all the menus. If that's true that would render all of my intricate planning to accomplish exactly that quite useless :(

So, that was bloody long. Cona or DaRat, do either of you see a problem with what I outlined above and what I mentioned that I thought I should add? And what do you think is causing my standalone player to just stop as soon as it gets a command to jump to a different VTS when that command works perfectly on all my software players?

Thanks again.

[RF]

oh, by the way, I'm also wondering if setting the stream info from the menu in VTS01 before I route through the PGC dummy and jump into the appropriate VTS for the selected feature might also be causing a problem. Maybe I should just be using those commentary audio stream on and off buttons to set the variable of another GPRM and then use a second dummy PGC to set the audio stream for the feature while in the appropriate VTS. Not sure if that's even possible.

[DaRat]

Originally posted by RF
I also thought about using a redirect pgc in the VMG for all my special features selections but when jumping through PGC's in the system space or jumping to titles in the different VTS, compare doesn't allow me to set an immediate value for a GPRM...
You can easily go around this by doing "If (..) GoTo .." type of code like:

1. If (GPRM1==1) GoTo 5
2. If (GPRM1==2) GoTo 6
3. If (GPRM1==3) GoTo 7
4. [anything for possible mistakes]
5. JumpTT [whatever1]
6. JumpTT [whatever2]
7. JumpTT [whatever3]
This way you can save some registers for other possible uses, just don't get lost in the goto loopholes (it's possible to goto the same line, hence freezing the player in a infinite loop.. kinda funny :D) and _always_ make a "emergency exit" (line 4 in my example) in case your registers are messed up for any weird reason.


Originally posted by RF
"FeaturetteRedirect" PGC in the VMG
You can save a shitload of work here too, just make a separate dummy pgc for each of your links. I usually put a Dolby intro in the VMG domain, playing it before the first time the movie is played (like the helicopter and the old style train, can't help it :D), so why not use it over and over and over if it doesn't take any significant additional space? This is foolproof, make one pgc for each of your extended scenes, eliminating the use of the registers. I'd say you'd need about.. 6 pgc's, link to extended scenes x3, link to featurette, link back to menu, and a pgc for a dummy title menu, you can set this to jump to your main menu (makes sense if the user press "Title"). Theese separate dummy PGC's make a great place to clear all your temporary registers and stuff.


Originally posted by RF
Btn 2 - On (for setting commentary for extended fights to "on".
Btn 3 - Off (for setting commentary for extended fights to "off".

2. {SetSTN audio=2;LinkTailPGC, button=0} (Set to Commentary stream for fight scenes and jump to post commands)
3. {SetSTN audio=1;LinkTailPGC, button=0} (Set to normal audio stream for fight scenes and jump to post commands)
Set a PRE-Command, "higlight button[whatever]", set forced_selected to nonexistent, and use the following command for audio selection:

SetSTN audio=X;LinkCn featuresMenu-t-scn_01-cel,button=#
This saves you the post command section again for other valuable code (it's not too hard to make this loop there but why bother if you can do it that way?). And yes, you were right, after selecting the commentary on/off the post command linked nowhere (if gprm4 was not set by some action before the curretn action). Don't know why PDVD worked, maybe you used a different path of actions to test it, or simply PDVD is more flexible when it comes to DVD specs.. (actually it is, as any sw player)

For your extendd scenes buttons just select "jump to pgc in vmg" and your correspondiong "jump to extended scene#/featurette" dummy pgc.


Originally posted by RF
someone say on here that when the menu button is pressed from a VTS other than the one that has all the menus in it (and the VTS you're in doesn't have a root menu of its own in the language folder) then it automatically goes back to the last accessed menu in the vts containing all the menus
I was obviously wrong about that, don't know where that came from. :D Anyhow, a very simple solution around this is to simply copy-paste your extras menu as a main menu in the other VTS's language domain, change the links (like linking thru the vmg to the main menu and simply jumping to titles in the current domain. This saves quite some thinking about how to link thru the VMG back to my last accessed menu.


Originally posted by RF
I'm also wondering if setting the stream info from the menu in VTS01 before I route through the PGC dummy and jump into the appropriate VTS for the selected feature might also be causing a problem
I don't think that generates a problem, it simply works or not. Do trial&error testing for this one. But you can use the comment on/off to set a gprm and then link back to the actual cell and make a compare at the begining of each scene, or even more user-friendly way you can make a "entry" cell for each extended scene, with a yes/no selection for the commentary (do it once, copy paste two more times and change the links). Or set a gprm in the scene selection menu, link to a commentary selection, then link to the corresponding title by a gprm check. Or do the combination of all the above methods. There's (almost :D) always more than one solution for a problem while authoring.

(one note on this: I'm pretty sure the selected audio stream number carries over even while changing vts domains, so if you have a multilingual movie and/or featurette you should wnat to double-triple check this as watching the movie, selecting a extra scene and then return to the movie may mess up the user's audio selection. Again, I'm not sure about this, but check it especially if it's a commercial project!)


So, what should you do? Select everything in your scenario editor and hit delete (backup the scenario first, of yourse :D). No kidding, you'll make it twice as fast and simple as it is now, half the time. Remember to keep it as simple as possible. Also, use the simulator window, it's there for a reason, track the status of your gprms, and sprms.

[RF]

I don't seem to be able to play anything in my simulation window. I can use it when drawing and assigning buttons but I can't choose "simulation" from the mode menu. Not sure what's wrong . . . which basically means I have to do the simulation in my head and after I've run it through and solved the mistakes I've come up with then I mux it and see if I was right. I've actually been incredibly accurate so far in catching errors. This particular project messed me up because everything works on the software player.

As for why it hadn't frozen when I chose "on" or "off" before setting a value for GPRM4 . . . it's cause I had never made that mistake. I always selected a fight scene first. But when I went back and read through the commands last night it jumped out at me as being a big potential problem and when I test the mistake in PDVD it froze.

[DaRat]

If software simulation mode doesn't work in your copy of S then you should consider contacting tech support. :D You might also want to consider buying a realmagic h+ for about $5-$10 on ebay, it works almost exactly the same way a normal (eg: not a cheap-shit eastern whazzit) standalone would.

[RF]

Set a PRE-Command, "higlight button[whatever]", set forced_selected to nonexistent, and use the following command for audio selection:

SetSTN audio=X;LinkCn featuresMenu-t-scn_01-cel,button=#


I don't think that would work for the order I want to make the selection in. I want someone to choose a fight scene and THEN choose if they want the commentary for it on or off. To accomplish this I need to set a GPRM to a value dependant upon which fight scene is selected, then highlight the commentary "on" button so they can select if they want commentary. Then when they choose commentary to be on or off by selecting either of those buttons it jumps to my dummy PGC and is routed to the appropriate title in the appropriate VTS (your command seems to be doing it the other way around - it is, in fact, the exact command I'm using on the fight scene selection buttons). The problem is that you cannot set stream info and then jump to a PGC in the system space in the same command. So instead I have to first set the stream selection and then jump to the Post commands to tell the player what dummy PGC to jump to from there. But the Goto advice is good advice indeed. I've used it elsewhere, I guess it was kinda stupid of me not to think of using it here. Oh well, I'll blame it on the fact that I'm still just a beginner . . . but I think I'm starting to work my way up in the ranks a bit . . . at least I hope so.

Thanks again.

P.S. The idea of starting the scenario over from scratch kinda makes me feel like vomitting. I have a pretty good memory and I know where I have everything linking so I think I'll just edit my current work instead of starting from scratch :)

[RF]

If software simulation mode doesn't work in your copy of S then you should consider contacting tech support. :D

Yeah, I'll just take out a mortgage so I can do that. :)

[RF]

is there some kind of potential for buggy-ness with using dummy PGCs to Jump between VTS? Cause I just reworked the code I was using to do it, but still used the dummy PGCs (since I obviously have no choice to do it any other way) and while it tests perfectly on PowerDVD, my standalone still just stops whenever I try to jump VTS using commands in my features menu which are routed through the dummy PGCs.

Help. Could it just be a problem with the fact that I'm test on my standalone with an RW disc? As in it'll prolly work fine if I use a regular DVD+R disc?

[RF]

alright, I solved my damn problem of my player freezing and stopping when I tried to access my special features which where in a different VTS than my main menus.

It wasn't an Authoring problem, a Player problem, or a media problem . . . it was a freaking Scenarist problem. It seems that when Scenarist compiles projects with several VTS it doesn't always build the table for accessing them properly . . . or at all.

To resolve my problem, all I did was open the main ifo file for my compiled project in IFOedit and choose "Get VTS sectors", choose yes or ok when it asks to apply it to all ifo files and click through the message windows that pop up. When it's done your vts sectors in your ifo files generated by scenarist will be corrected. Simply create the img file using ImgTool and burn with Nero. Voila, it works perfectly.

Below I'm going to put a few keyword strings so that people having the same problem can find this solution.

standalone freezes on special features
player freezes on special features
standalone stops at special features
player stops at special features
standalone stops when switching VTS
player stops when switching VTS
standalone stops when changing VTS
player stops when changing VTS
standalone stops when switching between VTS
player stops when switching between VTS
standalone stops when changing between VTS
player stops when changing between VTS
standalone stops when jumping between VTS
player stops when jumping between VTS
problem switching between VTS
problem changing between VTS
problem jumping between VTS
problem playing back features
problem playing back different VTS
problem with VTS
problem with Video Title Set

Hope that does it for anyone having the same problem.

[DaRat]

Man, your copy (or version? :D) of S behaves pretty.. Weird to make an understatement. ;) The biggest "problem" I ever had with it is that sometimes it compiles my project to X gigs then I hit compile again, and it compiles to Y gigs, where X no way around Y. But it's gone for yrs now.

[cona812]

Same as DaRat. Never had problems, never heard about problems like yours befor.

[RF]

Well, my problem (not always writing correct VTS sectors) can't be that unique since I read a few other threads dealing with it and that's how I came up with my solution.