PgcEdit 0.5.1 beta (with the Menu Buttons Editor) [Archive] - Page 2

CoNS

25th March 2005, 09:56

A request:

As you know, I use Paddington nice tool SubtitleCreator alot for adding custom subtitles to my DVDs. I use the default subtitle colours in SC, which is located in the file VTS_01_0.IFO in the examples folder.

After muxing the disc (with MuxMan) I always load the disc in PgcEdit to add a SetSTN precommand to turn on the new subtitles as default. I then have to exit PgcEdit and load the disc in IfoEdit to be able to copy and paste the subtitle colours from SC's .ifo file, as PgcEdit only allows copying of subtitle colours between two full DVDs - it cannot load the separate .ifo file from the SC folder.

In connection with the subtitle colours paste function, could you add an option to import subtitle colours to the clipboard from a single .ifo file, i.e. not load the whole disc. As an alternative to starting PgcEdit two times and copying between full discs?

r0lZ

25th March 2005, 11:15

It's more difficult than that. In most IFOs, there are several PGCs. What PGC should I use to retrieve the color table?
And if there are already some original subtitles in the PGC, you will paste wrong colors.

My advice: create a small DVD (with only a black frame as title 1), then import manually the color table of subtitle creator in this new DVD, or create your own table, and save it. You may copy the whole DVD in the examples folder of subtitle creator, and change his setup. (Edit the XML file, which holds the defaults values, including the IFO filename.)
Now, you will be able to load the new DVD in PgcEdit to copy/paste the color table easily.

CoNS

25th March 2005, 15:24

I see your point about cases with more PGCs in a VTS. I admit that I didn't think of that. However, you could bring up a small simple window and let the user select the PGC he wants from a dropdown menu, like in PgcDemux... (select by looking at the playback time for the PGCs)

It's just that the solution with loading two instances of PgcEdit at the same time to copy the colours in a way seems a bit off the very high quality level of the application in every other respect...

My request is inspired of ReJig and SubtitleCreator, which both have a function where the user can load an .ifo file into the program and retrieve the subtitle colours (from the largest PGC, if more than one are present?) so that they're used when muxing and creating subtitles respectively with the programs. It works like a charm in these two proggys, and I was just thinking it would be very cool to have in PgcEdit, too. :)

doomer2

25th March 2005, 20:11

I'd like to be able to move/add/delete program points in an existing TTN, but can't figure out how to do it. In the streams screen you can change the VOB/Cell id's and the program mapping and in the Chapter window you can add/delete chapters, but is there a way to move the chapter/program points around?

r0lZ

25th March 2005, 20:14

No. You have to reauthor the DVD to insert program (or chapter) points where you want. A program must begin at the beginning of a new VOB/Cell ID, therefore it cannot be changed by modifying the IFOs only.

doomer2

25th March 2005, 20:40

Ok, then how about a way to add an empty (blank) program point at the end of a title for the purposes of being able to skip all the way to the end using the next chapter button? There's already a method to replace a vob/cell link with a new blank vob cell, how hard would it be to add a new blank vob/cell and be able to put it at the end (or beginning) of the cell chain?

I have a dvd that has two titles that I'd like to be able to change to play mostly seamlessly (and nav between with chapter keys). Being able to add a new program point would allow me to attach a cell command to chain to the next title but make the chapters look seamles (other than a momentary black screen between).

Possible?

r0lZ

25th March 2005, 21:02

You may use AddChapter (by Jsoto) that does just what you want.

It's not possible with PgcEdit. I prefer the method of changing the NextPGC link to be able to skip the last chapter with the remote.

doomer2

25th March 2005, 21:33

Thanks, I'll look into that.

Unfortunately, changing the NextPGC link only works for chapter forward, not for previous chapter, which I think would work with an empty cell with a cell command to link to the previous title.

doomer2

25th March 2005, 23:41

Looks like I was wrong.

I figured out how to do it with the NextPGC and PrevPGC links, and an added dummy pgc for each title that linked to a dummy VTSM that jumped to the right title. Add a GP register to flag if I needed to link to the last chapter when going from second title to the first, and it works great.

Thanks for your help!

doomer2

26th March 2005, 01:14

I think I found a bug in 0.5.1beta3.

If you add a dummy PGC to a title, and then delete that same pgc, save and reload the dvd, then something gets screwed up in the IFO's and the last title in that VTS disappears. The PGC that was the title is still there, it's just no longer recognized as a Title, though it does still show up in the Title Play Map Table display.

I also noticed something else, which may or may not be a bug. If you add a dummy pgc to a title that is not the last title in the VTS, it will do it. But after that, you cannot delete that added pgc, as PgcEdit complains "Can only remove the last TTN in the titleset". Is that restriction really necessary?

doomer2

26th March 2005, 01:23

Ok, I have a question that I'm not sure where the problem is.

I've created a new dummy pgc on a title and made the PrevPGCN for the title point to it. Then in the new pgc, I issue a CallSS to a VMGM pgc that links to another title in a different titleset. In some software players this works, but in WinDVD it causes a crash. It also doesn't seem to work in my standalone Hitachi player.

Is there a problem linking to a higher numbered PGCN with a PrevPGCN link? Or maybe something else I've missed?

I've also tried setting the PrevPGCN link to the current PGC, but unfortunately, this doesn't seem to perform the same shortcut of jumping to the post command chain that doing it in the NextPGCN link does. At least, not in the players I've tested with. Or is there a way to make that work?

Thanks in advance.

r0lZ

26th March 2005, 11:09

Originally posted by doomer2
I think I found a bug in 0.5.1beta3.

If you add a dummy PGC to a title, and then delete that same pgc, save and reload the dvd, then something gets screwed up in the IFO's and the last title in that VTS disappears. The PGC that was the title is still there, it's just no longer recognized as a Title, though it does still show up in the Title Play Map Table display. I will look into it.

[EDIT:] OK. Bug fixed. The number of TTNs was decremented also if the TTN number of the deleted PGC was shared by several PGCs. Now, the number of TTNs is computed correctly.

I also noticed something else, which may or may not be a bug. If you add a dummy pgc to a title that is not the last title in the VTS, it will do it. But after that, you cannot delete that added pgc, as PgcEdit complains "Can only remove the last TTN in the titleset". Is that restriction really necessary? This restriction is necessary to keep the TTN numbers unchanged (except the last one, of course.) If a TTN is deleted before the last one, all jumps to the following TTNs will be wrong.

Apparently, there is a problem when trying to delete a PGC which share the same TTN number with other PGCs. In that precise case, PgcEdit should allow to remove the PGC, since the TTN will not be deleted completely.

[EDIT:] Bug fixed too. Now, PgcEdit looks if there are several PGCs with the same TTN number, and allow to delete the last PGC regardless of his TTN number if that TTN is still used by another PGC.
But you will still not be able to delete the last PGC if his TTN number is not shared with another PGC, and if that TTN number is not the last one in the domain.

r0lZ

26th March 2005, 11:21

Originally posted by doomer2
Ok, I have a question that I'm not sure where the problem is.

I've created a new dummy pgc on a title and made the PrevPGCN for the title point to it. Then in the new pgc, I issue a CallSS to a VMGM pgc that links to another title in a different titleset. In some software players this works, but in WinDVD it causes a crash. It also doesn't seem to work in my standalone Hitachi player.

Is there a problem linking to a higher numbered PGCN with a PrevPGCN link? Or maybe something else I've missed?

I've also tried setting the PrevPGCN link to the current PGC, but unfortunately, this doesn't seem to perform the same shortcut of jumping to the post command chain that doing it in the NextPGCN link does. At least, not in the players I've tested with. Or is there a way to make that work?

Thanks in advance. With the Next/Prev/GoUp links, in the title domain, you may only jump to another PGC of the same TTN. You must select the main PGC before using the 'New Dummy PGC' function, so that the dummy will share the same TTN number. Is is what you did? If so, it should work. :confused:

If you set the PrevPGC link to the number of the current PGC, then, when you press the Prev button of the remote when in program 1, you will jump back to the beginning of the program. The pre commands are not executed, nor, of course, the post commands.

r0lZ

26th March 2005, 11:23

Originally posted by doomer2
Looks like I was wrong.

I figured out how to do it with the NextPGC and PrevPGC links, and an added dummy pgc for each title that linked to a dummy VTSM that jumped to the right title. Add a GP register to flag if I needed to link to the last chapter when going from second title to the first, and it works great.

Thanks for your help! 2COOL has analysed this method. There is a thread somewhere here at Doom9 with his conclusions. I don't remember where...

doomer2

26th March 2005, 20:23

Originally posted by r0lZ
With the Next/Prev/GoUp links, in the title domain, you may only jump to another PGC of the same TTN. You must select the main PGC before using the 'New Dummy PGC' function, so that the dummy will share the same TTN number. Is is what you did? If so, it should work. :confused:

Yes, that is what I did. It looks kind of strange because there is another title after the one I need to bridge that is in the same VTS, and the new added chain has the TTN of the first, which makes them out of order.

I believe it works in all cases using the NextPGC link. The problem is when trying to do it with the PrevPGC and linking back to a prior title. That's why I was wondering if there is something requiring the PrevPGC link to go to a lesser numbered PGC than the current one. But I don't know of a way to insert a dummy pgc so it is in order.

The Prev link does seem to work in IfoEdit's DVD preview, and it works in PowerDVD. It doesn't work in WinDVD (causes a crash), and in my standalone, it stops playing the dvd when trying to go from the second part to the first with the prevchap button.

r0lZ

26th March 2005, 20:48

Hum. This problem is verry strange. :confused:

IMHO, it is perfectly legal to jump to any PGC number, as far as it share the same TTN.
I will try to do some tests...

sweetness

27th March 2005, 00:38

what does it mean when the group ALL is highlighted red? only one program does that the others don't.

and can i request something too?
will it be possible to export the button layout as a bmp too. if i move the buttons around i can put that layout in photoshop to fix were the subs go. just makes it a little easier. no big deal.

r0lZ

27th March 2005, 02:33

The All radiobutton is highlighted in red when at least one parameter of the button is different in each group. Also, in this case, the All group is not selected by default when you enter the editor.
If you go to the All group when it is red, you will loose this difference, because the parameters are saved for all groups.
Of course, the button position parameters are normally different in each groups, and are therefore ignored.
Most of the time, all groups are identical (execpt, again, for the buttons positions) but sometime there may be some important differences. For example, the button command to launch a movie may jump to different PGCs to show the movie in 16:9 or in pan&scan, depending on the display mode of the menu.
So, if you see the All button is red, you should normally never enable it, or you should carefully examine all groups to see if it is safe to use the All mode.
Note that there is a tooltip on the All button when it is red.

It's not easy to export the button layout, because the button highlights are not parts of the image. They are overlays lines, not included in the background image. Also, the image is always scaled to be shown in the correct display aspect ratio on your PC monitor. Saving the bitmap as it is is therefore useless, as it will not have the correct size, and no button highlights. Of course, you may use the print screen windows function to export the bitmap as it is on screen to your drawing program. Also, the positions of each button are saved in the exported menu or button files, in text format. You may retrieve the coordinated from these files to draw the rectangles with precision in your paint program.

sweetness

27th March 2005, 17:34

Originally posted by r0lZ
Note that there is a tooltip on the All button when it is red.
I didn't see that. thanks
like i said no big deal about the bmp i do a lot of print screen stuff.
thank you sir.

blutach

28th March 2005, 06:06

Hi r0lZ

Suppose I have a DVD that has many subtitle streams, most of which have been stripped. Is there a way I can use the Menu Editor to first select all the buttons which no longer represent valid streams (i.e. a number of buttons at all once) and then only do a single Hide Button command on all of these at once?

Regards

r0lZ

28th March 2005, 10:01

No, there is no way to multi-select the menu buttons.
But, if you want so, I may change the behavior of the Hide Button routine so that the next button is automatically selected when the current button is hidden. It's the way Delete Button works. This way, it will be faster to hide a sequence of buttons.
Also, don't forget that you may use the tearoff function on the "Hide Button" menu (the dotted line of the menu), so that all you will have to do is to click several times on the menu item to hide a consecutive sequence of buttons.

doomer2

28th March 2005, 11:10

Originally posted by r0lZ
Hum. This problem is verry strange. :confused:

IMHO, it is perfectly legal to jump to any PGC number, as far as it share the same TTN.
I will try to do some tests...

After a lot of time testing with various players, I think I've figured out what the problem is. Some significant number of players consider it illegal to have a PrevPGCN link to a dummy PGC. A chain called in a PrevPGC link MUST have at least one cell defined to work properly in several of the players I tested.

Strangely enough, this restriction doesn't seem to be enforced for NextPGCN in any players I've tested, which seems inconsistant.

This did bring up an idea for a feature request though. In getting around this restriction, I used the Add Play All function, to create a chain with cells to comply with this requirement. However, that left me with a ton of cells defined in a chain that should never be used.

I would have much preferred being able to add a chain with a single blank cell, or with a selectable chain of the cells from the current VTS. Do you think it would be much trouble to add something similar to the Add Play All function, but that lets you pick which cells to include and in what order? Or is there already some way to do this?

Thanks for your help with this.

blutach

28th March 2005, 11:25

@r0lZ

Sounds like a good method to me. Will look for this implementation in next version. Thanks.

Regards

blutach

28th March 2005, 13:34

Layer Break

@r0lZ - My understanding is that the layer break is more than just a flag (a non-seamless joint) - it is a few sectors of 00s that the player never really reads. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Now, if I remove the LB flag with PgcEdit, what happens to those sectors? Do they just stay there? Are they played? Is this a safe way of actually removing the layer break?

Assume that the VOBID is unchanged at the layer break (because if it does change, there can't be seamless playback anyway, right?).

Regards

r0lZ

28th March 2005, 14:48

Yes, the layer break flag in PgcEdit is not the real LB. In fact, it's the inverse of the Seamless flag. I have added it in the cell list for the user convenience.

The 'real' LB is, according to mpucoder, a sequence of several blank sectors. Unfortunately, there is no way to read them from the original DVD. Therefore, the VOB files are saved without those empty sectors. But the LB's cell must have the Seamless flag off. This is why it is possible to guess where the LB is.

Anyway, the real LB is lost when you rip the DVD. So, it is always safe to remove the LB flag in PgcEdit (assuming that the cells can be played seamlessly.)

When burning a DVD, I don't add the LB myself, because it is too difficult to safely figure out its place. Furthermore, I don't know how to inform a burner of the location of the LB. There is no flag in the command line of mkisofs to inform it where to put the LB. I suppose that it is the responsability of the burner program to find a good place, or maybe to search for a non-seamless cell to use as the LB. I don't know what's the behavior of DVDDecrypter on this matter.

blutach

28th March 2005, 14:59

@r0lZ - Thanks for that - I was not sure if the rip included the blank sectors but since it doesn't then it's easy to uncheck the flag.

AFAIK, DVD Decrypter in ISO Read mode preserves everything about the DVD, including the layer break info, and can, in ISO write mode, reinsert it (I also understand that it has the ability to change it, subject to the rules of layers 0 and 1). This is DL burners, obviously.

In any event, for us DVD-5 types, we can uncheck the LB flag. Thank you.

Regards

mpucoder

28th March 2005, 15:06

Originally posted by doomer2
After a lot of time testing with various players, I think I've figured out what the problem is. Some significant number of players consider it illegal to have a PrevPGCN link to a dummy PGC. A chain called in a PrevPGC link MUST have at least one cell defined to work properly in several of the players I tested.
My first reaction was "da" (not Russian)
Chained PGCs must have video, it's what the links are for. If you want to execute commands in a dummy PGC, you must jump to it.
A side effect of chaining is that the title can no longer be considered "one_sequential", which means no time map.