Highlight information files

[mpucoder]

This is in response to a post in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=92097) by D3s7
I'd be happy to work with you guys on a common format as well. As you may know the pioneer in this was Dimad and MenuEdit. I contacted him awhile ago about his file format and received the specs. He admits they are not complete, but they look more like .scp statements in that they are in text.
I will have to work with .scp as well, so this is a consideration - just how many ways (and interpretters) to use for highlight information. Of course if it's a binary representation (like .sup) that makes life easy.

[D3s7]

To get the discussion rolling on this what I've currently established into vsrip (purely for selfish reasons :D) is a .bdx / .bov file

The .bov file contains a raw dump of NAV packets w/ type 1 or type 2 highlights ("new" / "use previous except for commands")

the .bdx contains the PTS and the timestamp of the matching subtitle (one entry per entry in the .bdx)


The scenarist format for highlight info is IMO, awkward. But then again, everything in scenarist is awkward.

I imagine that ultimately the preferred item would be to have the highlight info and sub info all in one location.

[mpucoder]

Originally posted by D3s7
The .bov file contains a raw dump of NAV packets w/ type 1 or type 2 highlights ("new" / "use previous except for commands")
I thought "use previous except for commands" was type 3, and that type 2 is "use previous"
the .bdx contains the PTS and the timestamp of the matching subtitle (one entry per entry in the .bdx)
Couldn't this be combined into a single file?

The scenarist format for highlight info is IMO, awkward. But then again, everything in scenarist is awkward.
True that, but I must at least read it to make the transition from Scenarist to Muxman easier for DIF4U users.
I imagine that ultimately the preferred item would be to have the highlight info and sub info all in one location.
yes, and without the rest of the NAV pack. Sector bytes 0x08d to 0x342 are all that should be needed.
Tagged records would be nice for this - each object starts with a header that tells the length and type of data it contains. This makes skipping unwanted data easy, and is extendable. The .sup format almost uses this, and maybe could be adapted. It has a 10/12 byte (depending on how you look at it) "header" for each spu with the signature "SP" in the first 2 bytes, relative pts in the next 4, 4 bytes of 0, and then the SPU which starts with a 2 byte length.

[D3s7]

Originally posted by mpucoder
I thought "use previous except for commands" was type 3, and that type 2 is "use previous"

Couldn't this be combined into a single file?


Erm.. your probably right... i read 1 and 3 then....

Yes it could be combined into a single file but it was easist at the time to follow the pattern of the .sub and .idx files. The "time code" that i put in the .bdx file relates to the PGC time of that (matching the subtitle in the .idx) not the PTS timestamp

True that, but I must at least read it to make the transition from Scenarist to Muxman easier for DIF4U users.

yes, and without the rest of the NAV pack. Sector bytes 0x08d to 0x342 are all that should be needed.
Tagged records would be nice for this - each object starts with a header that tells the length and type of data it contains. This makes skipping unwanted data easy, and is extendable. The .sup format almost uses this, and maybe could be adapted. It has a 10/12 byte (depending on how you look at it) "header" for each spu with the signature "SP" in the first 2 bytes, relative pts in the next 4, 4 bytes of 0, and then the SPU which starts with a 2 byte length.

Yes true... although I know zeul is currently adapting NuMenu to have muxman scripting support as will I w/ Scenaid but I'll probably hold off till I can author PGC demuxed VTS sets and not just VOBID ones - easily anyway.

I'll have to check into the .sup format - might be easy to adapt and create a sup2 format or something w/ the extended info

[Zeul]

personally i would prefer scripting into the mxp file, perhaps with either a binary file or actual script - in a similar way to sst support which can be a direct link to the sst or via script.

[mpucoder]

Not to worry, this would be an additional format. The scp and mxp scripts must handle the highlight stream the same as the others - in text.