no Menu play on stand-alone player

[aidas]

Recently I've authored DVD of home video collection applying Sonic MyDVD. It plays well on Power DVD, however on stand-alone player Menu plays only half a second and then it's skipped to play Title 1 with no possibility for viewer to make sellection of Title. And it does this strange thing only after disc ejection. After player switch on with disc inside it plays Menu well. Neither IfoEdit nor PgcEdit helped me to detect the reason of this mailfunction. By the way, if the highlighted button precommand is entered the corresponding Title under highlighted button starts to play skipping Menu. Moreover, I've tried to author with Pinnacle Studio and got the same skipping result.
I would appreciate if somebody tells me resolution of this annoying issue. Thanks in advance.

[blutach]

We'd need to see the IFOs aidas. Can you zip them up and post them as an attachment please?

Regards

[aidas]

Well, here they are attached.

[blutach]

We will have to wait for mpucoder to approve the attachment. He should be by within 24 hours.

Regards

[r0lZ]

What is the Force Select Button Number, the Force Action Button Number and the Force Action Delay of your menu?
(You may see these informations in the 'Advanced controls' of the menu editor of PgcEdit.)

[blutach]

Although VTSM 1, 1 seems weird in what it does, it hands straight off to VTSM 1, 4, which simply plays the 59 second motion menu.

First look at r0lZ's question. Then you might like to run your menus through Menu Shrink and post the menu VOBs here.

Regards

[mpucoder]

While I did approve the attachment it goes against policy. ifo files from a commercial DVD are copyrighted - see http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50765

[blutach]

Thanks for that info mpucoder.

Regards

[NobbyNobbs]

Originally posted by mpucoder
While I did approve the attachment it goes against policy. ifo files from a commercial DVD are copyrighted - see http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50765

The original poster said that he was authoring a DVD from his home videos, using Sonic MyDVD, so it should not be against the rules, as I would guess that he would be the copyright holder of his own home video's:D

(But it might be the wrong forum, looks like it belongs in the DVD authoring forum, as the problem seems to be an authoring one)

[blutach]

The IFOS did not look like a commercial DVD, that's for sure. There was a 20 minute title and an 11 minute one and that's all. I'd tend to believe him.

Regards

[aidas]

Force Select Button Number - 0
Force Action Button Number - 0
Force Action Delay - 59s

Sorry, blutach, perhaps VTSM looks weird since I corrected IFOs a few in order to simplify code and to reveal the secret of this trouble :). But that didn't help at all. Pardon, here you can find initial Sonic MyDVD IFOs attached.

brgds

[r0lZ]

You may try to change the Force Action Delay to -1. Keep a backup of the original VOB!
Also, you should verify that the Cell Still Time of the menu PGC (in the cell list of the PGC Editor) is set to 255.

I don't think the problem could be with the VM commands, as there is no way to change the playback time or the force action delay of a menu via VM commands. But I think it may be a malfunction of your standalone player, as the symptoms you described in your first post are verry strange...

[EDIT:] You may also try to initialize the GPRMs with 0 in the FP-PGC. It may help. To do that, go to the First-Play PGC, select the verry first line (the '*** pre-commands:' label) and use the "Reset Used GPRMs to 0" macro.

[aidas]

It's a pity, all the r0lZ's suggestions do not help.

I'd also tend to blame my stand-alone player but consequential question why all the originally authored discs and copies and split discs play well on the same stand-alone player. What's the difference between commercial and my own authored discs?

[jeanl]

Originally posted by aidas
It's a pity, all the r0lZ's suggestions do not help.

I'd also tend to blame my stand-alone player but consequential question why all the originally authored discs and copies and split discs play well on the same stand-alone player. What's the difference between commercial and my own authored discs?
one last suggestion. If you post your "entire" DVD (maybe squeezeing the title to be very tiny) on something like www.yousendit.com we can download it and try it on our players. If all of us find that it plays fine, then you can blame your player with more certainty.
Or, you can burn it, and go to your favorite store and try it on all the DVD players!!!! I know some people do that!!
It's very strange, though, that your player behaves strangely like that only with DVDs you authored...
jeanl

[r0lZ]

Maybe it's something with Sonic MyDVD. Have you tried other authoring softwares?

[aidas]

I've omitted one fact about r0lZ's suggestion regarding infinite Cell Still Time because I've thought it's not important. I haven't found Cell Still Time in PGC Editor but PGC Still Time. I've presumed these are the same for this particular case. Hope my presumption is right, isn't it?

Yes, I did try Pinnacle Studio yet. The same stupid skipping.
Yet, I've handled recently a disc with digitized raw video of my old and precious VHS video. Some good willing man digitized it for me (of course for cash :) ). Therefore, the Menu of this disc played well on my stand-alone player. After trimming and working on video and my authoring it skips Menu. I've already lost files from this raw disc, but tried to compare IFOs before deletion. There was one obvious difference but I thought it wasn't important. Menu with buttons were residing in VMGM, not in VTSM1 like created by Sonic MyDVD. As I got clear today the raw disc was burned by DVD-recorder.

[r0lZ]

No, the PGC Still time is not the right value to check. Leave it to 0.
The Cell Still Time is displayed in the Cell's list of the PGC Editor (lower right part of the window), in the column labelled Still Time. You should set the still time to 255 for all cells with buttons.

The fact that the main menu resides in the VTSM and not in the VMGM doesn't matter (in theory).

Your experience with Pinnacle is a bad sign. Seems your player is guilty.

[aidas]

No, the last r0lZ's correction didn't help.

Checked 2 other stand-alone players and found they do Menu play WELL! Therefore, this is my player fault. Well, it's better to learn such a sad truth than know nothing at all :). Although I'm completely confused why this takes place only for my authored discs.

Thanks a lot for support to make this headache clear to all posters of this thread and especially for r0lZ. Thanks.

brgds

[mpucoder]

There is still something wrong, then, with the DVDs. Just because a DVD will play in most players does not mean it is compliant. That only means the players are more sophisticated and can work around authoring errors. It is also true that if a player can play most disks, but not yours, that it is the disk's fault, not the player's.

There is probably some subtle error on the disk. I'll have a look at the attached files.

btw - the post about sharing .ifo files - it was just a reminder to stay away from commercial DVD's. There was a discussion in another thread about a commercial DVD, and a request to post the ifo's, that prompted my post.

[mpucoder]

I can't see anything wrong - maybe the player doesn't like the media?

[aidas]

Regarding media. I use 2 brands: Verbatim and some local one. The same result, no difference.

Yet I've attached a XS-sized version of authored DVD's IFOs and Menu VOBs just in case to check. Or you can find the whole XS-sized DVD on http://s21.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0E0CI2OP6CXDB2VOPO71ST3WDN

brgds