UPDATED GUIDE: Adding Menus back to a DVD Shrink Re-authored DVD [Archive]

CoNS

22nd April 2005, 10:43

Thanks for this guide, blutach. :)

The title may be a little misleading, though? Unlike your old (also very nice) guide here (http://www.videohelp.com/~r0lZ/pgcedit/third_party/blutach/adding_menus_to_dvd_shrink_reauthored_dvds.htm), the new guide doesn't really "add the menus back to a DVD Shrink Re-authored DVD", or am I mistaken? (you keep the original dvd structure and import the newly authored PGC into the original disc using the VobBlanker replace PGC function).

IMHO it's a whole different approach than your old guide where you use the newly authored disc (in your example from DVD Shrink, could also be from MuxMan or IfoEdit after adding custom subs, compressing the video etc.) and build up a menu structure on top of the new disc by importing the menus using PgcEdit.

Anyhow, I think both guides are very nice, as I said, and they're very much appreciated. :p

A minor bug: At the bottom of your new guide, the link to the Doom9 discussion thread leads to the thread discussion your old guide...

Also, I'm not sure about this (taken from your new guide):

Step 7 – Check and fix your audio and subtitle menus

Skip this step, if you have kept all audio and subtitle streams in your re-authored DVD.

Because DVD Shrink in re-author mode always does a “logical remapping of enabled streams”, it is probable that the buttons on the audio and subpicture menus now no longer function entirely correctly (unless you kept all streams).When I use DVDShrink's reauthor mode and add a single title from my original disc and only keep ac3 audio stream no. 2 (i.e. uncheck streams #0 and #1), the outputted disc has the single audio stream I kept as no. 2 (82), whereas the other audio streams are set to "None" when I check in PgcEdit. I would've expected that the streams were not only reordered but also remapped so that the stream I kept was placed as stream no. 0 (80) :confused:

blutach

22nd April 2005, 11:06

Originally posted by CoNS
A minor bug: At the bottom of your new guide, the link to the Doom9 discussion thread leads to the thread discussion your old guide...I had thought I had just linked to the IFO/VOB Editors forums, because I had not yet set up a thread.

@jsoto (and r0lZ) - can you please change the link to point to this thread?
Also, I'm not sure about this (taken from your new guide):

When I use DVDShrink's reauthor mode and add a single title from my original disc and only keep ac3 audio stream no. 2 (i.e. uncheck streams #0 and #1), the outputted disc has the single audio stream I kept as no. 2 (82), whereas the other audio streams are set to "None" when I check in PgcEdit. I would've expected that the streams were not only reordered but also remapped so that the stream I kept was placed as stream no. 0 (80) :confused: The stream IDs will stay the same but their places in the order will have changed. You might have in the original:

Stream 0 - English (ID 0x80)
Stream 1 - Spanish (ID 0x81)
Stream 2 - Italian (ID 0x82)
Stream 3 - French (ID 0x83)

You decide to keep Spanish and French. Spanish stays as 0x81 and French as 0x83, but Spanish is now Stream 0 and French is now Stream 1, and there is no streams 2 or 3. The original menu will pick audio stream 1 for Spanish and needs to be reprogrammed to pick stream 0 (or else it will play French). You get the picture.

Hope this clears things up and thanks for the nice words. Indeed the method has change a lot, eliminating a lot of work in fixing broken navigation links.

Regards

richarddd

22nd April 2005, 11:38

The text says rip to a folder called Ripped. The VobBlanker screenshots use Working_Copy as an input folder. Shouldn't the screenshots use the folder "Ripped" (or use "Working_Copy" in the text)?

r0lZ

22nd April 2005, 11:51

Originally posted by blutach
@jsoto (and r0lZ) - can you please change the link to point to this thread? The link is correct on my site.

CoNS

22nd April 2005, 11:52

Originally posted by blutach
Indeed the method has changed a lot, eliminating a lot of work in fixing broken navigation links.The outputted disc with your old guide, however, had the advantage that you got a "clean" dvd structure with only the menus and titles you want, nothing else.

With the new guide, you'll have to blank out unwanted material etc., too (leaving those 10KB files with corresponding ifo and bup files), AND you will reuse any badly authored stuff from the original disc.

But I still prefer the replace PGC method, it's very easy to use...Originally posted by blutach
The stream IDs will stay the same but their places in the order will have changed. You might have in the original:

Stream 0 - English (ID 0x80)
Stream 1 - Spanish (ID 0x81)
Stream 2 - Italian (ID 0x82)
Stream 3 - French (ID 0x83)

You decide to keep Spanish and French. Spanish stays as 0x81 and French as 0x83, but Spanish is now Stream 0 and French is now Stream 1, and there is no streams 2 or 3. The original menu will pick audio stream 1 for Spanish and needs to be reprogrammed to pick stream 0 (or else it will play French). You get the picture.Yeah, but just weird IMHO that DVDShrink re-author mode, where the output per definition doesn't have language/audio/subtitle menus, doesn't rearrange both the stream mapping and the stream numbers...

CoNS

22nd April 2005, 11:53

Originally posted by r0lZ
The link is correct on my site. Yep, I was using the guide from jsoto's site...

blutach

22nd April 2005, 14:34

Originally posted by richarddd
The text says rip to a folder called Ripped. The VobBlanker screenshots use Working_Copy as an input folder. Shouldn't the screenshots use the folder "Ripped" (or use "Working_Copy" in the text)? If we were being so pedantic, I spose you're right. But users should get the idea. The text pretty much explains it, I hope.

Regards

blutach

22nd April 2005, 14:44

Originally posted by Cons
The outputted disc with your old guide, however, had the advantage that you got a "clean" dvd structure with only the menus and titles you want, nothing else.True, but it's hardly a big deal.With the new guide, you'll have to blank out unwanted material etc., too (leaving those 10KB files with corresponding ifo and bup files), AND you will reuse any badly authored stuff from the original disc.Yes, you're right. I will amend the guide to ensure users blank unused titlesets. Thanks :)But I still prefer the replace PGC method, it's very easy to use...Yeah, but just weird IMHO that DVDShrink re-author mode, where the output per definition doesn't have language/audio/subtitle menus, doesn't rearrange both the stream mapping and the stream numbers... I have been thinking about a better way of doing this. Essentially, I think users should change the stream positions back to the original ones in PgcEdit's PGC Editor. This is so easy and will not involve ANY menu re-programming (other than hiding unused buttons). It will leave some "gaps" in the stream positions, which should not be a problem - they can be filled in with stripped streams, anyway. I will update the guide and release an updated version in the next day or so.

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards

jsoto

22nd April 2005, 14:51

Originally posted by blutach
@jsoto (and r0lZ) - can you please change the link to point to this thread?Done.

blutach

22nd April 2005, 15:52

Thanks jsoto. What do you think of the idea of remapping the streams back to their original place in order to eliminate the need to re-program the VM commands in audio and subpic menus?

Regards

jsoto

22nd April 2005, 19:59

I usually keep the streams at their original position in my backups, so I don't need to modify the menu buttons. But, as you know, "gaps" on streams are not well managed by some settops, so I never disable a stream in the middle. This is not a big problem in audio (you cannot have more than 8 audios), but in subs, it is really odd... Imaging you want to keep the subs streams #1 #2 and #31. You have to keep all the subs indexes!.

BTW, when I author with IFOedit/Muxman, I use some "silence" files (usually one frame length) to fill the stream gaps in the VOB.

jsoto

blutach

23rd April 2005, 01:07

I agree, I have a settop that does not like cycling through streams with the remote unless there are no gaps (the menus work fine though). But I figure you could just pop the original stream definitions back in - they are stripped and won't play anyway.

Regards

jsoto

23rd April 2005, 09:16

Originally posted by blutach
But I figure you could just pop the original stream definitions back in - they are stripped and won't play anyway.
Yes, I always do it.
jsoto

Methanoid

28th April 2005, 10:13

A question, if you please.

I'm trying to re-author the German film Der Untergang (Downfall) to use English subtitles.

Is it possible to use this method to REPLACE one set of subs with the English ones but keep the menus?

I assume I'd have to

Demux the Movie only, add the subs using ifoEdit author and then shove that back into the disk using vobEdit?

blutach

28th April 2005, 11:13

Yes, once you have your new PGC created with whatever tools you like, you can just replace one TTN with another.

Regards

blutach

11th May 2005, 15:16

Further update to this guide posted on PgcEdit site in MS Word format. HTML version coming soon.

I believe it will also be available on jsoto's site shortly.

Regards

Methanoid

11th May 2005, 18:00

Thanks, yeah I found how to do this a week or so ago... re-author (movie only) with ifoEdit replacing the German subs with net sourced English ones. Use VOBEDIT to replace the new movie into the original (keeping menus). Check they match up.

Result is great!

Tirges

12th May 2005, 00:32

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but as this thread is about menus....

Is it possible to re-enable (or unhide) a button in a menu once it's been hidden

(Say you have a DVD where a subtitle has been stripped, and it's menu button has been disabled (but you know it was there, because the picture still says so :) )
But there is plenty of space so you decide to re-add the subtitle; heck the button is gone....)

r0lZ

12th May 2005, 08:34

The original highlight is still there, in the subpic strerams.
So, to restore the button, you have to move the rectangle back to its original position.
Then, you have to restore the original button command, and the links from the adjacent buttons.

There is no automatic undo, as you can see, unless you exported the whole menu before editing it.

Tirges

12th May 2005, 13:35

That should work, thanx

(I have to look into the whole 'Link TailPGC' thing to recreate the command...)

Should it matter if the original button was 'deleted', as I see the menu-button-numbers have been changed, and not just one number skipped?

r0lZ

12th May 2005, 14:27

If the original commands in the buttons are all different commands (for example, JumpVTS_TT in a chapter menu), then deleting a button is generally safe.
But if all commands are equal (most of the time, they are LinkTailPGC), then the highlighted button number is checked later, in the post commands of the menu PGC, or, sometimes, in another PGC. If a button has been deleted, the remaining buttons numbers are changed, and this will certainly cause navigation errors. In this case, you have to fix the commands manually.

Don't delete any button (unless it's the last one) if you are not sure. Hiding a button is always safe.

Tirges

12th May 2005, 14:46

I know, but sadly I wasn't the one who edited the original menu...

But the button has magically re-appeared, thanks for that :)

Now I need to work on my LinkTailPGC-knowledge (GPRM seems another magic word in this case...) to make it actually work (instead of crashing the DVD :) )

thanks for the tips so far :)

blutach

14th May 2005, 00:49

It is always safe to hide a button but sometimes, if that button is highlighted when a menu is played, the menu appears with no highlight. The button is set to auto activate its new command (Linktopcell and highlight a non-deleted button), BUT you still need to press the select button in order for the highlight to appear.

My preferred way is to have it highlight and change the command to LinkTopCell, highlight non-deleted button. It's a little bit of extra work, but less confusing for small minds like me.

I wonder if a better way for button hiders is to perhaps force action a hidden button after say 1 second or even 0 seconds?

Regards

zacoz

14th May 2005, 04:26

Are you saying that the highlight won't appear on the non-deleted button until you press the select button ?

Isn't autoactivating a given button the same as force action on the same button (whether hidden or not) ?

... less confusing for small minds like me. Thanks blu, I'm more confused after reading your post and wondering just how microscopic my mind is. Maybe I was just living in ignorant bliss.

blutach

14th May 2005, 07:14

AFAIK, auto activate forces the command to execute when the button is highlighted whereas force action says, wait until a specified time passes then execute the command.

And, no it isn't autoactivating or force actioning, which is frustrating cos I don't get a button highlighted (if it's hidden).

Regards

2COOL

14th May 2005, 07:34

IIRC, in VobEdit, there is force select and force activate in regards to button highlight information section.

If a button's force selected flag is on, the button will be highlighted when menu is displayed. Can't confirm if a SetHL_BTN command in IFO would override this though.

If a button's force activate or force action flag is set, then the button's command will automatically execute when it gets highlighted. Note: Even though a button gets highlighted with menu display, it doesn't execute its command if force activate is set.

I hope I'm right.

[EDIT]Dug up some old relevant archives.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=270440#post270440
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=288968#post288968 *According to mpucoder in this post, the SetHL_BTN command in IFO will override what's in the VOB. I'm a little confused in his reply post after this. He mentions about auto-action as a different animal from force activate. I think it's the same by definition.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=415310#post415310

[EDIT2]OK, I found a good reference.

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/Helppro/timeout.htm

It's mentions about auto-action and force activate.

blutach

14th May 2005, 08:28

HL Button does not override force select - it's the other way around.

I have many DVDs where I tried to highlight a button setting SPRM 8 but force select beats it every time. Like drawing a flush against a full house. :D

So force select CAN override my problem with hidden buttons. But what if you don't want to force select a button? When you hide a button with no force select, and SPRM 8 highlights that button, then it needs to auto action its link top cell, highlight non-deleted button. But somehow, my menus are coming in with no highlight.

Regards

blutach

14th May 2005, 08:33

Perhaps they need to wait till the cell times out before the force activate happens?

PS We are way OT - sorry to the thread starter :D

Regards

2COOL

14th May 2005, 08:36

Originally posted by blutach
I have many DVDs where I tried to highlight a button setting SPRM 8 but force select beats it every time. I guess I read his post wrong then.

blutach

14th May 2005, 09:04

From Dimad's thread:

Originally posted by mpucoder
Rather than play with menu-global fields, which can screw up a menu that uses it itself, why not auto-action? Auto-action will cause the command to execute if the button is selected. The command should jump to the same menu, but with a different button highlighted. btn_sl_e_ptm is not used for auto-action, but for forced select and forced action (besides, 0 turns it off) The key here is "if the button is selected". Does highlighting it in the precommands select it? From practical experience, I think not because otherwise, with auto activate on, it would immediately jump to a non-deleted button, yes?

Instead, I have to press the button to select it, in which case, I get the non-deleted button highlighted.

Strange yes?

Regards

r0lZ

14th May 2005, 11:31

I can confirm a few things:

The 'force select button' overwrite the SPRM 8 value. Therefore, setting the force select button value to a non-hidden button is a simple way to have it highlighted by default in all cases.
The drawback is that the same button will always be highlighted when the menu is entered, regardless of the SPRM 8 value. This means that 'intelligent' SetHL_BTN commands will be lost. For example, a chapter menu may highlight the current chapter button automatically, but if you force another button, you will loose this behaviour.

The force action button number is used only when the force action delay is over, and will activate the button automatically, even if it is not currently selected.

The button's auto activate flag is used to force the activation of the button when it is selected with the remote. The default selected button is unfortunately not activated automatically if it is highlighted either by the SPRM 8 or the Force Select Button value when the menu is entered. This is why you have to press enter to highlight a non-hidden button.

My way to deal with an hidden button highlighted when the menu is entered is the following:
If the same button is always highlighted, I use the force select button value to select another button.
Otherwise, I try to locate the SetHL_BTN command, and I change the values of the hidden buttons to another one. Generally, there are several SetHL_BTN commands, selecting different buttons. In this case, it is easy to change the button number of the commands that sets hidden buttons. Unfortunately, soemtime, it's not so easy, for example when the SetHL_BTN computes the button value from a GPRM. In this case, I often insert some commands to force the GPRM to a value matching a non-deleted button, just before the SetHL_BTN command. For example, assuming buttons 1 and 2 are hidden, and button 3 is the one I want to select:If ( gprm(X) == 1024 ) { Set gprm(X) =(mov) 3072 }
If ( gprm(X) == 2048 ) { Set gprm(X) =(mov) 3072 }
(SetHL_BTN) Set Highlighted Button =(mov) gprm(X)

blutach

14th May 2005, 14:26

A vexing little problem isn't it? Nice ideas there r0lZ, thank you.

A question: If I read you right, force action happens after a specified period of time. So say the menu goes for 30 seconds, force action is set on a hidden button for say 5 seconds (to Link TopCell, HL button whatever), does this mean that after 5 seconds it will do that and after another 5 seconds it will do it again over and over?

Just for the debate's sake, I'll add what I do. I tend to leave the buttons in (non-hidden) and simply change their commands to the same as the hidden button command (LinkTopCell HL non deleted button). That way, if you enter the menu with SPRM 8 set to a "hidden" button, just click it and you are in business. Of course, if the menu has force select anyway (like on "play movie"), you can hide them without a problem - or even delete them entirely as SPRM 8 is meaningless.

Regards

r0lZ

14th May 2005, 15:52

Originally posted by blutach
A vexing little problem isn't it? Nice ideas there r0lZ, thank you.

A question: If I read you right, force action happens after a specified period of time. So say the menu goes for 30 seconds, force action is set on a hidden button for say 5 seconds (to Link TopCell, HL button whatever), does this mean that after 5 seconds it will do that and after another 5 seconds it will do it again over and over? I suppose so. LinkTopPGC restarts the current PGC (including the pre-commands) so this will obviously restart the whole process over and over. But for LinkTopCell or LinkTopPG, I don't know exactly what the player is supposed to do. However, as the buttons definitions are stored in the VOBs, they will be reloaded when the cell is restarted. Therefore, I suppose that the default action button will be activated again after the delay. Dead end.

Just for the debate's sake, I'll add what I do. I tend to leave the buttons in (non-hidden) and simply change their commands to the same as the hidden button command (LinkTopCell HL non deleted button). That way, if you enter the menu with SPRM 8 set to a "hidden" button, just click it and you are in business. Of course, if the menu has force select anyway (like on "play movie"), you can hide them without a problem - or even delete them entirely as SPRM 8 is meaningless. It's a good idea, but personally I prefer to hide the buttons, because it is obvious that the feature has been removed.
Also, when a button is hidden by PgcEdit, the adjacent buttons links are updated so that the hidden button is not selectable anymore with the remote. If you change only the command, you will still need to press two buttons on the remote to jump over the unused button.

tomlomeo

27th December 2005, 00:44

A lot more streamlined and easier to use.

Now mainly using VobBlanker. Thanks to jsoto for hosting.

See http://jsoto.posunplugged.com/guides/VobBlanker/adding_menus/index.htm

Comments welcome.

Regards
I hope I'm posting correctly....Dear Blutach....what is accomplished with this tutorial ??? please explain.......i don't understand....what is accomplished with the intense tutorial????
thank you.............tom