Creating Menu Buttons, What Am I Missing?

[hf]

Hi,

This should probably go in the DVD authoring forum, but since
I was using pgcedit and vobblanker, I'll ask it here. Feel
free to move it if you feel it should not be here.

I was playing around with pgcedit's "add button" feature.
I created a bmp file for the background and used muxman to
create a vob. I then used vobblanker to replace the existing
menu screen. Finally, I used pgcedit to create the buttons
(the text for the buttons is part of the background bmp file).
All works well, but the buttons are not highlighted so on a
standalone player you have no idea what is selected. I
believe I need to define some subpictures in order to get
the highlights, but have been unable to find much info on
how to do that. Muxman lets you specify subs, but I don't
know what their format is (apparently not bmp files!)

If I position the text for my new buttons where the text was
for the menu I'm replacing, can I use the original subs
in muxman to get the highlighting?

I've seen several posts on how to do this using commercial
packages, but since I am only playing around for my own
education, I'd rather use free tools. Can anyone help me out?

[sweetness]

you need to mux in the subs for the highlights.
here's a start How to modify menu subpictures (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=92211&highlight=bmp+to+sup).
i'm trying to do the same thing but don't have much time these days to play around. :(
tell me how it goes.

[mpucoder]

Subs for Muxman are 720x480 or 720x576 16 color bmps, but currently you have to define an .sst file first to import them.

[hf]

I think I am about ready to give up trying to make
my own menus! I'm not getting anywhere trying to
get the button highlighting to work.

Here is what I have: I'm trying to modify VTS_02_0.
It has a total of 8 menus, the first 4 are dummies.
The 5th one has 4 cells, I'm trying to modify the
second cell. There are a total of 12 cells in the vob.
I opened the vob file with subrip 1.17
selected "Save sub as BMP" to get all the button subpic
masks. Then I selected "Save sub as SUP" to get a .sup
file for each cell. In the lower window, I selected each
sup file, said I wanted it saved as an sst file and pressed
save. I noticed that while the .sup files are different
sizes, all the sst files are exactly the same.

I edited the first sst file. I added "Generator SubRip1.17.1"
and at the end of the file where there is an entry for each
of the 12 cells, I had to change the file name from the sup
file to the bmp file.

Using muxman .13h I selected my modified menu bitmap 12 times
(I didn't yet bother saving the bmps for the menus I don't
want to modify). There is no audio. For the subpic, I selected
the first sst file. Muxman then creates its output. If I use
subrip on the muxman output, it does not find any subs. If
I use vobblanker 2.0.1 to replace the one cell I want to
modify and then use subrip the subpic for the modified cell
is all one color instead of having 4 rectangles for the
buttons like it should. Here is the muxman log, with some
of the repeated lines deleted)

MuxMan version 0.13h
Accepted image C:\covers\PDVD_003b.bmp (12 of these)
Opened sub 1 file F:\fifth_element\sub\ds.1.sst.

08:45:53 Begin multiplex.
Maximum audio duration 0 fields.
new graphics buffer size 414720.
graphics buffer size 1244160.
Starting scene Segment_1_scn1 at 00:00:00:00
SeqEnd at 1C875. (12 of these)
Bytes remaining in buffer = 0.
08:45:56 End multiplex.
Bitrate - avg: 2094268, min: 1931380 (lba 0), max: 28970709 (lba 649).
Shortest GOP has 2 fields, longest GOP has 2 fields.
Fields: 332, Still fields: 308, VOBU: 12, Sectors: 708.

EDIT: I was just looking at the muxman homepage. It looks like I am
barking up the wrong tree and need to wait for the next version
that supports highlight streams! I guess all this tinkering
with subpics is of no use.

[mpucoder]

I'm confused.
.sup files are a binary form of subtitles, and can be used by themselves although you cannot edit the bitmaps they contain.

.sst files are text that contain the parameters for the subs, and the file names of the bitmaps. The generator statement should be the second statement, adding it at the end is too late as its purpose it to change the way the rest of the file is interpretted.

It looks to me like you used the bitmaps as the underlying video. You should use the m2v demuxed from the original menu for that. And you will need to setup the color palette for the subs unless the default is satisfactory.

But you still will not have buttons using Muxman 0.13, 0.14, which is not public yet, is the first to support buttons.

NuMenu4U could be quite helpful for this. Principally designed for recompressing menu video, and then reassembling the menu, it will produce the files you need, and automate a lot of the work. Development of NuMenu4U is also keeping pace with Muxman.

[hf]

Sorry if I was not clear, I did have the Generator statement
as the second line.


.sup files are a binary form of subtitles, and can be used by themselves

When I tried using the .sup file directly in muxman, I get the
error: "Subpicture file type not recognized" That is why I was
using the sst files. But as they come from subrip the end of
the file looks like this:


SP_NUMBER START END FILE_NAME
Color (1 2 3 4)
Contrast (0 0 0 0)
1 00:00:24:02 00:00:25:02 d.1.sup


And the muxman complains that d.1.sup does not look like a
bitmap file, so I changed the file name to be that of the
subpicture bmp file that subrip extracted.


It looks to me like you used the bitmaps as the underlying video. You should use the m2v demuxed from the original menu for that


That's right. I created a bmp file that I want to use instead
of the original still menu graphics. If I use the original m2v,
I'll be stuck with the original image. Basicly what I want to
do is take the original still picture that has 4 buttons and
replace it with my own still picture that has 2 buttons. With
vobblanker and pgcedit I can easily replace the still image and
define the buttons, but I don't get any button highlights.

I'll check out NuMenu4u this weekend or just wait for the ever
improving next version of muxman. Thanks for your help.

[Surf]

Hi hf,

I have an unproven idea:

How about fooling around that menu page in question with PgcEdit? Doubling clicking the pgc and fool around with those 16 squares which hold the highlighting colors? I have been changing one of these squares to change the color of the sub-title and the highlighting colors....

[sweetness]

hf
your best bet is to extract the cell will vobblanker(as a vob file) use subrip to rip out the subs(from that extracted vob) as .sst file and edit the bitmaps so there are only two highlights in the postions you want them.
mux with muxman.
replace with vobblanker.
edit(import) the buttons and color schemes with PgcEdit making sure the buttons are over the new highlight postions.

don't know if you where ripping the subs for the whole PGC but it's easier to go cell by cell. longer but easier.

[hf]

@Surf:
I tried messing with the various color settings
in pgcedit, but no luck.

@sweetness:
I extracted the single cell and then
used subrip like you said. This time I ended up with a correct
sst file (that referenced the bmp not the sup file) I guess I
was doing things out of order last time and that gets you a messed
up sst file. Anyway, I edited the subpic bmp file so it has only
the 2 highlight spots I wanted. I then used muxman to take my
new bmp file and the sst file that references the modified subpic
bmp file to get a new vob file. I used vobblanker 2.0.0.1 to
replace the original cell with the new one. I opened the original
vob with pgcedit 0.5.2 so I could export the color scheme and
the two buttons I want to keep and then opened the modified vob
with pgcedit so I could import the buttons and color schemes.
I adjusted the button locations in the 2 groups so they fell
where they were supposed to. When I test, I still don't get
highlights. The buttons work fine, just no highlights.

Has anyone gotten this to work? If muxman doesn't support
highlights yet, I would think the info is lost when remuxing.
Maybe pgcedit should have a way to specify the highlight info,
but that is probably going beyond the scope of what pgcedit
wants to do.

I'll see if NuMenu4u helps me out this weekend. Otherwise, I'm
always open to new ideas.

[jeanl]

hf,
You should check whether the menu cell has subpic packs in the final VOB. Open the VOB file with VobEdit, then go to the start LBA of the menu cell in question (you'll find it in PgcEdit) and look for subpic packs. If they're there then there's something missing somewhere (not sure I can help you). If not then they got lost somewhere in the process... You could also use subrip to see whether the highlights you inserted are indeed there...
Jeanl

[hf]

Yup, there are subpic packs. The menu in question runs from LBA 5
to 73 and there are 2 subpic packs at LBA 63 and 64 according to
vobedit. I just checked the muxman output and there are no subpic
packs in it according to vobedit. I also tried subrip both the
muxman output and on the rebuilt menu vob, but it does not find
any!

[jeanl]

Originally posted by hf
Yup, there are subpic packs. The menu in question runs from LBA 5
to 73 and there are 2 subpic packs at LBA 63 and 64 according to
vobedit. I just checked the muxman output and there are no subpic
packs in it according to vobedit. I also tried subrip both the
muxman output and on the rebuilt menu vob, but it does not find
any!
hf your post is a bit confusing. YOu say that there are subpic packs, but then you say that there are none at the output of muxman! I'm guessing muxman is where your subpic packs are getting lost right?
jeanl

[hf]

hf your post is a bit confusing. YOu say that there are subpic packs, but then you say that there are none at the output of muxman! I'm guessing muxman is where your subpic packs are getting lost right?

I just rechecked the files. I think I was looking at the original
vob when I did my post. Just looked now at the modified vob and
there is only 1 nav pack followed by video packs. There are no
sub packs for the modified cell. That makes a lot more sense. So
it looks like the sub packs are never getting into the muxman
output. I just saved the project in muxman, the .mxp file definately
shows a subpic:


Item=Video Stream
{
Coding Mode=Mpeg-2
Standard=NTSC
CC Field 1=No
CC Field 2=No
Item=Video Play
{
File=C:\covers\PDVD_003c.bmp
Size=1036854
Duration=Default
}
}
Item=Sub-Picture Stream
{
Stream Number=1
Language Extension=1
Display Mode=unspecified
Item=Sub-Picture Play
{
File=F:\fifth_element\sub1\bm.1a.bmp
Start=00:00:05:22 (172)
Forced Start=No
Time Code=NTSC non-drop
Duration=00:00:02:15
Origin=0,0
Display Area=0,2,719,479
Color 1(Pa)=000000 = = =
Color 2(E1)=0000ff = = =
Color 3(E2)=ffffff = = =
Color=4 3 2 1
Contr=0 0 0 0
}
}


But even with the subpic in the vob, until I can modify the
highlight info to reflect where the repositioned buttons are
I'm not going to get a usable menu.

I was kind of able to accomplish what I wanted using this
guide: http://dvdguides.netgeekhosting.com/guides/edit_menu
I end up with the menu background I wanted with the buttons
I wanted, but the limitation is that the location and size
of the buttons are determined by what menu you export/import.
So now, for instance, my button labeled "Play" has a hightlight
that is about 4 times wider than the word "Play". I can't
use as large of a font as I would like because then the top
and bottom of the word would be outside the highlight area.

[mpucoder]

You need to either set the video duration or have audio. The default duration for an NTSC still is 00:00:00:15 or the duration of the audio (whichever is longer), but your subs start at 00:00:05:22

[sweetness]

can you change the start time of the subs in muxman?(or only in the sst file you can do that)
if so, to 00:00:00:15 or can 00:00:00:00 work too?

So basically hf problem is muxing a sub from a "motion" menu into a "still" one. If that's the case then still the menu first then edit.

[mpucoder]

You can make it work either way - set the duration of the video to 00:00:08:07 or set the sub to start at 00:00:00:00 and end at 00:00:00:15

But if it is a menu, with a cell still, it should be forced start with no stop. In .sst that is a minus sign for the stop time. In mxp set the duration to 00:00:00:00 for no stop.

[hf]

I never even though about the start/duration times!
I changed the subpic start time to 0 and now the
muxman output does contain the subpic packs. I
verified the subpic is correct by extracting it again
with subrip. I guess this is about as far as I'm going
to take this until the next version of muxman comes
out that will support the specifying of highlight locations.
Then I should be able to roll my own menus with out too
much pain.

Since my last post, I downloaded the trial version of
TMPGenc DVD Author 1.6. It lets you create somewhat customizable
menus. I just picked a menu template that did not have thumbnails
and imported 2 short clips to get 2 menu buttons. You can then
select the text for the buttons, give a title to the menu, move
all 3 anywhere you like, add your own background image and then
create a dvd. The only problem is there is an annoying "Play All"
button that you can't get rid of, but you can make it real small
and move it way up into a corner so you don't really see it.
Then just use vobblanker to replace the existing menu with the
new one, and use pgcedit to delete the unneeded buttons (like the
"play all" and 2 hidden buttons), give the buttons the proper
functionality and all was well!