menu nightmares in maestro :( (Not anymore :))

[albus]

Ok, for last week (10 hours a day) I am trying to make a dvd out of my home video. Used CCE to convert my AVIs into mpg. Created chapter points in maestro. added ac2 sound (converted using besweet) just like the guide says.
created subtitles .... everything went OK.

The menu creation description in the guide (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/maestro.htm) is however not easy to understand for a newbie :(. I created a jpeg with chapter frames as my background. Then I created an overlay image with pink borders (looks just like the guide) and yellow squares for the arrows at the bottom. (Created with photoshop)

Then I went ahead and created the dvd. The chpater frames do not get the highlight, however the arrows get the hightlight when they are selected.

So I got back to my project and used video monitor to check if I can see those chapter frames, of course not.

So I created yellow rectangles instead of pink corners to test those. Those did not work either.

So how can I get it to work?

Here is my overlay image.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I was hoping to finish this dvd by this sunday and I think I am very close.

(also my root menu did not work, nor did bunch of menu connections, the movie did not go back to main menu at the end of the movie, but those are for later if I can not fix those myself)

[albus]

hmm, tried to change the color from pink to yellow and now it shows up.
So for some reason (the obvious being I dont understand the whole colormap thing down there) pink doesnt work, how can I get it to work?
(or I can go with yellow I guess :) )

[fccHandler]

The colors in the imported picture are NOT the colors which will show in the DVD menu. Rather, they are just placeholders for the actual colors you will choose in Maestro. A subpicture is allowed four colors (in practice it's more like three, since one color is usually transparent). Maestro "detects" the button regions when it loads the image by looking for solid areas of red, blue, black, and white, so ideally your picture should only contain those four pure colors. After it's imported, you can see the regions Maestro detected and make them any color you wish, and give them different levels of transparency. Hope that helps.

[jfpolo]

fccHandler is right, you you must make the subpicture with only four colors, pure red, pure blue, pure green and pure black; if you want the buttons showing only one color , you use only one of them and in the color mapping of DVD Maestro give some value to it in subpicture,selection and action ( if you don't want the buttons shown when not selected, subpicture must be 0). Also, if you want the movie to go back to the main menu at the end, you must make the link in the "Connections" at the end of the last chapter. If you have more problems post it detailed so we can help you.
Good Luck

[albus]

The colors in the imported picture are NOT the colors which will show in the DVD menu. Rather, they are just placeholders for the actual colors you will choose in Maestro. A subpicture is allowed four colors (in practice it's more like three, since one color is usually transparent). Maestro "detects" the button regions when it loads the image by looking for solid areas of red, blue, black, and white, so ideally your picture should only contain those four pure colors. After it's imported, you can see the regions Maestro detected and make them any color you wish, and give them different levels of transparency. Hope that helps.

thanks, that helps. (I never realized that I need to have the subpicture in only those colors)

So how do I make the menus any color I wish? playing with button selection color, only yellow seemed to affect my menu highlights.


I am not finding the root menu (dvd menu) in the command sequence. (so I dont have a root menu in my dvd)
I have:
First play : main menu
Title menu : main menu and now (thanks jfpolo)
movie1:<last chapter>:End Action : main menu
(do I have to pick a button of a menu, or can I just link to a menu)
can't find root menu there. :(

and what are the timeout sources and do I need to connect those?
<menu name>:timeout

Also after all the menu changes I have done, I am getting
compiler error: invalid frame rate, build cancelled after it compiles 3rd of the 12 menus. :(

Also I'm getting a warning
1 Warnings :
- Main Menu : Invalid Alternate Menu In Display Condition. Condition ignored!
dont know what it means

[albus]

Also after all the menu changes I have done, I am getting
compiler error: invalid frame rate, build cancelled after it compiles 3rd of the 12 menus. :(


found answer to one of my problems here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=35047&highlight=compile+error+frame)
setting affinity for dvdmaestro.exe to 1 cpu seems to solve that problem.

[albus]

found one more

and what are the timeout sources and do I need to connect those?
<menu name>:timeout


after a while if no user action happens, will go to the specified target.
(However I havent yet found where to set the timeout value.)
So I can set all the time outs to my main menu, or ignore.

So now only one problem remains. when I click menu on my remote
(root menu in powerdvd) nothing happens.

When I click on root menu in the navigation simulator in maestro nothing happens. (and as far as I can recall, I have not made any connection for a root menu.)

So where do I do it?? (without that the dvd can not be brought back to main menu, once it starts playing :( )

[albus]

So now only one problem remains. when I click menu on my remote
(root menu in powerdvd) nothing happens.

When I click on root menu in the navigation simulator in maestro nothing happens. (and as far as I can recall, I have not made any connection for a root menu.)

So where do I do it?? (without that the dvd can not be brought back to main menu, once it starts playing :( )

Found that as well!

There is a
chapter 1 : Menu Key , the target should be main menu
holy $hit! I have 70 chapters. :(

Any way, now only one question remains (really!)
how do I get any color on my selected buttons as suggested by fccHandler. After my attempts, I figured out that if my subpicture has black placeholders, I can get only blue hightlight (varying degree of blueness)
for red placeholder I get yellow highlight (which I am using right now)
and for blue placeholder I will get green highlight, oh well, its not THAT important, but would like to know if I can get orange highlight for example.

Thanks

[fccHandler]

Click on the colors to change them.

And please read the DVD Maestro manual. ;)

[albus]

Click on the colors to change them.

And please read the DVD Maestro manual. ;)

There is no substitute to reading the manual :)

Thanks fccHandler! I have successfully created my first DVD that does not look too shabby! yay for dvd maestro!