A little bit of information on using Scenarist can be found here:

[Arky]

Hi, I thought a little info on Scenarist & ReelDVD might be useful for those of us who wish to dip our toes into the non-Maestro authoring environment, as, indeed, many more people on the forums seem to be doing these days, no doubt spurred on by the IFO-editing utils from our marvellously talented Doom9 members, and by the excellent guide to using Scenarist, by Doom9 himself

Well, here's a little more info:


ReelDVD and Scenarist Specifications / COMPARISONS Table:

h**p://www.daileycreative.com/reeldvd/Features.asp

(bear in mind that many people choose to author most of their title in the *relative* simplicity of the ReelDVD environment, and then import their scenarios into Scenarist for finalising the more complex aspects of their authoring).

I have now decided that I am going to tackle Scenarist and see for myself how it lends itself to some heavy authoring! (I may be some time.... ) lol


More nice links:

h**p://www.dvd.acedaikin.com.sg/products/Scenarist_NT/project_manager.htm

And some ReelDVD tut's:

h**p://www.daileycreative.com/ReelDVD/Tutorial/Tutorial_1.asp

h**p://www.crazypants.com/


Arky ;o)




"General Scenarist Troubleshooting:

1) Beware of filenames which are too long or that have similar beginnings. If the name of an object is longer than 22 characters or the first 4 characters of two tracks are identical and you try to delete one of it (as track or as PGC).

2) If you are making a lot of changes to your scenario you may wish to export to a script file and then re-import with a slightly different name"

[timekills]

If you choose to use ScenChap, and you are encoding a DVD with multiple PGCs and or video title-sets, you may wish to export a script with just ONE (i.e. probably the main movie's) PGC to ScenChap.

This is because ScenChap does not work correctly when drop-down flagged and non-drop-down flagged PGCs are exported to it, or with multiple aspect ratios. Many DVDs now have "The making of..." additions, and these are frequently 4:3 and/or interlaced. Even if you choose to re-encode the mpeg stream of these videos (often I will just rip that .m2v if it is too short to mess with) the video will still throw ScenChap for a loop if the script also has a "standard" 23.97 FPS video stream PGC with drop-down enabled.

So, to fix this, drag only the main movie onto the timeline editor, and then export the script. Insert the chapter points using ScenChap. Reimport the new script into Scenarist, dop the rest of the video and audio files onto your timeline, and you are all set.

That being said, ScenChap works perfectly well with any number of PGCs as long as they are all the same FPS and aspect ratio.

[sundance]

You might also want to have a look at
Scenarist Survival Guide in 24 hours ...

[Radiomans]

Hi

well i have just been looking at sonic scenarist v3.1 and
i can say with my hand on my heart that this is not for me at the moment

I will be staying with DVDLab Pro v2.3, its a great prog to learn and use, i have been using it now for about 2 yrs, ok
i did have a bit of learning to do, but i think that it is just as good as sonic scenarist, its alot easy to use to and
is a better price ($299)

Well back to work, got a project to get out in a few days

Cya all
Radiomans

[Arky]

Radiomans, I like DVDLab Pro - it puts a lot of power into the hands of the author for an extremely fair price, and I hope it continues to move forward.

However, last I knew, it was not (yet) certified Spec-Compliant. Are your projects commercial or personal? If commercial, do you have them verified prior to duplication/replication?


Arky.

[lazmi]

Anyone have more information regarding scenarist subtitlese script.. how can you import subtitles script file.

The script file has the form:
[html]st_format 2
Display_Start non_forced
TV_Type PAL
Tape_Type NON_DROP
Pixel_Area (0 574)
Display_Area (0 2 719 574)
Color (4 4 3 4)
Contrast (15 15 15 0)
E2 (255 0 0 - - - )
E1 (0 0 255 - - - )
PA (0 0 0 - - - )
BG (255 255 255 - - - )
Directory
#####################################################
SP_NUMBER START END FILE_NAME
1 00:00:00:00:00 00:00:00:10:00 pict1.bmp[/html]
Each subtitle has a separate image file. Make sure you don't have any overlapping and point to the directory the pictures are in or you'll get an error when you multiplex.

[bigotti5]

@PhillipWyllie
Pixel_Area is not correct
Py1 – Py0 <= 572 for PAL and <= 477 for NTSC

Originally Posted by bigotti5

@PhillipWyllie
Pixel_Area is not correct
Py1 – Py0 <= 572 for PAL and <= 477 for NTSC

It may be wrong, but it's the only one I can get to work. Maybe you can help me understand what all the parts mean, bigotti. For the life of me that part of the manual doesn't make sense.

[bigotti5]

Subtitles are always rendered at 720x576(480)
The top 2 lines and for PAL the bottom line must not be used.
So max height for PAL is 573 and for NTSC is 478
Values in SST counts from 0 for x and y so you have to use 572/477

Image size
Max image size PAL:720x576
Max image size NTSC:720x480


Specifications:

Pixel_Area (Py0 Py1)
Py0 >= 0
Py1 <=image height -1
Py0 < Py1
Py1 - Py0 <= 572(PAL,respect bottom line)/477(NTSC)

Display_Area (Dx0 Dy0 Dx1 Dy1)
Dx0 >= 0, Dx1 <= 719
Dx0 < Dx1
Dy0 >=2
Dy1 <= 479(NTSC)/574(PAL, respect bottom line)
Dx1 - Dx0 = image width -1
Dy1 - Dy0 = Py1 - Py0 <= 572(PAL)/477(NTSC)

Calculate pixel area values from image area
Claculate display area values from screen area

Examples (PAL):

Source image 720x576
Pixel area -> (2 574)
Display area -> (0 2 719 574)

Source image 720x574
Pixel area -> (0 572)
Display area -> (0 2 719 574)
or
Pixel area -> (2 572)
Display area -> (0 2 719 574)
2 pixels cropped from top

Source image 700x420 (placing 100 from top, center horizontal)
Pixel area -> (0 419)
Display area -> (9 100 709 519)

Tanks m8, I'll refer to this in future.

[neil wilkes]

Originally Posted by Arky

More nice links:

h**p://www.dvd.acedaikin.com.sg/products/Scenarist_NT/project_manager.htm

"General Scenarist Troubleshooting:

1) Beware of filenames which are too long or that have similar beginnings. If the name of an object is longer than 22 characters or the first 4 characters of two tracks are identical and you try to delete one of it (as track or as PGC).

2) If you are making a lot of changes to your scenario you may wish to export to a script file and then re-import with a slightly different name"

Some great info there - especially the filenames thing. Another gotcha for the unwary are filenames with spaces in them - this should be avoided at all costs and the only characters I recommend are alphanumeric & underscores - no spaces, no funny characters as the file may well import okay but you could easily run into trouble at multiplex time.

Another tip - if you need to change out an asset, go into the data editor, right-click the asset to change & then point it at the new file - this will swap them over. The only thing to be careful of is that if the new asset is longer than the old one it may go pear shaped....

One small thing - the link above is dead now.

[rik1138]

Originally Posted by neil wilkes

One small thing - the link above is dead now.

Heh, yeah, that link has probably been dead for over a decade... Daikin hasn't been involved with Scenarist with 2001 or 2002.

You can still see it on the Wayback machine though, but most of the information is very basic operation of Scenarist 2.0...

Still can't figure out how an air conditioner company got into the market of DVD programming.

[srfscenar]

Originally Posted by rik1138

Still can't figure out how an air conditioner company got into the market of DVD programming.

Ha Ha Ha!!!
They did a good job though, like their A/C's!!!