Quick-Play Menus, the gateway drug to BDedit menu creation.

[Lowpro]

I just finished adding an alternate playlist to the "Panic Room" Blu-ray for the TOP MENU, the menu graphics confined in this case to the 2.35:1 aspect ratio of the film. By default the 1.78:1 menus are used. Selecting "PLAY", then navigating "DOWN" and pressing "OK" provides for toggling between the two. For the POPUP MENU I elected to go with the 2.35:1 menus since I physically mask down my 1.78:1 projector screen for scope content. In any event, just thought I'd share. Eye candy provided below as always, pics of the 2.35:1 menus in use by the POPUP MENU. And no descriptions accompanying the pics this time. For additional details see my last few posts.

POPUP MENU:


SETUP\AUDIO:


SETUP\SUBTITLES (Page 1):

(Additional pic: Page 2)

SCENES (Chapters 1-4):

(Additional pics: Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-12, Chapters 13-16)

EXTRAS:


EXTRAS\COMMENTARIES:


EXTRAS\RESUME:


EXTRAS\PRE-PRODUCTION\PREP\The Testing Phase:

(Additional pic: Safe Cracking School)

EXTRAS\PRE-PRODUCTION\PREVISUALIZATION\Creating the Previs:

(Additional pics: Previs Demo, Previs Demo with Commentary)

EXTRAS\PRE-PRODUCTION\PREVISUALIZATION\Habitrail Film:


EXTRAS\PRE-PRODUCTION\PREVISUALIZATION\Multi-Angle Featurette:

(Additional pic: Page 2)

EXTRAS\PRODUCTION\Shooting Panic Room:

(Additional pic: Make Up Effects)

EXTRAS\EASTER EGGS\Real Safe Rooms:

(Additional pic: Breaking the Mirror)

[Lowpro]

My "Universal Blu-ray Authoring Template (UBAT)" is not ready for public consumption yet, but it's getting there. I'm still in the process of updating it so that the menu layout and underlying functionality of the "Panic Room (2002)" Blu-ray release can be replicated with the template while still retaining the prior functionality.

Well, this is actually the case with respects to the BDMV structure of the template. The changes there extend to the Photoshop portion of the template and associated actions however, the Photoshop actions automating the process of exporting the objects (PNGs) for import to BDedit and the menus. That's the portion I'm still building out to account for some of the latest additions.

That being said, I thought I'd provide a small look behind the scenes if you will. Click here to download a copy of the current GPR Definitions (variables) in excel format for the "Panic Room (2002)" Blu-ray. The excel sheet documents the values I'm moving to GPRs under MovieObject 0 and MovieObject 1 on First playback to make the Blu-ray work as intended. Some GPRs have preset values that apply. In those cases the current values in use are highlighted in red.

Below is a quick example of the GPR section under MovieObject 1 responsible for determining what Playlist (MPLS) is played for the Title 0 (TOP MENU), Title 1 (Feature Presentation) and Titles 3-32 (Bonus Features). This is the first section I usually attend to for a given Blu-ray as it's the foundation the rest of the Blu-ray sits on.

Note I didn't mention Title 2. Title 2 isn't assigned a Playlist (MPLS). It's reserved, a special use case. It serves as an all-in-one Playlist for the TOP MENU and Bonus Features when the "Resume" functionality of the disc via GPR3000 is set to always be able to resume playback of the "Feature Presentation" from the TOP MENU, even after having played a Bonus Feature.





Once assigning a Playlist (MPLS) to each Title the menu items for each "BONUS" page are then assigned a Title to play. (Page 6 is the main "BONUS" page accessible from Page 1. From Pages 7-13 can then be accessed from Page 6. Page 7 is the dedicated page for a "Bonus\Commentaries" option. Pages 8-13 are for general use.) A given menu item can also be treated as a category if you prefer, activating the menu item in this case taking you to a separate page rather than playing a Title, the separate page containing the playable bonus feature menu items for the particular category.

With the latest additions to my template the nesting of pages from Page 6 can extend as deep as you like from any given page, each page now including a GPR (variable) which calls out the "Parent" page it belongs to for navigation purposes. Prior the template only supported the nesting of pages one level deep from Page 6, i.e. jump to Page 8 from Page 6 for example, navigating back a level always returning to Page 6.

In the case of the "Panic Room (2002)" Blu-ray the "Pre-Production\Previsualization" bonus category on Page 6 takes you to Page 9 for example. Page 9 includes 5 menu items (BOGs 1-5). Menu items 1-3 (BOGs 1-3) each play a Title. Menu item 4 (BOG 4) takes you to Page 10 where the playable "Habitrail Film" bonus feature menu item resides. Menu item 5 (BOG 5) takes you to Page 11 where the playable "Multi-Angle Featurette" menu items reside. Navigating back a level from Page 10 or Page 11 returns to Page 9. Navigating back a level from Page 9 returns to Page 6. Navigating back a level from Page 6 returns to Page 1.

So let's take a look at the menu items and page structure just described starting with Page 6 shall we. Pics of the GPR definitions and assigned values shown below.







Each "BONUS" page supports up to 16 menu items (BOGs 1-16) and include a GPR which calls out the "Parent" page (GPR600 for Page 6) the given page belongs to followed by 2 sets of GPRs (variables) which are referenced when activating a menu item. The first set of GPRs (GPR601-GPR616 for Page 6) determine what Title is played if any when activating a given menu item. If a value of "0" is assigned the second set of GPRs (GPR621-GPR636 for Page 6) are referenced, the associated GPR for the menu item just activated calling out the page navigation that should take place instead, i.e. the menu item serving as a category rather than playing a Title.

From here let's activate the 3rd menu item (BOG 3) shown above on Page 6, "Pre-Production\Previsualization", the associated GPRs being GPR603 and GPR623. GPR603's value is set to "0" in this case, i.e. "Move GPR603, 0". This results in a page navigation taking place based on the value assigned (Move GPR623, 9) to GPR623, i.e. navigate to Page 9. So now let's take a look at the menu items and page structure for Page 9. Pics of the GPR definitions and assigned values shown below.







As previously described, menu items 1-3 (BOG 1-3) on Page 9 each play a Title based on the values assigned to GPR901 (Move GPR901, 5), GPR902 (Move GPR902, 6) and GPR903 (Move GPR903, 7), i.e. Titles 5-7. Menu item 4 (BOG 4) takes you to Page 10 based on the values assigned to GPR904 (Move GPR904, 0) and GPR924 (Move GPR924, 10) where the playable "Habitrail Film" bonus feature menu item (BOG 1) resides.







Menu item 5 (BOG 5) on Page 9 takes you to Page 11 where the playable "Multi-Angle Featurette" menu items (BOGs 1-8) reside, i.e. Titles 9-16.









Navigating back a level from Page 10 (Move GPR1000, 9) or Page 11 (Move GPR1100, 9) returns to Page 9. Navigating back a level from Page 9 (Move GPR900, 6) returns to Page 6. Navigating back a level from Page 6 (Move GRP600, 1) returns to Page 1. So as you can see, the process of establishing the page structure and action to be taken when activating a given bonus feature menu item is very straightforward from the assigning of Playlists (MPLS) to Titles, to the assigning of Titles or page navigation to each bonus feature menu item including the trip back home for each page, i.e. the "Parent" page a given "BONUS" page belongs to.
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And something I didn't touch on per the above. With the "Panic Room (2002)" Blu-ray the "Run Time" is displayed at the bottom of the screen when the menu item selected is a playable bonus feature. With the original disc when going to a bonus page the first menu item on the page is always selected by default. As such, the "Run Time" for the first menu item can be shown by default as well. With my version the last menu item played on a given page is selected by default instead. As such, I needed the associated "Run Time" to be displayed by default as well.

That being said, when playing a bonus feature to its conclusion from the original disc you're taken back to the bonus page in question afterwards, the next menu item selected by default, the correct "Run Time" immediately shown as well. So for BD-J the BOGs enabled by default when going to a given page can be dynamically set based on this observation. Well, if they're even considered BOGs in the BD-J world.

My version uses HDMV however, i.e. not Java. With HDMV the default state of all BOGs (enabled/disabled) on a given page can't be changed dynamically prior to going to the page. They are fixed to what they were when muxing the IG out to the M2TS file. As such, this left me with 3 options per going to a given bonus page, the last menu item played from the page being selected by default, the correct "Run Time" immediately shown as well.

My first option was to include the "Run Time" as part of the object (PNG) that's shown when each bonus feature menu item is selected. My template makes exclusive use of button overlap groups to display the selected menu item, the object (PNG) for each menu item including all menu items seen on-screen, the menu item in question showing as selected within the image, only one object within the button overlap group being enabled at a given time.

So including the "Run Time" within the object for each menu item was the easier option. Unfortunately the dimensions of each object end up being very large as a result since the "Run Time" is displayed at the bottom of the screen. With a hardware based Blu-ray player the menu (IG) has to be pre-loaded into memory ahead of time. The memory allocation used for this purpose is ridiculously small. During testing I confirmed this first method wasn't a viable option as the full IG couldn't be pre-loaded into memory as a result, several BOGs displaying menu items for Pages 12 and 13 failing to be shown on-screen.

The second option was to include a separate button overlap group containing the "Run Time" object for each menu item on the given page. When going to the page the last bonus feature played is always shown immediately, even if it resides within a button overlap group as I'm jumping directly to that button from outside the page. The "Run Time" object has to be enabled by default or enabled once arriving on the page however. If enabled once arriving on the page there's a brief moment where the "Run Time" object is not shown. This produces an undesired result, hence the third option.

The third option is to again, include a separate button overlap group containing the "Run Time" object for each menu item on the given page. This time the "Run Time" object for the first menu item on the page will be enabled by default, additional copies of the page used when the menu item selected by default isn't the first menu item. This provides for the appropriate "Run Time" object being enabled by default per landing page, i.e. one page per menu item. Once on a given page the appropriate "Run Time" object is enabled at the same time the selected menu item changes.

Implementing this required the addition of 3 GPRs (variables) per page. (See the above images, the last three GPRs referenced per page.) Updates to the navigation commands executed at the IG level just prior to being taken to a given bonus page were required as well of course. Took very little time to implement in the end actually and very simple when put into practice. In any event, just a little taste. Now back to work getting the Photoshop side of things updated so I can eventually make this thing available for those interested.