Help me Create SVCD Menu/Chapters without the orignal DVD

[lokee]

ok i have checked the guides and everything but i noticed something. All these guides assume you have the orignal dvd to get the chapters or what not from. What i want to know is how can i take an SVCD movie ive downloaded and make some chapters say for every 5-10 minutes and the chapter pictures or clips or what not make them come from the movie as i cant rip dvds myself (I dont have and cant afford a dvdrom yet) I want to make the chapters simple and without the orignal any help would be greatly appriciated

[iDeFiX]

Lokee,

I have created a manuel (in dutch...sorry) that may help you how to create easely chapters, menu's with background and music. I use U-lead's Moviefactory to authorise my SVCD to DVD.
When i have no original DVD-chapter list, i create every 10 min. a scene of the film.
You can find my guide (PDF format) on : http://ramboclub.tk or http://users.pandora.be/leute
Maybe the screenshots will help you

Good luck
iDeFiX

[Diver]

Servus

OK, I figured out two methods of creating Chapters/Menues:
the fist and easiest way ist to use VCDEASY. This is a great tool. U can read out VCDs or SVCDs and burn again with chapters (dirctly from VCDEasy!). This is the way I go. U can deside how many Chapters u want. But you don´t have a Menue with pictures/scenes.

If I want a real menue (but that isn´t very often) I use tscv. With this tool u can read in an mpg and then deside where you want to have the entypoints. Tscv isn´t very easy to use. It took me some weeks to figure out the best settings and all the tools.

For beginners I recommend VCDEasy. Int the download section u have some gides describing these tools.


Good luck
Diver

[bunyip]

It's really quite simple - using your favorite graphics editor (I use Paint Shop Pro), VirtualDub and VCDEasy.

Here's how to create a simple but effective menu that will show a thumbnail selection of chapters that can be selected using the number keys:
1. Open the graphics editor and start a new graphic at size 722x542 (the recommended VCDEasy size), load or create a suitable background to your menu in this new area.
2. Keep the graphics editor open and load the video into VirtualDub, and add the 'RESIZE' filter with a resize setting of 160x120 (a good menu thumbnail size) - you now have the output window at this size.
3. Use the slider to position on a point that would make a good chapter entry point, take a note of the frame number (we need this later to set the chapter) then use 'Video' -> 'Copy Output frame to clipboard' to snap-shot the thumbnail frame, paste this onto your background as the first chapter.
4. Repeat step 3. until you have all your chapter point thumbnails pasted onto the background.
• You can close VirtualDub now - we are finish with it.
• Pretty-up your menu graphic with titles, numbers (very important for SVCD), effects etc. and when happy just save it as a BMP file.
• Close the graphics editor and open VCDEasy.
• We want to create an MPEG Still file of our graphic to become a menu. Select 'Tools' -> 'Mpeg Stills' and set the 'MPEG Still Type' to SVCD, High and set the Quality to Max and the TV Cropping to 3%.
• Drag & drop the BMP file into the top box and an 'MPG Still' file will be created in the same directory as the BMP.
• Click on the (S)VCD icon on the left and click on the 'Main' button.
• Drag & drop the just created MPEG still file into the 'Video/Picture files' window.
• Next Drag & drop your video in the same window, it should be the second file.
• Now click on the 'Chapters' button.
• Using the frame numbers you recorded earlier, enter each of these into the 'Chapter at frame' box and press OK and the chapter timing point will be added to the list on the right.
• After entering all the chapter points press the 'Interactivity' button.
• The first 'Play Item' will be the MPG Still, I usually want the menu to stay on the screen until the viewer has pushed a selection button so set wait time to 'Infinite' - if you prefer you can set this to time-out and start playing the first chapter.
• In the drop-down list for 'Play Item' select 'Sequence 2' (our movie), you will notice on the bottom right that the numeric keys have been assigned to our chapter points, we will want these to be active on the menu too, so MOST IMPORTANT, tick the 'Overwrite this default' and select the '[...]' button under this list and in the 'Also Apply to..' list, select 'Segment-0001' and press OK.
• That's it .. you can now save the result as a CUE/BIN for later burning or burn directly from VCDEasy.

What should happen in play-back is your fancy graphical menu with the thumbnail chapter selection will play first and if you press a numeric key it will jump to the correponding chapter point.
You can experiment with the interactivity settings to get a behaviour that you prefer . (For example I like to set the 'Return' button when pressed at any time during play-back to bring the viewer back to the chapter menu instead of to the end of the video).

[lokee]

thanks alot that really helped me (: