Menu replacing, is it possible?

[Instant Martian]

Hi there!
I am trying to backup my brand new "Clash of the Titans" DVD.
As it often happens on Warner DVDs, there is a very annoying menu at the beginning (see the upper half of the image).
I made a custom menu with only two buttons, Italian and English (lower half of the image).
I wanted to know if it is possible (and how) to replace the original menu with the one I made.
I am pretty sure it can be done with PGCEdit but I made a couple of trials without success.
Is there anybody out there who can point me to the right direction?
Thanks.

[tinker]

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/212268-menuing-dvd-compilations-easy

This is a link from PGCEdit site on how to replace the menu. It looks a little complicated. I use DVDRemake Pro, and any DVD creating software to make new menu with buttons and highlights.

[Instant Martian]

Hi tinker and thanks for replying!
I am not sure that the guide you linked is the right one for my need.
Maybe it'll be better if I explain in details what I did.
As I said, when I play the DVD, after the WB logo there is a 4-cells menu with 57 buttons (a lot of languages!).
What I want to do is to replace this annoying menu with the one I made, only 2 buttons.
I'd like to arrange things so that if I click "Italian" the player goes to the Italian main menu and if I click "English" it goes to the English main menu.
Premise: I am not very familiar with PgcEdit, it appears to be a very powerful piece of software but maybe a bit complex for an occasional user.
Anyway, this is what I did.
I authored a "dummy" DVD and set the highlights for the two buttons (not-selected, selected, activated).
I opened the "Clash of the Titans" DVD in PgcEdit and selected the menu I want to get rid of, then I wrote down the commands for the 2 buttons I am interested in ("Italia" and "United Kingdom").
Still with the menu selected, I clicked Menu -> Import Menu. PgcEdit gives me a warning saying that the menu will be replaced.
I click "Yes" and browse for the dummy DVD, from which I import the customized menu.
Actually, the 57-buttons menu is replaced with my 2-buttons menu.
Then I edit the commands of the two buttons according to what I have annotated before and save the DVD.
When I test it, the WB logo appears (that's ok!) and then it goes to my menu (excellent!), but when I click on both of the buttons nothing happens, the player still plays the menu.

What am I doing wrong?

[tinker]

You are a little further than I thought. Your problem is a command. It is not easy to help this way, but I will try.
First, what commands did you give to the new buttons?
Can you see those commands if you place a mouse over button in PGCEdit under Menu.?
Did you adjust selection highlights for the new buttons?
One more thing. If you highlight a menu and than click green Menu button in upper bar, menu will appear.
If you click on the button it will show you where it links, you will see it on left side where all the DVD info is.

[Instant Martian]

I took the commands from the matching buttons of the original menu and gave the same to the new buttons.
If you wanna know exactly, here they are:

Button "Italian"
[71 01 00 0F 00 17 00 0D]
Set gprm(15)=(mov)23;LinkTailPGC

Button "English"
[71 01 00 0F 00 33 00 0D]
Set gprm(15)=(mov)51;LinkTailPGC

Your second question is not perfectly clear to me. If you mean this editor



yes, I can see the commands placing the mouse over the buttons.
I don't know what you mean by "adjusting selection highlights".
I think the problem is in the pre/post commands of the new menu, but I don't know how to fix it.

[tinker]

OK your command go to Post Command section of the menu. I think that by replacing the menu you deleted all commands in that LU.
"Link Tail PGC" is directing to post section and from there it goes on.
Once you highlight the menu, in main window will be command section. If it is empty, you will have to copy all commands from old menu to it, than it should work.
I have to go out for a while, try it and let me know, I will answer when I come back.

[Instant Martian]

I had already tried that, but I tried again, just to be sure.
This is the pre/post commands status of the original menu:



I copied all the post commands from the original menu, replaced the menu with the one I made, edited button commands, pasted all the post commands from the old menu, deleted all the pre commands (since there were none in the original menu), ending up with exactly the same situation as shown in the picture on the new menu.
It still doesn't work.
It plays WB logo, then my menu but when I click on the buttons nothing happens.

[tinker]

Your buttons show
GPRM15==23 for Italian
GPRM15==51 for English
Post command:
Line 17 go to TTN 1
Line 20 go to TTN 6
If you click on those lines in Post Command, do they highlight corresponding Menu?Also in your post #5, if you click on one of the buttons, does it highlight anything on left side of the main window?Other thing, if you highlight one of the buttons there and then go "Jump to Target" it should highlight two of the corresponding Post Commands.

[Instant Martian]

Line 17 highlights TTN 1.
These are its pre commands:



Line 20 highlights TTN 6.
These are its pre commands:



If I click on the buttons it does not highlight anything on the left panel. Both of the buttons highlight the first menu post command:
if (gprm(15) == 1) then [Goto line 17]
If I "jump to target" again the same first menu post command is highlighted (for both of the buttons).

[tinker]

OK, we have to do it some other way.
Load the project to PGCEdit.
Double Click on each Title, if there is more than one. New window will open.
On the bottom click "Remove Cells", highlight "Remove cell range".
Move upper slider to 2, lower to the end. Click OK
Edit chapters (will be in red), Delete all chapters from the bottom up to first (leave first ON)
Do this on every title.
Save DVD and post it on some sharing site. It will be much smaller file than original.
If the file will be still too large you can delete languages also, usually only in main title, others, most of the time, have only one.
Let me know the link. I will look at the file and see where it went wrong.


I just went over the whole thing again. It looks like it is OK. It will go to first line because you are setting GPRM. Once it will find the match it will go to next part.
You should try "Trace" and see where it will stop. I think it will go through.
Click on TRACE, upper menu bar, than "Trace Mode", keep clicking on "Step" and see where it stop. It should go through to your movie.

[Instant Martian]

I just tried the tracing but it keeps to return to the menu, no movie.

[tinker]

This is how it works. You will not see a movie to play, just look at the bottom right window when it scrolls as it go through the chapters.

[Instant Martian]

You have PM.

[tinker]

I am still waiting to download files. For now I will send you few pictures for you to see how to make a file play.
In picture #1
Check the box marked with red arrow, than press "RUN",
Scroll will stop and play every video. Once you get to a menu, highlight button you like and press "Select" picture #2. Scroll will continue.
Once you go through all the menus and start a movie play, scroll will stop at the beginning of Title and start to play.
You have to press "Close Preview" at any cell because it will stop there at the end of cell play. Once you do that it will go to next, or start scrolling if there is only one cell.
After movie is done it will return to a menu. I cannot tell which one, because it depend how DVD was programed.
I really think that what you have done so far is OK and it will work.

[Instant Martian]

Thank you very much for your time and help.
I'll be waiting to know if you find out something wrong in the files.

[tinker]

I just managed to get on, but it will take an hour to download one file at 64kb/sec????? for free download.

[Instant Martian]

Oops!
That I don't know. It took me some time to upload the files (the total size is about 560MB).
Maybe the amount of traffic on the server is too high at the moment.

I just tried to download one file and it gave me an error saying there are too much users downloading files.
I think this is a gentle way to push users to buy premium accounts.

[Instant Martian]

Well, I finally succeded in the backup of the dvd, though not exactly the way I wanted, due to my lack of knowledge of PgcEdit.
Anyway, I want here to say thanks to tinker for his precious help and time.
I appreciated it.

[tinker]

No problem, you are welcome.