making my first svcd

[cicada]

hi, i am a newbie to vcds and svcds and i am going to make my first svcd from a ripped dvd. i have some questions.
How can i put captions to my svcd that can be turned on/off?
Can i have an mpg for each chapter of the dvd, and remove the pause so it plays like a dvd?
How can i create a menu, similar to the one on the dvd?
thanx

[adam]

captions that can be turned on and off are called soft encoded subs. To my knowledge the only program that can do this is I-Author. If you are able to get your hands on this software read this guide to learn how to implement soft encoded subs. http://www.doom9.org/mpg/subs_and_multiple_audio_tracks.htm

No there is very little chance you will be able to use multiple mpgs and completely remove the pause. Whether there is a pause and how long that pause is depends on your dvd player, but on most dvd players there will always be a pause. The preferred method is to create entrypoints. These allow you to skip to a preselected point in your single mpg but it will play seamlessly throughout on all dvd players. Both I-Author and vcdimager can do this. I prefer I-Author but vcdimager is free and easily found in the tools section so you might try that first.

For the menu again you should use I-Author if you can find it and if not use vcdimgager. Make sure and get a gui otherwise you will have to do alot more work. Nero 5.5 also creates menu's but it is pretty limited.

vcd and svcd menu's dont work exactly the same as dvd menu's. You can create hotspot buttons which means you cant scroll through the buttons. You have to assign each function a specific button on your remote so to say, skip to the special features you would hit the #3 key.

You can however create multiple backgrounds, each with a different button selected and that function assigned to the enter key. This way you use the next and previous track as if it were directional keys and you scroll through the buttons that way. Thats about as close as you can come to emulating the functions of dvd menu's.

Look in the AUTHOR section. The guides there explain how to do both entrypoints as well as menu's.

[cicada]

thanx a lot adam.