GfD/GfM Questions

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1. Is there a way to use GUI for Muxman to pause a slideshow at the end of each picture/chapter, and make the left/right navigation buttons go back and forth between the slides instead of having to use the chapter buttons?

2. If not, how do I get more than 99 menus (in GfD) to use for galleries? I recall reading that you can have 99 per titleset, but I'm not sure how to jump from say, #99 in one titleset to #100 in another, or even how to get to a titleset's submenu from the main menu. I tried it before and it said that form of jumping is not allowed.

Er, I'll save my other questions for later.

[borax]

GfD has no 'build' in slideshow function so far. It would be possible to do this 'manually' with MuxMan, but then it would be better to set up the whole mxp file yourself. I think I could help you with an example...

You can use menus for this purpose. The DVD spec doesn't allow a jump from one TS to another one, but you can 'simulate' such a thing if you set a VMGM menu (mainmenu or submenu of the mainmenu) 'in between'.
Something like:
MainMenu->Titleset1menu>98 Submenus of Titleset1menu>MainSubMenu1>Titleset2menu...

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Is there a good resource for learning MXP files and the dvdauthor commands? I would rather use GfM and then program the pre/post commands than do it all blindly. The dvdauthor manual online didn't tell me much of anything and seemed way too short.

How can I make a button to reload a motion menu manually rather than have it loop infinitely? If there's no command for it, I was thinking of making a dummy menu that will jump back to previous menu, thus reloading the background, but I don't know the commands to do it.

Also, is there a way to create multi color highlights with GfD and PgcEdit?

[borax]

Is there a good resource...

No, not really. There is a Wiki for dvdauthor commands, but it is not much more than the man pages. And the user mailing list.
For MuxMan it is even worse. The MuxMan 'Guide' just covers the basics, the VM commands are 'commercial'. You have to pay for it.

MultiColor... GfD uses two colors (if blur is turned off): One for 'Frame type' highlights and another one for 'Fill'. If blur is turned on, GfD uses the remaining colors (1 or 2) for antialiasing. Therefore multicolored highlights are not possible.

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Any thoughts on a button to make the menu reload?

[borax]

That's easy...
Disable Loop, set pause=inf
For dvdauthor use a button with the action: jump cell 1;
For MuxMan use a button with the action: LinkCN MainMenu_cell1 (or LinkCN TitleSet1Menu_cell1, LinkCN TS1SubMenu1_cell1... depending on the menu)

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What does "Bad parameter = mpeg2" mean?

It happens when I try to encode a menu with an MPEG-2 background using QuEnc.

If I try using HC, I don't get the error button.

But either way, if I use MPG as the background animation, it doesn't work on my DVD player.

If I use an AVI background, it works fine.

I'd rather use MPG to save space, but I can't figure out what's wrong. On my PS2 I get "can't play due to malfunction."

Is there some specific requirements for MPGs used as animated menus?

[borax]

What does "Bad parameter = mpeg2" mean?

Probably the wrong QuEnc version (needs to be 0.71 if GfD version > 0.99.0031 is used.

...if I use MPG as the background animation, it doesn't work on my DVD player - If I use an AVI background, it works fine.

That's very strange... As the menu is reencoded with the same settings either way, the 'output' should be more or less the same...
If you use a soft player (MPC, PowerDVD...) is the animation shown correctly with MPG as background animation?
Does 'Avisynth Preview' work?

Is there some specific requirements for MPGs

No. Since GfD version 0.99.10 the dgmpegdec package (version 1.4.8 ) is used to decode MPG files. Therefore every MPG file which can be decoded by dgdecode should work. Maybe there is still some kind of problem with the framerate. But this matter should be solved with the new AssumeFPS syntax in avisynth version 2.5.7...

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If you use a soft player is the animation shown correctly with MPG as background animation?

Yes, and preview works as well. The DVD even works in PowerDVD.

[borax]

Let's try to track the error...
Create two simple projects (animated main menu only, one short clip)
One time with an avi as background animation, one time with mpeg as background animation. Use the 'Loop and trim animation file to given duration' function for both cases to ensure the same duration.
Run CreateDVD using two different output directories.
Open the VIDEO_TS.VOB file in both directories with gspot, vobedit, pgcedit and check for differences...