Hotspots on VCD menu

[vikasa]

I recently saw a commercial VCD that had a menu with a list of items. When I press the Prev/Next buttons or press the number key on the remote, that item actually got highlighted i.e. it got a color border around it. After a second or so, that sequence started to play.

Looking at the vcdimager XML structure, I dont see how this can be achieved.


How in the world can I highlight menu items on a VCD! No, unfortunately, I didnt get a chance to 'vcdxrip' it to examine its XML.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[DVO]

Use Video pack 4 or Philips VideoCD Toolkit (free but hard to find a way to burn the VCD).

[adam]

XML also supports hotspot functions but you can't do any kind of effects like you can with Video Pack 4. Hotspots only work on CDI hardware players or on some pc software players. If you want dvd hardware playback, you can simulate hotspot buttons quite easily.

Check out my guide for the methods on how to do this.
http://users3.ev1.net/~CavemanLawyer/

[vikasa]

If you want dvd hardware playback, you can simulate hotspot buttons quite easily.

Check out my guide for the methods on how to do this.
http://users3.ev1.net/~CavemanLawyer/

Maybe you misunderstood what I was asking. Neither your guide nor the links you reference do this. Yes, they show how to create menus in detail, with buttons, chapters, entrypoints, etc. I was not asking about this.

All I was asking was specifically, how to make a menu item get highlighted when I press its numeric key on the remote of my hardware DVD player?

[Satanico Pandemonium]

They rendered separate MPEG for every button "highlighted", so when you press a number on yr RC, the menu acctually moves to another menu which look the same like previous one but only with another button highlighted. In this case, the button is not highlighted by an OVERLAY picture(like in all DVD authoring programs), it's actualy rendered into the MPG.

Hope you understand what i mean
Sorry for my bad english.

[adam]

I understood you perfectly, you apparantly misunderstood my guide.

Its exactly as Satanico Pandemonium said and its exactly how it is described in my guide. Actual hotspot buttons in a VCD are not supported by any hardware player other than a CDI player. If you want such functionality on a dvd player than you must simulate the different buttons, and again this is all explained in my guide. Download the sample disk image on my site and try playing it on your dvd player. Go to the chapter selection menu and you will see it works just as you describe. If you hit next or previous track it toggles between the different options and then you hit enter to select that item. You could just as easily assign those values to # keys as you say you want to do. I even have a section showing how the different highlights look.

Jumping from one still picture to another is seamless, so if the backgrounds are the same in both pics, but on each pic you have a different button "highlighted" than when you jump from one pic to the next it appears if if you are staying on the same menu but the button is just moving.

[vitualis]

vikasa,

I answered you in the VCDImager forums. What you want to do cannot be achieved with hotspots, AND not to mention that support for hotspots is very limited.

VCDs do not have the same functionality to DVDs.

If you are talking about buttons lighting up when you press the prev or next buttons (then look through adam's guide with care). You can simulate "buttons lighting up" with S/VCDs by having separate MPEG stills menus where the background image differs by that particular button. It works well.

You cannot have overlay graphics with VCDs like you can with DVDs.

Regards.

[vikasa]

I understood you perfectly, you apparantly misunderstood my guide.
[...]
Jumping from one still picture to another is seamless, so if the backgrounds are the same in both pics, but on each pic you have a different button "highlighted" than when you jump from one pic to the next it appears if if you are staying on the same menu but the button is just moving.

vitualis, I apologize for cross-posting to the vcdimager forum, I should have realized that both adam and you monitor them.

adam, thanks for the explanation, I didnt think that this was a really a trick, I thought that this was some undocumented feature in the VCD standard! Anyway, I understand perfectly now.

However, I am unable to look up all this in the guide you keep mentioning. I read every word of your caveman... URL but didnt come across any of this. Can you send me the exact URL again of the part which addresses all this?

Thanks again

[vikasa]

However, I am unable to look up all this in the guide you keep mentioning. I read every word of your caveman... URL but didnt come across any of this. Can you send me the exact URL again of the part which addresses all this?

Oops, sorry I just clicked on the Microsoft Paint link and saw it all there. Sorry.

Another question about the 'Resume Film' button, does this really resume from the point where it left off? i.e if I am watching a chapter, press 'Return' to go to the main menu and then select 'Resume', does it really resume playback from where I left off? How is this achieved? VCD specs dont really allow you to store/restore your current playback position like this, do they?

Thanks

[mujahid7ia]

My DVD player does it... if i press stop, or on a VCD2.0 i press return, and then press play/return, it will resume from the same point

[adam]

No the VCD and SVCD specs do not support a resume function like DVDs do, but like mujahid7ia's player, some will do this with all disks anyway. Most won't however.

[vitualis]

As per adam's post...

"Resume" is a player specific function. On my VCD and older DVD player, they both had a "resume" function but that only worked when PBC was off.

On my Pioneer DVD player, "resume" works for both PBC and PBC-less modes.

Regards.