Menus look good, but then go blurry...

[Brent212]

okay, I've searched the forum and can't find anyone with the same problem posted.

I'm using TMPGEnc DVD Author to create a DVD with a single Main menu, that allows you to select one of the four tracks (one movie per track) for playback. Each track does have chapter marks, but I don't want chapter menus... I just want to be able to skip forward and backward when playing the movie. So I select "Main Menu only" in the menu creation options and everything's fine. I author the DVD, and play it in PowerDVD before burning. It plays great there. When it starts, it goes to the main menu, like I want, and allows me to pick a movie to watch. I can go back to the menu at any time and pick another movie to watch.

My problem comes when I burn it and watch it on my standalone player. It burns fine, and when I put it in the player everything seems cool. The menu looks perfect and I'm stoked. I begin playing one of the movies, but when I go back to the menu (I have to push "Top Menu" on my remote, because there's no track menu, which is where the "Menu" button would take me), the menu comes up, and it's completely blurry. THe text is still slightly ledgible, but it's way pixelated as are the pictures next to each movie title. Basically the whole menu looks pixelated.

What causes this? This scenario has happened to me with basically every DVD I've authored (about 30-40). It happens on the three standalones I've tested them on, so I don't think the specific player matters. I've also burned on several different media types (BeAll -R, Memorex +R, Ritek -R, MCC -R), and that doesn't seem to affect it either. So I was about to conclude that it was TMPGEnc DVD Author, but then I remembered I started out authoring several DVD's with ULead DVD Movie Factory 2 (which came with my burner), and the same exact thing happened with those as well.

The menus always look good when I first pop the disc in, but when I go from playing the actual video back to the menu, it comes up blurry and pixelated. Has anyone else suffered this problem? Does anyone have any idea what it's caused by and how to fix it (so the menus always look sweet)?

oh yes, and I'm using a Lite-on SOHW 812 burner.

Thanks,
Brent

[Sakuya]

No...I create my menus in Photoshop and I save it using optimization high quality. It comes out pretty sharp. What do you use to create the menus? Or do you use TDA's templates?

[Brent212]

I use the templates. Like I said, they look good when I put in the disc, it's just that when I return back to them after watching some or all of a video, they look screwed up. Even if they don't look that sharp to begin with, it's the relative change that brought about my question.

[lordsmurf]

TDA sucks at menus. It has aliasing problem with fonts, and the resizing of images is beyond crappy.

Menu images will, however, always be slightly softer, to prevent pixel jumping on screen, and then realize the tv set has much lower res than the PC did.

[Brent212]

Oh man, I've got to start shortening my posts, because I did mention in there that, when viewing on a television with a standalone player, the menu looks fine at first (it comes up when I put the disc in the player and press "play"), but then if I play a video and jump back to the menu, it's different from before, as in pixelated, whereas the first time it was displayed it wasn't. The resolution of my PC and TV has nothing to do with the original image (on my TV) becoming blurry (also on my TV).

I also mentioned the Ulead has done the same thing, so I'm pretty certain it's not an issue with the authoring app. I wish it was just a TDA problem, then I'd just switch to Ulead.

[Sakuya]

Maybe it's a drive problem? Try making an SVCD or a VCD with menus and see what happens?

[D_Knife]

Does the problem appear on all players???
including software players??
if so are you able to post a before (normal) and after (blurry) screenshot of the menu's
That would certainly help

[thecoalman]

Oh man, I've got to start shortening my posts, because I did mention in there that, when viewing on a television with a standalone player, the menu looks fine at first (it comes up when I put the disc in the player and press "play"), but then if I play a video and jump back to the menu, it's different from before, as in pixelated, whereas the first time it was displayed it wasn't.

OK I think I have it figured out, try to not drink as much beer when viewing the movie before going back to the menu.....

You mentioned that it does it two apps and since it works normally at first I would suggest it's an issue with your player. Try another player.

[D_Knife]

since it works normally at first I would suggest it's an issue with your player. Try another player.

leads to...

Oh man, I've got to start shortening my posts

followed by...

It happens on the three standalones I've tested them on, so I don't think the specific player matters.

[thecoalman]

since it works normally at first I would suggest it's an issue with your player. Try another player.

leads to...

Oh man, I've got to start shortening my posts

followed by...

It happens on the three standalones I've tested them on, so I don't think the specific player matters.

Maybe I should lay off the beer.... :P

[D_Knife]

Maybe I should lay off the beer....

well it WAS a long post and I probably wouldn't have said anything except I was reading this
http://maddox.xmission.com/
site at the time
I'd be keen to see just how blurred these menu's are if Brent212 comes back with screen shots

[Brent212]

It doesn't do it when I play it in a software player like PowerDVD. I think it has to do with the transition in going directly from a video in a titleset to the title menu (there's only one title menu on any disc, from what I understand), and bypassing the titleset menu, which is where the normal "menu" button would take me, but which doesn't exist.

I want to figure out how to edit the VTS_0x_0.IFO (where x is 1-4, because there's four tracks, or titlesets on the disc), so that the menu button will navigate back to the "main" menu (title menu). I've been trying to find what the DVD standards are for menu navigation, and I think normally there is a titleset menu, although I don't know if it's required. If it is, then since these DVD's I'm having problems with don't have titleset menus, maybe the standalone players have difficulty getting back to the title menu correctly.

I've tried opening the VTS_0x_0.IFO files in IFOEdit but can't see a way to simply change any values. The one I'm looking at in particular is VTSM_PGCI_UT, which is (I think) supposed to specify where the regular menu button should navigate to. Right now it's empy.

[Brent212]

Okay, scratch those last two paragraphs. I figured out how to add the menu button functionality using PgcEdit and IfoEdit, along with this post:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=959580#959580

So I tried reburning the edited DVD files (on a re-writable), and the result was the same. At first it appeared to work, as I'd start a video and press the menu button and the menu would come back looking fine. I did that several times, then tried it some more using the "Top Menu" button. It still worked. However, after several more tries, it started happening again. I did pinpoint somewhat of a pattern.

There are four videos on this DVD. Playing either the first or third and going back to the menu never produced this "pixelated" menu effect. I could jump to any spot in either of those vids and it never happened (doesn't mean it definitely won't). I had to play the second video for several minutes before pressing either menu button would produce the blurry menu. The fourth video always returns to the blurry menu, unless I press one of the menu buttons within several seconds of playing it (before any actual video gets displayed). The quality of the videos gets better with each one, also, because they're in chronilogical order, with the first one being pretty crappy footage, the middle two are about equal, and the fourth was released in 2001 and I bought it new (the others were used), so it actually looks very good. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, once I get the blurry menu, it's always blurry. I can play any part of the DVD and coming back the menu, it'll always be blurry. The only way to get the original, awesome looking (if I do say so myself) menu, is to open and close the disc tray.

A better description for the "blurry" menu is that it looks like the amount of colors has been reduced significantly, maybe to 256. So it looks blocky, because areas that had color transitions are now replaced with a single color... it reminds me of when MPEG video produces those frames with a lot of blocks when there's a lot of movement going on and the bit rate is too low (I think that's the cause for that, maybe not).

I've kind of gotten over trying to fix it. I'm stoked to have both menu buttons working. Now I'm just very curious as to what could possibly be the cause of this. If anyone is still interested, I could take a picture of the menu in both states with a digital camera (would that work?). Like I said, it never does it when playing on my computer, so screen caps are out.

[Brent212]

well it WAS a long post and I probably wouldn't have said anything except I was reading this
http://maddox.xmission.com/
site at the time

Maddox's site is sweet.