Q.(?) Creating Motion Menus

[elokus]

OK now another thing...

I was trying now to make a "motion menu" following steps given in Martini's VCD guide to motion menus (http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/d/rdm186/guide2/) but there's a big problem at the end of this guide (shame is at the end I spent some time doing this)...

The guide reffers to:
>> 1. when it is done, tmpgenc will >>automatically open after you save it.
>>2. it will encode it as a m1v or >>something like that...thats ok for now
>>4. when its done, in tmpgenc, click on >>file new project
>>3. in the video tab, reopen the m1v just >>created, encode it as a mpg
>>YOU may want to include audio,
>>4. you should now have a working, mpg >>motion menu.... open it in media player >>to make sure everything went well"

If you notice in the 3rd point refers to "reopen the m1v" as for I understand the reason to do this is to get the new .mpv file TMPGEnc re-enconded into a working mpg file, fine...BUT...!!! The problem of this statement is that TMPGEnd v2.02.31.119 accepts as video source *.avi, *.bmp, *.ppm, *.tga, *.jpg, *.tpr, *.mpg, *.avi, *.qt, *.mov, *.asf file not *.MPV so I got stuck in that point and can't find a solution for this...
Does anyone have any thoughts on what's wrong???

PS->I did try just renaming the mpv to mpg, then played on w.mediaplayer and it ran but at 2x speed, anyways it failed to load as a "menu" in TSCV.
PS2-> Are there anymore guides step-by-step on how to SUCCESFULLY use this program?? With the ones found I find many problems and haven't been able to build even 1 funtional menu.

[ya_jai]

How about use Macromedia Flash? In this software you can make your own menu, you can add short movie clip to be your menu, or you can even do simple animation for your menu, how about that????
IF you know how to use Flash, this is a step by step.
- Create your menu (video only in Flash) I always use 704x480 resolution and 29.97 (30) fps
- Export to avi movie format
- Create your own audio (can be a clip from movie or song or silent), I'd prefer wave format for audio (very easy to convert mp3 to wave or even easier to make 5 sec. silent audio)
- Encode both together in TMPGenc.

[elokus]

ya-jai I notice you posted a reply on the still menu question also, I was thinking since you have experience on both type of menus, wich one you would recommend to use? I haven't done a funtional one of any format yet (still or motion) but it seems to me that the motion menus would be more of an eyecandy than the still one...
If I use Flash Director v5 (this is the one I have) would I still be able to make this short 200 or so frame clips for the motion, etc??

[elokus]

Well here's an update about my status on the learning curve...I managed to make my first functional motion menu after some failed attempts, so I'm happy right now

Following developments after the original post, Ttool adviced to use mplex tool in TSCV instead of TMPGEnc to multiplex the MPV file made and select an audio source in order to get a valid MPEG2 file. I did that and the resulting file was tested to work in WMediaPlayer (even though the speed was a little odd I decided to continue)
Afterwards I had my "selection menu (2nd menu)" ready to go.
*I think this step should be added in Martini's guide to avoid confusion like what happened to me and make it more complete.

Then, I followed remaining steps on Martini's guide to make the motion menu. I made a "first menu" that would be the starting one and started placing things in the menu tab of TSCV. Changed properties as indicated to get the refs to go to the correct spot in the movie, etc.
This time I used a CD-RW with a little movie for testing as adviced before so I wouldn't spent so much time between test, the CD-RW was accepted by the DVD player (even though the comparison list shows that my player might not -this is the second issue I proove wrong in that DVDlist-)

The problems were:
1- I was thinking that after I inserted the CD-RW into the DVD-player, it would display the "first menu" automatically but it didn't until I pressed the "MENU" key on my remote (is there a fix for this??)
2- Even though the refs in first and second menus were correct, each would enter a infinite pause after 5 seconds, this doesn't make a difference in the still image of the "first menu" but would look weird in the "scene selection (second menu) which would play the little scenes I made (4 scenes of 180 frames each) and then pause until I pressed a selection. (Is there a way to make this "scene selection menu" (motion one) loop infinitely intead of pausing infinitely??)
3- After the movie ends how could I tell the player to go back to the 1st menu on auto. without me pressing the menu button again??
4- Could anyone explain 1 by 1 the "properties" on the right of the menu tab in TSCV, what are there for and how values could be changed?? (I think this would definitively answer my first questions on this post)

PS->In the mean time I will be playing around with this "menu tab" property settings since I'm now using a CD-RW to test, and this should make everything more easy and faster to do. I post again on any progress. Thxn again.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: elokus on 2001-12-19 19:12:46 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: elokus on 2001-12-19 19:19:13 ]</font>

[martymizah]

ok as far as the tmpgenc accepting the m1v file....i believe that if you select all files it will do it...if not...then it was a plugin that i downloaded from the tmpgenc website (sorry forgot to mention that...i will change it when i get back to school)

but yes...tscv can remultiplex that file to an mpg....(its exactly what tmpg would have done)

as far as the rest of your stuff....my motion menus automatically restart and loop forever with the settings shown in the guide....i dont believe that i played around with them after the install...i think that is the defaults...


as far as your menu not going untill you press th menu button, thats odd.

when you add the menu, it should be the first think in your structure....

it should reads somethin like this

-----menu 1
|
-----menu 2
\
-----movie.mpg

if it is set like that, the default for most players is to just pick up the first stream available (your menu)
my dvd player automatically does this, its a pioneer, so i cant really help with that

as of right now, im probably no help to you

my brother comes home tonight, he will have these programs on his computer (im not on mine, so i dont have access to them) but, if you wait till then i can answer questions regarding the settings

the previous next and return....are where in the movie you want to go when those buttons on your remote are pressed

loop jump timing should be set to immediate
i believe loop wait will tell you how long it will remain still before it plays again...i have it set as one...and that makes it a continous loop

set the regular wait part to zero...i think that will help

to tell you the truth....i dont really know without the program in front of me..your best bet is to just mess around on a cdrw like you are doin

lemme know what you come up with

[ya_jai]

I always use Flash4 as my favorite, just today I tried Flash5 but something wried come up in my svcd menu. I have to check if I was doing something wrong or Flash5 give me this error.
And to answer your question "YES" you can use Flash to create your motion menu. I have done a number of menu with Flash, most of the time I capture short part of movie or original menu to bmp format (using TMPGenc to encode to bmp format). Then load all the pictures into Flash. Next you have to edit selections from original menu or add selections if you use movie clip. Last export to avi movie to feed to TMPGenc to encode. This is for video only, i've never add sound into flash directly.
If you need original sound from whatever you want to be your menu, you need to encode that part to mpeg1/2 also in order to demultiplex and get audio out exact as you video.

To answer you next questions
1. If you add menu correctly (in order, which come first which come later) the menu should show up after you hit play (only some stand alone that can play automatically such as APEX 660a whould not do that but APEX 5131 does).
2.I believe that if you set <loop wait-timing> to "-1" it will loop finitely (not sure, never done that). NOTE: you should make your menu to be longer as you want at least 1-2 sec. because stand alone play always cutoff 1-2 sec. of (S)VCD track.
3. use <next>,<time out>, and<return> all point to your main menu, in this case either you hit skip next, stop or let it end by itself it will go back to main menu. But I'd not prefer this method because if you forget and leave cd in player it will play until it dies.
4. Marty already give you that but I wanna add "default = this code will do after you hit play/enter". this code is useful only in main menu so that you can play movie instantly by hitting play button.

[elokus]

Hey Thnx for the reply marty, ya-jai...
I got some help from the TSCV forum also (thnx everyone) and at the moment using DAEMON tools + WinDVD (these two helped me make a virtual DVDplayer where I can load the .cue file produced on TSCV and check if the XML is correct), I'd say it's very time-saving, as for I don't have to leave the computer screen. Hopefully everything will work the same when I load a CD with the files on it to my REAL DVD-player...(grin)...We'll see!

So far I managed to make the correct and functional XML file for my movie after changing some settings now that I know what they are for...I see you recalled well some of them on your post , overall I think I have this motion setting thing covered for now, I'm not full of "?" signs in my head anymore, again thank you guys a lot for helping out....
*I was directed to a guide that explains parameters on XML for VCD but applicable to the TSCV's XML file. (this is the address if anyone needs it... http://www.geocities.com/medinotes/vcd/general_xml_structure.html)

I'm currently doing more stuff as I read and will eventually try setting up a end or lets say "mpeg extros" for the 2 part films, also I've planned on making a motion with flash ya-jai, I think I could add some cool features to the menus in there. For now that's all...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: elokus on 2001-12-20 00:40:30 ]</font>