About DVD chapters

[vertical]

Hi,

Can you please advise at what stage should I create chapters for a DVD movie that is being created the following way:

AVI encoded to DVD (MPEG2 and audio) with Procoder. After that muxed m2v with audio with muxman Rejig and burnt with Nero to DVD disk.

I might be missing something but I do not see a feature to create chapters in any of the mentioned software or may be I need another program for that?

Thank you.

[Baldrick]

You can author(make chapters and vob files from the video and audio files) with something else like dvdauthorgui, gui for dvd author (if you want freeee tools).

[vertical]

Thank you. It means none of the tools I use can do the job.

Could please advise something not free that would do it too? Thanks a lot.

[redwudz]

Take a look at TMPGEnc DVD Author. Very easy to use. One downside is it doesn't do subtitles. If you need subs, the next one to look at is DVD-Lab Pro. But TMPGEnc (TDA) would be a good place to start. It has a trial period, so you can test it out.

If you want to know more about the DVD structure a authoring program creates, see 'WHAT IS' DVD to the upper left.

[vertical]

Thank you very much!

[manono]

Hi-

It means none of the tools I use can do the job.

They're authoring apps. Of course they can do the job. You just have to create the Celltimes.txt yourself.

For authoring using Muxman, IFOEdit and others, you create a text file with 29.97fps frame numbers inside, something like this:

11518
24720
37652
51237

Then you load it in Muxman by going File->Import Chapter, and in IFOEdit by hitting the Scene Changes/Chapters button. I haven't used Rejig, but it must be something similar.

[vertical]

manono, thank you.

Could you please refer me to a sample text file? I believe we are talking about a script, right?

Until I see a sample it is hard for me to understand how it will look like as a whole.

[manono]

I don't understand. I just gave you the contents of one that has 6 chapters (the first chapter being frame number 0). As I explained, they represent the 29.97fps frame numbers.

Name it Celltimes.txt and inside have the 29.97fps frame numbers. Some authoring apps name their chapters by the time. The apps I mentioned use frame numbers, 29.97fps frame numbers, and not 23.976fps frame numbers. To find the frame numbers you want for each chapter, one way is to make a fresh D2V with Honor Pulldown Flags and open it in GKNot, if you have that installed, and scroll to the places where you want chapters, and enter the frame numbers in your Celltimes.txt. Or take that D2V and make an AviSynth script out of it to be opened in VDubMod. Then scroll to the places you want to set a chapter point and add the frame numbers to the .txt file.

[vertical]

If I understoo you right, the text in the file for a 5-chapters movie would look the following way:

DirectShowSource("E:\SomeLikeHot-Big-No-Audio.avi")
Frame rate: 29.97
11518
24720
37652
51237

I am really sorry but I do not get how it will look like.

[manono]

I've already explained it. Make a .txt file with the chapters inside. Then:

Then you load it in Muxman by going File->Import Chapter, and in IFOEdit by hitting the Scene Changes/Chapters button. I haven't used Rejig, but it must be something similar

You do this during authoring, not during encoding.

[vertical]

manono, thanks. I will try. Hopefully it will work for me.

[vertical]

Hi,

manono's way is probably a professional way to do it but for my level of knowledge it is too complicated yet. May be some time later...

I browsed TSUNAMI-MPEG and it is really easy to use.

Do i understand right that I cannot multeplex m2v and AC3 in TSUNAMI-MPEG and simulteneously create chapters? I could not load AC3 file in TSUNAMI-MPEG.

So, I have to go the following way: multiplex m2v with AC3 with Muxman; create image file and only after that create chapters with MPEG TSUNAMI, right?

Thank you.

[manono]

You could always take any old DVD you might have on your hard drive, demux the movie with PGCEdit, and then have a look at the Celltimes.txt it gives you. Then you'll see in what format you have to create the chapters for your own DVD.

I don't use the authoring app you mentioned, so someone else can help.

[vertical]

manono, thank you!

As usually you advice is really helpful. That's what I was asking about. I do not understand the technical part much but when I see it get it step by step.

[manono]

I just saw your reply, looked up at my earlier post, and then said a quiet "uh-oh" to myself. I meant to say, "You could always take any old DVD you might have on your hard drive, demux the movie with PGCDemux, and then have a look at the Celltimes.txt it gives you." I hope I didn't mess you up.

Although, actually you can get a sample Celltimes.txt very quickly by using PGCEdit. Open the DVD, double-click on the movie, and along the bottom of the new screen is a button saying "CellTimes.txt". Then hit that button, hit "OK", hit "Save", and give it a name like "Celltimes" and that's all there is to it. Very fast.

[vertical]

manono, thank you.

No problem at all. I did not start doing it yet. I'll be out of town for a week and planning to do it upon my return.

You and gun1inger will have a break from my naive questions and bugging )

[vertical]

Hi,

I figured out how to load ac3 into TSUNAMI-MPEG.

When I run Simulation (video together with ac3), there is a some desynchronization. I searched all of TSUNAMI-MPEG but could not find a feature that would allow to fix it.

Edited: Found it! Thanks.