dvdauthor headaches

[RetroHacker]

I have used dvdauthor many times in the past, but only for putting one video file on a disc - never multiple files on the same disc. I recently wanted to burn several episodes of The Simpsons to a DVD. I used a simple xml file like so:
<dvdauthor>
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<titles>
<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_1.mpg" />
</pgc>
<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_2.mpg" />
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>

Only there were 5 pgc's instead of just the two. dvdauthor, burn disc, tossed it into my little CyberHome player I have here in the computer room. Worked perfectly. Hitting "next" advances to the next episode, and when one finished, the next one started. Took the disc over to my bf's house, who has a Daewoo DVD player. Always has played burned discs fine before. Played the disc, and after the first episode, it simply stopped. No control on the remote would make it play another episode. Only the first played. The "search" function on the remote showed that there were indeed 5 titles, but would not select one.

So, fine, I figured it is about time I tried creating a proper menu. So I used the gimp, created a simple background, and a menu. Created three layers for the menu with different colored text, wrote an xml file to configure spumux, created the menu mpg and wrote an xml menu for dvdauthor. After some fiddleing with the XML to get dvdauthor to process it, I had something that dvdauthor would accept. Cut a disc and tossed it into my little CyberHome player. It worked perfectly. Everything worked, even my Play All button. Put the same disc into my Toshiba DVD player downstairs and it refused to play. It recognises it as a DVD but won't play it. This player plays burned copies of discs no problems, as well as the simple one video discs I have burned before. It also won't play in my Macintosh computer. I have not tried it on my boyfriend's Daewoo player yet. I have not been able to compile a menu that dvdauthor will accept that will make a workable disc in the other players. Here's the xml file I used, I am sure that I just did something stupid wrong, but I read a lot of examples and I don't see why this isn't working on the other machines.

<dvdauthor>

<vmgm>
</vmgm>
<titleset>
<menus>
<pgc>
<pre> subtitle=64; </pre>
<vob file="simpsons_menu.mpg" />

<button>g4=0; jump title 1 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=0; jump title 2 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=0; jump title 3 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=0; jump title 4 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=0; jump title 5 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=0; jump title 6 chapter 1;</button>
<button>g4=1; jump title 1 chapter 1;</button>

</pgc>
</menus>


<titles>
<video format="ntsc" />
<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x01.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>if (g4==1) jump title 2; call menu;</post>
</pgc>

<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x02.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>if (g4==1) jump title 3; call menu;</post>
</pgc>

<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x03.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>if (g4==1) jump title 4; call menu;</post>
</pgc>

<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x04.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>if (g4==1) jump title 5; call menu;</post>
</pgc>

<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x05.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>if (g4==1) jump title 6; call menu;</post>
</pgc>

<pgc>
<vob file="simpsons_16x06.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>call menu;</post>
</pgc>

</titles>
</titleset>

</dvdauthor>


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[GTRBudda]

At a glance, your button tags should probably come between the "<pre>" and "<vob file=" lines. Also, your probably don't even need the "<pre>" line, if you've got the "force="yes"" command in the spumux xml's "<spu ......>" tag for your menu.

Something like this:

<dvdauthor> 
<vmgm> 
  </vmgm> 
    <titleset> 
      <menus> 
        <pgc pause="inf"> (or "<post>" below)
        <button>g4=0; jump title 1 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=0; jump title 2 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=0; jump title 3 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=0; jump title 4 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=0; jump title 5 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=0; jump title 6 chapter 1;</button> 
        <button>g4=1; jump title 1 chapter 1;</button> 
        <vob file="simpsons_menu.mpg" /> 
        <post> jump menu 1; </post>
        </pgc> 
      </menus>

If your menu is a still, you could use "<pgc pause="inf">" after the "<menu>" tag. Or, if it's not a still frame, use "<post> jump menu 1; </post>" after the "<vob file=....>" in the menu section. One or the other, I think, but probably not both.

I'm no expert on this, most of what I know comes from the docs and studying/altering the xml files from DVDAuthorGui. If you have anymore questions, I'll be glad to continue to lend a hand. Hope this was helpful

Edit: Also, DVD-RW is your friend. If it wasn't for that, I'd have more coasters than cups

[RetroHacker]

I tried swapping the position of the <vob> and <button> tags as you suggested. Still the same problem. Just for grins, here is the xml that I fed spumux:

<subpictures>
	<stream>
		<spu
			force="yes"
			start="00:00:00.00"
			image="simpsons_text.png"
			select="simpsons_text_orange.png"
			highlight="simpsons_text_red.png"
			autooutline="infer"
			outlinewidth="20"
			autoorder="rows">
		</spu>
	</stream>
</subpictures>

I had found in early testing that the <pre> tag with the subtitle=64 was required otherwise all the text that wasn't selected was invisible. With the menu generated from this, and the other XML file in dvdauthor, it works pretty much just how I wanted, although the select color change doesn't seem to work. It's the least of my worries now. I just want something that works on more than one player. I am confused as to how this craptacular CyberHome DVD player works so well... $20 at K-Mart... It seems to play most anything. What am I missing here - why does it only work in the CyberHome? It's not the discs, other discs cut on exactly the same media work perfectly in the other machines. The only difference here is that this is the first time I have tried making a menu. Ack. Frustrating. I'm going to go get a cup of coffee to put on this coaster...

-Ian

[GTRBudda]

Interesting, the image command along with highlight and select? I've never thought to try that. Any text in the background, or behind a button highlight, I've "hardsubbed", for lack of a proper term, into the video, then line up my buttons on or around it. That could be why you're not getting highlights, the image is interfearing with them. But also, you need button tags in the spumux xml too. From a recent project:

<subpictures>
  <stream>
    <spu start="00:00:00.00" end="00:00:00.00"
         highlight="C:\dvdauthor\test.png"
         select="C:\dvdauthor\test.png"
         transparent="000000" force="yes"
         autoorder="rows">
    <button x0="86" y0="62" x1="236" y1="197"/>
    <button x0="187" y0="205" x1="247" y1="260"/>
    <button x0="238" y0="266" x1="278" y1="303"/>
    <button x0="85" y0="295" x1="185" y1="386"/>
    </spu>
  </stream>
</subpictures>

If you drew a rectangle around your buttons, the "x0/y0" is top left corner, "x1/y1" is bottom right corner. Without those, spumux doesn't "know" where to set the highlight. (I use the same button pic for highlight and select because spumux sometimes has a hard time with complex shapes and more than one color. The select colors I set with PgcEdit).

But none of that solves the player problem, ne? The only times I've had disks that wouldn't play (and my little xml concoctions don't seem all that different from yours) were when I had a resolution other than 720x480 for the video. You might hear the disk playing, but the picture was a mess. Dvdauthor seems to missread the resolution, or maybe it's mplex. "<video resolution="XxY">" should fix that, but the one time I tried it, it failed. But it's still fixable with IfoEdit, just an extra step.

Hmm, perhaps removing the spaces from the main xml would help, though the docs say it shouldn't matter (but the docs are a little, um.... sparse ). As a workaround, you might try, if you have it, to open the dvd folder in PgcEdit, then just save it. There's some error that it catches and corrects just opening the dvd. The only other thought that comes to mind, is maybe the Cyberhome is less picky about dvd "spec" than the other players. Could make a difference but just another guess.

I'll keep watching, while my green tea steeps on it's coaster.....

[RetroHacker]

Yeah. You did it the hard way By using the image= tag, you specify a png file that's transparent, and has all the buttons in the non-selected, non-clicked state. Then using the autooutline="infer" and outlinewidth= commands, you can have it figure out where all the buttons are for you. Just make sure that there is a transparent space between all your buttons. outlinewidth=20 tells it to look for a something with 20 pixels of transparent around it. I set it at 20, because my buttons are text, so there are gaps between the letters. Just none larger than 20 pixels.

Tried the disc on my bf's Daewoo, and it played fine. Still would like to figure out why it won't play on my Toshiba.

[GTRBudda]

Wow, that's a neat trick. It seems to solve the "complex shape/multiple color" problem I usualy have. It would probably work with an animated subpic thing I've been working on, too. Seems you've been more help to me than I've been to you

Sorry I haven't been more help with the player problem. My player is a low end Toshiba. So far, except for the stuff I mentioned above, it plays everything I throw at it.

Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet to come up with anything useful....

[liquid217]

My guess is that it has something to do with your video stream used for the menu. You mentioned that you used the gimp to create it. I can only assume use used jpg2yuv/mpeg2enc to convert it to a 1 frame m2v. You may need to increase that. Also, if you are using audio with it, make sure you are using pcm or ac3.