official dvd menu's

[jaw2957]

Like most of us here, I am making dvd backups. I want to use the menu backgrounds of the original(actually just the stills) dvd's in my dvd-r. Does anyone know of a way to use these images. Not only have I searched on the dvd itslef, but I can't get any screen capture program to capture, because of some kind of protection. I used snagit, windows xp's default(the print screen button), and even power dvd's capture frame button. Someone must know of a way!1

[jaw2957]

I'm thinking its a macrovision thing. How can I disable macrovision on Power dvd?

[uknow]

not sure about macrovision, you could check the settings.
But a program called HyperSnap will capture anything. Search for it at download.com or google.com.

[jaw2957]

I tried hypersnap, and I get the same thing. I think its macrovision, but I don't know how to disable it? Anyone?

[vitualis]

Like most of us here, I am making dvd backups. I want to use the menu backgrounds of the original(actually just the stills) dvd's in my dvd-r. Does anyone know of a way to use these images.

Menus stills and animations are in the VTS_??_0.VOB files. Usually just in the VTS_01_0.VOB. You will need to decrypt this file also with SmartRipper or DVD Decrypter.

You can then extract frames of video clips out of it with DVD2AVI or FlaskMPEG.

Regards.

[jaw2957]

Vitualis, I have them extracted, but I don't know how to make each frame a bitmap? They are in d2v. I still can't do a screen capture. I think the pics have a transparent background over them. I'm not to familiar with these dvd menu's, so please let me know how the process goes, so I can get them to bitmaps. You've already been a huge help. Thanks!!

[mikerios]

One thing nice about Spruce Up is it's ability to make screen caputures from he mpeg file and use them for the menus, and you can then add text or just save numberous screen capture for the background pallate, then later drag n drop them into your project for authoring. Since you are doing from a mpeg ( allready encoded from the vob files ) file and not from a vob file there is no macrovision problem.

[adam]

I'm pretty sure macrovision is not the problem here. This problem is fairly common. I believe it has something to do with hardware accelaration preventing you from doing a screen capture.

You may want to try downloading the demo version of varodvd. It has an export option that will will essentially take a screencapture from the dvd. I have tested several software dvd players with this option and in my opinion varodvd created the highest quality still.

My own personal method for extracting frames is to create a d2v project from the vobs containing the menu stills. I then create an .avs script (you'll need avisynth installed) and load this in virtual dub. Then I use the save image sequence option which turns each frame into a .bmp. This is really handy if your dvd has alot of menu's because it just does them all at once instead of forcing you to do each menu manually.

If you don't want to install avisynth then you can simply load the vob in flask, like Vitualis suggested, and save it as an uncompressed avi file. Then you can load this in virtual dub and use the save image sequence option. By the way, you can get flask and virtual dub in the tools section of this site.

[mijman]

I tend to play the disc in a standalone, capture video of the menus, use virtualdub to get the frames, and paste into my pic application. Edit what I need to, and export to bmp or jpg. I also at the same time, make my buttons, often from the menus themselves, and paste them in the dvd program.
I can't seem to get smartripper to find the VS_01_0.vob to decode and rip.

[adam]

Wow that's an awful lot of work just to get a still picture. You need to use smartripper in file mode instead of movie mode. From there you have access to all the vobs. The one containing the menu stills is usually the first one and it is usually quite small compared to the others.

If you just rip the vob and use the method I posted eariler you can get all the stills you need in about 1 min. Also if you use the avisynth method you can use a resize filter to go from 720x480 to 704x480 for all your pics at once.