DVD menu to SVCD menu

[eats**t&die]

is there any guides going around that simply shows how to rip the DVD menu background picture so i can use it on a SVCD, if not can anyone run me through it?

[Jestorius]

The easyeast way is to take a screen-shout of each DVD-menues and after scale it to the proper size use it in VCDEasy. All the menues has a default selected button which is hilighted. If you don't like it then you have to fine the Vob-file containing the menue-background. Load it into your DVD-software player and take a screen-shout of it.

Maybe it isn't the best way but I did it like this.

[jg]

I use VCDEasy 1.1.1 to make menus as similar as possible to those on the DVD. They work quite well in the single CD SVCDs I have made thus far.

However, I have been stuck with the Top Gun SVCD I am currently working on. The problem seems to be with the length of the movie. During the creation of the bin vcdimager reports that the length of the movie exceeds 100 minutes and is clipping it to 100 minutes. Playing the burned SVCD on pc with WinDVD, the full movie is there and all the menus work perfectly. But on my Hiteker/Apex AD700 the movie plays till 77:00 minutes then finishes and goes back to the player logo screen. The player's front panel also displays 77:00 minutes.

The menus are faulty unpredictably displaying as black or remaining at the current menu picture. Even when the menu picture does not advance the numeric options for the menu that did not display, do work correctly e.g. by jumping into a chapter in the movie. However, the chapter points in the movie are incorrect. 30 chapter points have been defined throughout the 107 minutes of the movie. But now the same 30 chapter points are distributed over 77 minutes of the movie. So the only correct chapter point is the first.

Having searched through the forums, I have tried the following solutions.

1. The Apex/Hiteker AD700 plays SVCD according to the Apex site, nowhereman and various posts from Apex/Hiteker owners. Even then, I have upgraded the firmware to HIT007-2AM but stopped short of the Haier or Sampo upgrades as there doesn't seem to be any need to go that far.

2. I tested the menus with navigation to a short movie on their own to verify that the menu mpeg stills are not at fault. They work perfectly.

3. I have tried using the VCDEasy option, "Use MPEGAV/ENTRYSVCD instead of MPEG2/ENTRYVCD" option. It doesn't help.

4. I have tried fixing the header of the movie to MPEG1 and burned it as VCD. No luck. In fact, this is where the menu stills often displayed black. Navigation worked fine but once into the movie the following ceased to work; chapter navigation using the skip button, ffwd/rew, pause and stop. The only way to get out of the movie was to press eject or to power off.

5. The VCD included the CDi application so with the SVCD, in desperation, I tried it with and without as well. No difference.

6. vcdimager reported the movie exceeded the 100 minute limit. So I tried split the movie in 2 and adjusted the chapter points for the second half and the menus accordingly. This introduced a pause when the movie changed tracks but is not a problem. But the menus still did not display correctly. Navigation still worked but as before still jumped to the wrong points in the movie.

7. Incorrect image creation. Nero accepts the MPEG2 file and doesn't complain about exceeding 100 minutes. Only vcdimager does. So there is nothing wrong with the MPEG2. However, Nero doesn't allow the menu sophistication desired.

In attempting to find the solution, various combinations of creating the SVCD by varying the options in VCDEasy caused different behaviour in the dvd player with the only thing in common being that none fixed the problem. The burned disk played perfectly in all respects with WinDVD in both the DVDROM and CDRW drives.

Now, whilst searching far and wide, I came across all sorts of recommendations for SVCD problems on various players using various combinations of less popular software. None specifically dealt with the problem of slightly more sophisticated menus.

I believe many use VCDEasy and it's suite of applications for authoring. And Apex/Hiteker owners number thousands. So there must be some veteran who knows the answer. A post that came close to this problem is:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=71765&highlight=