Where to find pictures for chapters to author DVD?

[matmike]

Hello,

I'm relatively new to authoring DVDs. But everything is working fine.
My only problem is: When I author SVCD-MPEG to DVD (with the help of some tools), I can't use the film as source for the pictures describing the chapters in the menue (the video preview is corrupt because of manipulated file headers).
I don't want to make screenshots just for the chapters.
Does anyone know a page where I can get some generic pictures that could be used as pictures for chapters?

MatMike

[SupaCoopa]

What you're asking for is probably non-existant. You want 10-20 pictures from each movie, relevant to the individual chapters. Hmmm... Don't think anyone has thought of this and put the necessary effort to it.

That said, www.imdb.com has some (usually few) screenshots from the most popular movies. You can find them under the "pictures" section of each movie.

But why not use your DVD authoring program to get screenshots for the chapters? Most advanced ones (ReelDVD, Maestro etc) have this feature. Or just use PowerDVD, it won't take more than 10 minutes of your time and you can choose exactly which screenshoot you'll capture and use. I don't undestand how a DVD-compliant stream can have "manipulated file headers". Maybe you're putting SVCD streams to DVD (as in SVCD2DVDMPG), in which case I don't know if the above will work.

Hope this helps

[andydd]

Im not 100% clear of what you want to do BUT with Spruce Up you can add the chapters where you want using a slider and then there is a button that automatically makes a chapter menu using the chapter points you chose and the corresponding picture from that point in the film.

[matmike]

That's what I wanted to do. But the film is not 100% compatible to DVD-MPEG, so the pictures from the film can not be taken as pictures for the chapter menue.
That's why I'm searching for a ressource where I can download pictures that can be used as for the chapter menue.
For example, pictures with little images of numbers (chapter 1, chapter 2, ...).
@SupaCoopa: Exactly, it's SVCD to DVD. That's why Maestro shows totally corrupted pictures of the movie.

MatMike

[andydd]

Why not make it DVD compatible ?.....If its not surely you are gonna run into other problems if you are authoring it as a DVD.

[matmike]

To make it really compatible, reencodig would be necessary (some hours) and a loss of quality would be the result.
By just changing file headers (5 mins), the player plays it correct and the software accepts it, too. It just displays wrong.

MatMike

[Quigonsean]

Well I'm in the middle of Empire Strikes back, and I just finished my chapter menu in PhotoShop, I have 42 .JPG I used for buttons on the 7 menu pages I did 6 per page. They are 140x90 in size, with the edges beveled, they look reel nice, I capped'em at 720x360 widescreen, the beveled them and filtyered etc.., then rrsized the down so they look reel nice, but if your not doing Empire they won't be much good to ya, but if you want them I can hook ya up all42 are only like 800K.

May the Force be With You,
Sean

[adam]

If you can author a DVD out of the mpeg I don't see how you can't extract frames from it. Take the mpeg and make a d2v project. Load it in TMPGenc, go to source range and select the frames you want, set the resolution to 704x480/576 on the video tab and hit file/output to file and select sequence BMP/PPM/etc... You can't complain that increasing the res looks bad because you are doing the exact thing with your movie.

If you have already patched the mpeg with a dvd file header than just patch it back, like you said it takes 5 mins and that is a heck of alot less time than it would take you to find pictures on the internet.