Some questions for all you smart people.

[scottb721]

My DVD to SVCD process is shown below.

If I select "decode to wave" in D2A, does this mean I lose 5.1 audio and end up with just 2 chan stereo on the SVCD?
If so, what is the correct setting in D2A to keep 5.1 so that TMPGE can still recognise the audio file ?

Is there any way to have my DVD player show running time and current chapter info? It currently only shows "SVCD" on the display when playing my SVCDs.

When importing chapter info for disc 2 in VCDEasy, how do I maintain the correct chapter points when disc 2 actually starts part way thru a chapter ?
I'm not quite sure how to work the Start and End Offests.

What do the Return and Default buttons in VCDEasy/Interactivity correspond to on a remote control?

Thankyou for any answers you can give!

[sterno]

If I select "decode to wave" in D2A, does this mean I lose 5.1 audio and end up with just 2 chan stereo on the SVCD?
If so, what is the correct setting in D2A to keep 5.1 so that TMPGE can still recognise the audio file ?

You get a stereo WAV file, but it should have Dolby Surround encoding for center and rear channels so if you have a Prologic decoder you'll get that. I think if you just demux the AC3 stream and use BeSweet (or some other external tool) you can get a Dolby Surround 2 file, and possibly better quality in general. In theory you can have 5.1 audio on SVCD, in practice very few players can use it. I think I've seen a guide on this site for doing it.

Is there any way to have my DVD player show running time and current chapter info? It currently only shows "SVCD" on the display when playing my SVCDs.

Some players can display time for SVCD, others can not. It just depends on your player. I'm not sure if any can show chapters because (S)VCD chaptering is done with entrypoints, which are totally different from DVD chapters.

When importing chapter info for disc 2 in VCDEasy, how do I maintain the correct chapter points when disc 2 actually starts part way thru a chapter ?
I'm not quite sure how to work the Start and End Offests.

Set the start offset to the time in the original where the current disc starts. Set the end offset to the length of the current disc.

What do the Return and Default buttons in VCDEasy/Interactivity correspond to on a remote control?

Default is usually Play. I think that Return is usually "return" or "go back" or something similar.

[vitualis]

sterno's really answered it all...

Just a few additional pointers:
SVCD in the specs support multichannel MPEG-2 audio if you were wondering what sterno meant. This is not easy to make (properly) and the chance of you getting it to work is exceedingly unlikely (you need a DVD player that will output mpeg audio digitally for a SVCD and a digital receiver that understands it). IMHO, it is a futile exercise.

The running time as shown on the DVD player is hardware specific. It depends on your player. There is nothing you can do with your S/VCD that can change this. As for showing current chaper, although it might be theoretically possible, I think that I can quite confidently claim that no DVD player can do this for S/VCD. Usually, if they show anything at all, they show the current playback TRACK.

"Return" and "Default" of course refer back to VCDs. I have a stand-alone VCD player and there are actually buttons called "Return" and "Default" on the remote. On the modern DVD player, the remote is naturally geared towards DVD functions. As sterno has already stated, the "default" button is often mapped as the "Play" button. The "return" button may be mapped as a "return" button or perhaps as "back".

Regards.

[sterno]

As for showing current chaper, although it might be theoretically possible, I think that I can quite confidently claim that no DVD player can do this for S/VCD.

Thinking about it, it would probably be very easy for a manufacturer to add this. However, it wouldn't be very useful because of the nature of entrypoints. The "normal" behavior of Next and Prev would be totally counterintuitive with such a display - who would expect "next" from chapter 8 to go back to chapter 2? Sure, it happens anyway, but the chapter display just makes it worse and most consumer electronics try to be very friendly to nontechnical people. So then maybe they'd make Next and Prev work DVD-style, which means selectively overriding the PBC, which leads to potential bugs and non-compliance with standards and probably a whole lot more trouble than it's worth.

[vitualis]

Actually, my gripe with hardware manufacturers probably goes deeper than yours...

[warning]Anyone who is vaguely confused about chapters or hasn't made chapters before don't read the following![/warning]

In the specs (definitely for SVCD and I think for VCD also) there is a DVD like supported measure for S/VCD chapters. Basically, you put in your entrypoints and simply use the track as a playlist. The next and prev buttons are then supposed to:
(1) check if there is another entrypoint before the end of the track and if so, go to that
(2) check if there is another play-item after this and if so, go to that (i.e., multi-playitem playlists)
(3) if neither the above, then goto whatever is defined in <next>

That is, if the hardware manufacturers actually followed the specs, making chapters in S/VCD would be SIMPLE and they would work as you would intiuitively think they should (e.g., like DVDs). From reports, it seems that only some Philips players supports this.

As for displaying entrypoints on the display, you've mentioned the problems already... Of course, if the hardware manufacturers actually followed the above, you wouldn't have that problem either...

Regards.