free dvd authoring tool

[Abond]

It was PAL. My intention was to put two movies on one disc with a main menu where I can choose which movie to play. My mistake was I think that I select to work with titlesets and in fact the menu on the disc was not the main menu, but the titleset menu. Another point was that I wanted to include images from the DVD cover. Unfortunately their AR is quite different from a regular movie resolution and under the automatical resizing the AR was wrong - pictures are "squeezed" from top-bottom. Can you disable the automatic resizing, for example to include in the menu with dimentions of the picture an option like "Original size". And well it will be very handy I think to have a possibility to delete an image from the menu screen.
Thank you!

[borax]

My intention was to put two movies on one disc

This should work the way you did it!? But it works much better in the new 0.02 version. You may already delete your images, but only in the order you added them (first delete the last image then the prelast...): Open the node 'Images' in the explorer view of the current menu, select the last image and press 'del' on you keyboard...
For the AR problem I will include a 'custom size' in my next version.

[Abond]

I'll be damned! Of course the explorer view! I assume when I read that it is based on drag and drop functionality, I should drag the image to the trash :P .

This should work the way you did it!?

In fact yes, it works. I can select the movie to play from the menu. Only the highlight and activation didn't change the color of the text. I tried it on PC (PowerDVD) because my standalone doesn't eat rewritable DVD's

For the AR problem I will include a 'custom size' in my next version.

Great!
One question though. When I select in the settings font type for text, is the same font used for subtitles, or I can specified another font for them?

[borax]

Only the highlight and activation didn't change the color of the text

Please recheck the value for transparency. If transparence is set to ~90% you will probably not notice any change. Set the transparence to 20% max and try again.
If you change the default, the 'new' default is used for all next 'additions' (until you change it again). In this way you may add all your movies with a specific default font, then change the default font in the 'default settings' and add your chapters with the new 'default'. Only the 'Back' button will have the 'old' default font, as this one is already created when you add your movie.
But you may change the font of the 'Back' button (and for all others too) individually with a right click on it.

[Abond]

Yep, everything works with the menu now. Very good.
I have a problem with the subtitles. Well, I have a cyrillic font instaled in which as usual the signs which are not presented in english language or are very rare in international correspondence are substituted with cyrrilic charakters. When I use the gui to mux cyrrilic subtitles (setting the right font) they appear not as cyrrilic but as default ASCII charakters - unreadable. Using, for example MaestroSBT with the same font, the BMP's generated have correct cyrrilic appearance. Muxing with dvdauthorgui - they are also correct. Can it be fixed, please? And also the subtitles are not centered - they appear as left ordered.
Other than that it is OK. Working flawlessly.
Thanks!
Edit: I solved the prob with subs as follow: start dvdauthorgui (the competitor ) and leave it to multiplex subs. Kill it. Import the already subbed files in GUI_dvdauthor. It works. But in this connection is there a prog with which I can mux the subs before to load the files in the GUI?

[borax]

Ok, at the moment I just have used spumux with default values only. For cyrillic fonts it seems to be necessary to specify this exactly. Currently I'm working on a preview function for the menus, custom size images are already working. I will see if I can include an additional dialog for the definition of the subtitle font and position. As a workaround you may either use the 'Create batch' function within GUI for dvdauthor, add the necessary subtitle definitions to the file batchrun0.bat and run the batch files by hand, or you may mux the video and audio with mplex, use spumux to add the subtitles and use the final mpg in GUI for dvdauthor (as you have already done...)

[borax]

Version 0.4 includes the following bugfixes/new functions:
- Preview for menus
- Save and load project
- Some special effects for buttons
- Custom size images
- Check for Navigation packs in mpg files
- Formatting for subtitles
- Sometimes buttons were hidden behind images -> fixed

I hope this version is also able to use cyrillic subtitles...

http://www.boraxsoft.de/GUI_DVDauthor_eng_01.shtml

[Abond]

Hey, very nice! Thank you very much! I still did't test it but maybe today evening.

Sometimes buttons were hidden behind images -> fixed

Oops, I have thought it is a feature . In fact I produced very nice menu (I think it is very nice ) where there are three frames from 3 diff. movies visible, but no text, and the text appear onto the pictures when they are selected!

[borax]

Oops, I have thought it is a feature...

OK, if you like this feature, you can still create this kind of menus: Just set the buttons to "Normal visible"=off.

[Sakuya]

Borax, is there a way to have a main menu only? I want to have the main menu with the links. When I click on the link, I want it to play the movie. After the movie finishes, it returns to the main menu. But after I added my movie file, a Titlesetmenu is created. How do I cancel that?

[Sakuya]

[quote="liquid217"]

When I try to open the PROCESS.BAT file, the DOS window flashes and then disappears before I can read anything.

In addition to the problems in making the M2V from the JPG for DVDauthorGUI from liquid217, when I click to author the DVD, it finished in like 1 second! Is there something wrong with the files or something? It worked a few days ago without menus.... Again, the log is blank. Here's the process.bat:

@echo off
mkdir "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD"
echo ***please wait while the titles are multiplexed.
echo *multiplexing title: 1.....
"C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\bin\mplex.exe" -f 8 -o "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title1.mpg" "E:\Burning\VIDEO_TS\rod1.m2v" "D:\Movie\rod1-New.ac3"
echo *multiplexing title: 2.....
"C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\bin\mplex.exe" -f 8 -o "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title2.mpg" "E:\Burning\VIDEO_TS\rod2.m2v" "D:\Movie\rod2-New.ac3"
echo *processing subtitles for title: 1...
rename "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title1.mpg" presub.mpg
"C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\bin\spumux.exe" "C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\sub1.xml" <"E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\presub.mpg" > "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title1.mpg"
erase "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\presub.mpg"
echo *processing subtitles for title: 2...
rename "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title2.mpg" presub.mpg
"C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\bin\spumux.exe" "C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\sub2.xml" <"E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\presub.mpg" > "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\title2.mpg"
erase "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\presub.mpg"

echo *authoring title(s).....
"C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\bin\dvdauthor.exe" -x "C:\Program Files\DVDAuthorGUI2\config.xml"
erase "E:\CloneDVDTemp\ROD\*.mpg"
echo *authoring process complete.....

No errors though, and the output folder with the VOBs is nowhere in sight, just like the M2V created the JPG is nowhere in sight. Help~!

[borax]

Borax, is there a way to have a main menu only?

Yes, actually there are more ways to do this. If you have homogeneous material, you can use switch off the option "Use Titesets" in the settings. But some people reported problems with burning this kind of DVD structure (using nero). The second possibitlity is to use titlesets, but not specify any chapters. In this case the movie is started directly from the main menu. The titleset menus are created, but you will never see them... If you just want to start the movies from the main menu, but keep the titleset menus, you can use the option "Start action for titlesets" = "Play movie", and specify at least one chapter (you may use the 00:00:00.0, and rename it to "Start movie"). The movie is then started directly from the main menu, but if you use the "menu" key on your remote, you will get to the titleset menu.

Concerning your DVDauthorGUI problem, open the process.bat file with a editor, and add a new line at the end of the file. Enter 'pause' in this line. Save the process.bat file and start. Now you can see the given messages (you will be asked to press a key to close the window again).

[Sakuya]

Thanks. Actually, the reason it did not burn and did not create the M2V menu is because I installed AC3Machine which adds a key to my regedit (which I deleted) and it all worked again. Scary, I thought it was a virus.

[Sakuya]

I've been getting runtime errors after I burned once today. Is there a reason for it? This is for liquid217's DVDAuthorGUI. Also, I set the menu buttons and everything and then saved the project. However, everytime I load the project, the buttons are reset and I have to set it all over again. A bug?

[trolltuning]

Authoring with DVDauthorgui NTSC 2 titles 1 menu 720X 480
Menu jpeg 720 x 480
link color yellow changing to red
The first button is visible. The 2nd one can't be seen until the mouse is placed over it. Both buttons work (but no one but me would know that the second one is there. Is this the transparency issue mentioned earlier? I assume if it is I need to change that in the paint program?

[liquid217]

Sakuya: Email me the project file so i can see what is happening.

trolltuning: The button will not be highlighted until the user moves over it. Generally, when constructing the jpeg still (or the motion menu), the user will provide some form of text or graphic that the button would either point to, or reference to. For example, http://users.adelphia.net/~liquid64/menu.jpg

'wedding' and 'slideshow' are the two reference points for the buttons. The subpictures are defined around those objects. (Either a rectangle, underline, or bmp image-which is user defined in the menu editor of the gui)

[Abond]

@borax
The GUI working perfectly. Cyrrilics are correct, everything is nice.
There is one thing which I didn't found very important, but only for report. When I mux the files (mplex gui, DVD default) and import them in the gui the total size e.g. is 4468 MB. After authoring and image creation the iso is 4467 MB. This is OK. When I import the same files as elementary streams total size is 4686 - so I didn't even try to run authoring. As the gui uses also mplex for muxing there is some deviation in the calculated total size.

[borax]

Yes, I know about this problem. The total size is just a "guess" value, if you use elementary streams, because the program just calculates the sum of the video and audio stream(s) and adds 8% (the first version used 4% and I got some complaints, that the size is caclulated too small...). Unfortunately the multiplex overhead is not a simple function of the total size. In future versions I will try to find a better solution for this topic. If someone knows about the correct calculation of the multiplex overhead, I would be very interested...

[fboulange]

You can still edit the xml manually to achieve the same effect. simply add jumppad="yes" to the end of the <dvdauthor> tab on the first line(...).
The reason i removed jumppad support is because some of the dvds it created were not fully compatible, so i will need to read up a little more before i add it back in.

@Liquid217 First congrtulations for your GUI : it rocks as so far I never found a decent app to add subtitltes to vobs easely.
Secondly I would like to know a bit more aboutthe jumppad command. I tried to set it to "yes" as you mentioned and edit the project file to point to a menu at the end of playing a title (call menu x). But when I did it if failed to compile giving this error :

"ERR: Too many pre/post/cell commands. Reduce complexity and/or disable jumppad."

In fact I have 44 titles (about 3 min long each : vob trailers and Star Wars : Clone Wars micro series) and 9 menus. Does the error really comes from the fact that I have to many titltes or is it something else ?

I seen that the other option about jumppad is "1|yes|no". What does the "1" argument stands for ?

Looking forward to your help.
Cheers,

OrcA

[liquid217]

Hmmm, interesting problem. If you don't mind, post the edited xml file here, so that I (or others) can look at it. It might be a situation where the main menu can be moved to the vmgm, and then have the titles simply jump back to the titleset menu.

For reference, the edited XML changes can be seen in the saved DVA file (open in notepad).

[fboulange]

Hmmm, interesting problem. If you don't mind, post the edited xml file here, so that I (or others) can look at it. It might be a situation where the main menu can be moved to the vmgm, and then have the titles simply jump back to the titleset menu.

Thx for answering Liquid217

Actually I have to remove the jumppad option because I tried most of the combinations but none worked...

The workaround I found is use the property "entry" inside the menus' tags. So I had the menus for root, audio, subtitle, angle, chapters (ptt) set to the different menus I created and where I want to get back once a title has been played.

The thing is that DVDAuthorGui does not handles (not yet) post command to point to those menus (only "call menu" which point to the root menu, "jump to title x" and "exit" are available).
So I left the post command by default (pointing to the next title), author the DVD and then use IfoEdit to change the post command from "(JumpVTS_TT) Jump to Title: x" to "(CallSS VTSM) Call TitleSet yyyy-menu" where yyyy varies from audio|subtitle|angle|root|chapter.

I agree it is bit dodgy but this way I can come back on the menu I was when I launch a title (am I clear ???... hope so!)

For reference, the edited XML changes can be seen in the saved DVA file (open in notepad).

Yeap actually I did create my menu with Notepad as I found it a bit faster than using the GUI (for the menu that is !) hehehe
We could also find the XML it in dvdauthorgui folder inside the file config.xml

As for pasting my XML, well here it is (part of it as it's bit too long) :

<dvdauthor dest="G:\DVD\Author">
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<menus>
<pgc entry="root">
<button> jump menu 6; </button>
<button> jump menu 2; </button>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\menusub1.mpg" pause="5"/>
</pgc>
<pgc entry="angle">
<button> jump title 24 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 25 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 26 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 29 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 28 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 27 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump menu 2; </button>
<button> jump menu 1; </button>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\menusub3.mpg" pause="5"/>
</pgc>
<pgc entry="subtitle">
<button> jump title 37 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 38 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 39 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 42 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 41 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 40 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump menu 2; </button>
<button> jump menu 1; </button>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\menusub4.mpg" pause="5"/>
</pgc>
<pgc entry="ptt">
<button> jump title 34 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 35 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 32 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 31 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 36 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 30 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump menu 2; </button>
<button> jump menu 1; </button>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\menusub5.mpg" pause="5"/>
</pgc>
<pgc entry="audio">
<button> jump title 19 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 20 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 21 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 22 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump title 23 chapter 1; </button>
<button> jump menu 8; </button>
<button> jump menu 1; </button>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\menusub9.mpg" pause="5"/>
</pgc>
(... other pgc menus ...)
</menus>
<titles>
<video format="ntsc" />
<audio lang="EN" />
<subpicture lang="FR" />
<pgc>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\title1.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>jump title 2;</post>
</pgc>
(... titles 2 to 41 ...)
<pgc>
<vob file="G:\DVD\Author\title42.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
<post>call menu;</post>
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>

In fact when you set jumppad="yes" in the dvdauthor tag it does work if you got 1 title and 2 menus and using the post command "call menu 2" at the end of the title (I did try). But with 9 menus and 42 titles I get the error mention before (ERR: Too many pre/post/cell commands. Reduce complexity and/or disable jumppad)...

Hope people will find an easier way to get back to a menu after playing a title as with my workaround the limitation is using 5 menus (root, angle, subtitle, audio, chapter)...

Keep in touch.

OrcA

[liquid217]

Something you might want to use is a little virtual machine scripting. The idea would be to set a register value right before you call the menu you need. Then, insert a <pre> command in the first menu, that says, if the register is equal to 2 (for example) then jump to menu 2. if the register is equal to 3, then jump to menu 3. I think you see where i am going with this. Below is a xml i was testing with. It seems to do exactly what you are needing. In this example, if g3 (the register i am using) is equal to 1, then it continues with menu1. if g3 is equal to 2, then it immediately jumps to 2.

Hope this helps you out.

<dvdauthor dest="C:\test">
  <vmgm>  
  </vmgm>
  <titleset>
    <menus>
      <pgc>
       <pre>
         if (g3==2) jump menu 2;
       </pre>
        <button> jump title 1 chapter  1; </button>
        <button> jump menu 2; </button>
       <vob file="C:\test\menusub1.mpg" pause="5"/>
      </pgc>
      <pgc>
        <button> jump title 2 chapter  1; </button>
        <button> jump title 3 chapter  1; </button>
       <vob file="C:\test\menusub2.mpg" pause="5"/>
      </pgc>
    </menus>
      <titles>
       <video format="ntsc" />
        <pgc>
          <vob file="C:\test\title1.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
          <post>g3=1; call menu;</post>
        </pgc>
        <pgc>
          <vob file="C:\test\title2.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
          <post>g3=2; call menu;</post>
        </pgc>
        <pgc>
          <vob file="C:\test\title3.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.00" />
          <post>g3=2; call menu;</post>
        </pgc>
      </titles>
  </titleset>
</dvdauthor>

[Sakuya]

I'm using liquid's latest version of DVDAuthorGUI version 0.987 beta. I have done everything correctly with no errors. When I author, I get small errors for each subtitle stream in the log:

INFO: Found EOF in .sub file.
WARN: Read 0, expected 4
INFO: 358 subtitles added, 0 subtitles skipped, stream: 32, offset: 0.18

I also see an error at the end of the log:

INFO: Locale=C
INFO: Converting filenames to US-ASCII
INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
STAT: Picking VTS 01

STAT: Processing E:\CloneDVDTemp\RAY\menusub1.mpg...
STAT: VOBU 0 at 0MB, 1 PGCS
6 [main] dvdauthor 1184 handle_exceptions: Exception: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
29598 [main] dvdauthor 1184 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to dvdauthor.exe.stackdump
erase "E:\CloneDVDTemp\RAY\*.mpg"
echo *authoring process complete.....
*authoring process complete.....

Compared to the successful operations in the past, I noticed that this unsuccessful authoring process did not include the usual PGCS process and that shows above. I wonder why?

It took around 20 to 25 minutes for me to author it. But the resulted VIDEO_TS folder was empty. I authored two times and both times, it was empty. Why is this? I have installed and uninstalled different authoring and audio converting programs in the past. I know some of them are still in the Registry. Could they be conflicting with DVDAuthorGUI? I'm really not sure what to do since this is the only program for me that will accept selectable subtitles. I have tried using the previous version 0.986 and it still wouldn't output the VOBs.

I already sent an email to liquid, I just wanted to see what you guys' views on this problem are. Thanks. Any help is appreciated!

[trolltuning]

Its been about a month since I used this program (I got stuck with a nasty set of DV footage to edit) I had one small problem. I tried to make a menu with 28 buttons. (Why- they are all separate clips undrer five minutes and yes its readable) When I tried to link to about the 21st one I got an error message and had to resort to a second menu. Is there a limit set in the program? Any way to get around it? Other than this everything worked perfectly. Thanks for a great program!

[liquid217]

@Sakuya
There looks like there was a problem with the first menu mpeg stream. I noticed in the project file that you emailed me that you were using an imported bmp button. I suggest you try using a standard primitive (like a rectangle or underline). You can also try some buttons that a user graciously made for use in the gui. They can be found here:
http://home.hccnet.nl/g.van.schaik/e/e-index.html


@trolltuning
Sorry to hear about your luck. There has been some improvements on the way the gui handles button data, so a single menu with 28 buttons shouldn't be a problem now (be sure to use the 0.987 update). Id personally recommend using 2 or even 3 menus if you have that many links.

[Sakuya]

It worked after I fixed the buttons! Also, I set the menu with a background sound using an AC3 file. The AC3 file plays on the computer but my menu on the player is blank. Actually, after I authored, I opened the VOBs in DVD Shrink and I can hear the background music. Since it's a piano piece, could it be it's too soft?

Also, some of the subs automatically separate themselves into 3 lines instead of my usual 2 set in Sub Station Alpha. I had the font at Arial 28. Would size 26 be too small for TV?

[burnman99]

You can still edit the xml manually to achieve the same effect. simply add jumppad="yes" to the end of the <dvdauthor> tab on the first line(...).
The reason i removed jumppad support is because some of the dvds it created were not fully compatible, so i will need to read up a little more before i add it back in.

@Liquid217 First congrtulations for your GUI : it rocks as so far I never found a decent app to add subtitltes to vobs easely.
Secondly I would like to know a bit more aboutthe jumppad command. I tried to set it to "yes" as you mentioned and edit the project file to point to a menu at the end of playing a title (call menu x). But when I did it if failed to compile giving this error :

"ERR: Too many pre/post/cell commands. Reduce complexity and/or disable jumppad."

In fact I have 44 titles (about 3 min long each : vob trailers and Star Wars : Clone Wars micro series) and 9 menus. Does the error really comes from the fact that I have to many titltes or is it something else ?

I seen that the other option about jumppad is "1|yes|no". What does the "1" argument stands for ?

Looking forward to your help.
Cheers,

OrcA

I think the actual attributes for jumppad are "On" or "Off" instead of "Yes"
or "No". I am pretty sure this is right but I need to double check. I did get the jump pad to work on my DVD posted on yahoo's site including a link to BOTH Menus, but can't remember what exactly the command was and i'm not sure that I saved it. I will post it as soon as i find it.

Hope this helps!

Rog

[Sakuya]

I used VCDEasy to extract a DAT from a VCD file to MPEG-1. Then I separated it into M1V and MP2. I did some things to the audio and now have an M1V file and two AC3 file. I added them into DVDAuthorGUI and selected the extra audio stream. I then clicked to author and it said there was an error. My guess is it won't accept 352x240. That's all I have on there. Here's the log:

DVDAuthorGUI 0.988 - 7/16/2004
***please wait while the titles are multiplexed.
*multiplexing title: 1.....
INFO: [???] mplex version 2.0.0 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $)
**ERROR: [???] File unrecogniseable!
INFO: [???] File D:\Movie\Karaoke\voice01.ac3 looks like an AC3 Audio stream.
INFO: [???] File D:\Movie\Karaoke\music01.ac3 looks like an AC3 Audio stream.
**ERROR: [???] Unrecogniseable file(s)... exiting.
*multiplexing title: 2.....
INFO: [???] mplex version 2.0.0 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $)
**ERROR: [???] File unrecogniseable!
INFO: [???] File D:\Movie\Karaoke\voice02.ac3 looks like an AC3 Audio stream.
INFO: [???] File D:\Movie\Karaoke\music02.ac3 looks like an AC3 Audio stream.
**ERROR: [???] Unrecogniseable file(s)... exiting.
*authoring title(s).....
DVDAuthor::dvdauthor, version 0.6.10.
Build options: gnugetopt iconv freetype
Send bugs to <dvdauthor-users@lists.sourceforge.net>

INFO: Locale=C
INFO: Converting filenames to US-ASCII
INFO: dvdauthor creating VTS
STAT: Picking VTS 01

STAT: Processing D:\KARA\title1.mpg...
ERR: Error opening D:\KARA\title1.mpg: No such file or directory
Could Not Find D:\KARA\*.mpg
*authoring process complete.....

[burnman99]

Jumppad to "On" is the correct way to do it.

Later!

Rog

[Sakuya]

Did anybody find a solution for liquid's DVDAuthorGUI? The issue was that the background menu music won't play. I created the M2V using DVDAuthorGUI and it works. Then I selected the audio. The audio is in AC3 format. I heard from other people using other authoring programs that using AC3 sound for background music is not good.

Also, should I use this method to create a menu? I open TMPGEnc and set the video source as the menu JPEG. Then select the background music in WAV/MP3 as the audio source. Then, I open the MPEG in DVDAuthorGUI for the menu?