Is anyone making menus with DVDauthor?

[fmctm1sw]

I don't need anything fancy. Just a bunch of pictures of text on the screen that will allow me to put 10 or so VCDs on a DVD.

[liquid217]

The most basic way (and sometimes the most efficient way) to create a menu for your dvd is with a simple paint program. My weapon of choice usually is my trusty ol paint shop pro. create an image with all of the options that you want on the menu, then export to bmp or jpg. Once this is done, use your mpeg2 encoder to encode the image to an mpeg stream. With tmpgenc, this is fairly simple. open tmpgenc, select the image file as your video source. You will want to load a blank audio file (or have someing on it, like maybe background music). Encode the mpeg streams with whatever dvd template you need to create a compliant dvd mpeg stream( i recommend encoding to separate elementry streams). Once encoded, you can import these streams into most dvd authoring tools.

[AarontheRipper]

If you're referring to TMPGEnc DVD Author, it's probably the easiest way to go. Set each of your clips up in their own tracks and then pick the menu template that best suits your needs. You can find out about the different templates by using the help menu.

[fmctm1sw]

Thanks Liquid. I actually am a little deeper than that. I use the DVDauthor command with the "menu.xml" and "config.xml." I can get more than one video on a DVD now (which was my desire) but it took about 15 minutes to want something in the way of a menu. Your GUI went a long way in helping me understand those two config files. I can actually see little green marks where there are supposed to be menus BUT the "button" will not allow me to name anything.
If I use <button name="Whatever">, it craps out. I tried
<button label="Whatever"> but it doensn't work either. I've seen documentation that describes both ways. Thanks for the info on the still image to mpeg. I needed that too.

[liquid217]

Actually, there is no real need to label the buttons, since it places all of that data directly into the subtitle stream, but the correct method is to use <button label="name" in the spumux config file, then use <button name="name" in the dvdauthor xml file. Both of which are outlined here. http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html

The gui i put together should be able to do all of which you need to with out any trouble. there is a new version up, which can be acquired here.
http://users.adelphia.net/~liquid64/dvdauthorgui.html

If your having trouble with the gui or with dvdauthor itself, i would like to try to help. If you would like to speak with me in real-time, i generally idle in the "Webchat" section.
https://www.videohelp.com/chat

[fmctm1sw]

Actually, there is no real need to label the buttons, since it places all of that data directly into the subtitle stream, but the correct method is to use <button label="name" in the spumux config file, then use <button name="name" in the dvdauthor xml file. Both of which are outlined here. http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html

The gui i put together should be able to do all of which you need to with out any trouble. there is a new version up, which can be acquired here.
http://users.adelphia.net/~liquid64/dvdauthorgui.html

If your having trouble with the gui or with dvdauthor itself, i would like to try to help. If you would like to speak with me in real-time, i generally idle in the "Webchat" section.
https://www.videohelp.com/chat

That would be awesome. I'm in Japan so I'll try to catch you on at a good time. My GUI locks up if the menu gets to the end and stops playing before I can get the buttons added. You should see my frantically clicking on the keyboard for my short menu

@Aaron: Thanks for the advice but I do not want to pay for any more author programs after I got raped by Roxio's "product."

[liquid217]

hmmm, interesting bug. I will definitely look into that. By the way, what directshow mpeg2 filter are you using? A good way to test is to goto start...run...type mplayer2 load the mpeg2 clip into it, then goto file...properties.. then goto advanced. Under the "filters in use" area, it should tell you. I have sucessfully tested with the ligos and the powerdvd filter, but thats it.

[fmctm1sw]

hmmm, interesting bug. I will definitely look into that. By the way, what directshow mpeg2 filter are you using? A good way to test is to goto start...run...type mplayer2 load the mpeg2 clip into it, then goto file...properties.. then goto advanced. Under the "filters in use" area, it should tell you. I have sucessfully tested with the ligos and the powerdvd filter, but thats it.

said "Roxio Mpeg-2 Video Decoder" and "Roxio Mpeg-2 Demuxer" among a couple ther things.... I'll try the new GUI....

[fmctm1sw]

OK, so I thought I had it figured out. I was able to use the "image" attribute in the menu.xml file and saw a green display on my TV. That's what I am looking for! So, I figured I'd make my own BMP file and replace the image file with it. Didn't work. Then I figured it must have to be in .PNG format. Nope, didn't work either. Then I checked out the properties of the .PNG file (720x480). THAT must be it. NOPE, I converted my image to 720x480 with TMPG and even converted it into a .PNG file and it still will not work... GRRRRR

[liquid217]

said "Roxio Mpeg-2 Video Decoder" and "Roxio Mpeg-2 Demuxer" among a couple ther things.... I'll try the new GUI....

try installing the demo version of powerdvd. that should fix your problem with it freezing at the end of the loop while editing the menu. Bear in mind that once the gui is functioning properly, theres no need to further edit the xml files generated by the gui. They should be completely intact and can generate a compliant dvd file structure by themselves.

OK, so I thought I had it figured out. I was able to use the "image" attribute in the menu.xml file and saw a green display on my TV. That's what I am looking for! So, I figured I'd make my own BMP file and replace the image file with it. Didn't work. Then I figured it must have to be in .PNG format. Nope, didn't work either. Then I checked out the properties of the .PNG file (720x480). THAT must be it. NOPE, I converted my image to 720x480 with TMPG and even converted it into a .PNG file and it still will not work... GRRRRR

I think your making it much more complicated than it really is. The simple gui i wrote works by creating a green "underline" based on the coordinates entered in the menu editor. the underline data is muxed into the menu stream with spumux. these "buttons" are overlayed over top of the mpeg stream that was specified as the menu.

To learn more about the menu creation process manually, i would recommend looking at Compugup's xml samples, found here.
https://www.videohelp.com/download/dvdauthor-0.6.5TestPack.rar

[fmctm1sw]

I know... I'm hardheaded Anyway, I ditched Roxio's Easy CD/DVD creator and the player that was in the same program menu with it. Another DVD player actually came with my DVD writer. I mentioned in another post how strikingly similar to PowerDVD it looked. If you click on an m2v file and cllick "open with" it even shows up under programs as PowerDVD with a little Roxio symbol next to it. So I have powerDVD I guess. I opened a mpeg2 file I had with MWP and it said "Cyberlink video/SP decoder." At any rate, I'll get back to the GUI and see what happens.

[fmctm1sw]

Ok here goes. I went back to the GUI. The two main problems I have with it are as follows:

[1] I get an error message saying "File or command not found" every time I click "Author". I can easily fix this by editing the script.bat file and adding ".exe" to all the mplex, spumux, and dvdauthor commands. No big deal.

[2] When I try to set up a vmgm menu, if my menu file is too short, and I don't click "accept" before the menu stops playing, the GUI will lock up on me. I have to make a menu that is about 15 or 20 seconds long. This is slightly more a pain in the ass. What I do is draw up a BMP with paint, open an avi file with virtualdub that I want to use as a menu, add the BMP as a logo (with the logo filter) and convert to mpeg2 for use a 15 to 20 second menu.

Given the program and GUI are both free of charge and liquid has spent a great deal of time on this project (there's always updates it seems), I don't feel I have the right to gripe about it. Using the process I described above, I was able to make a DVD with more than one movie on it and even added a half-assed menu I drew up with MS Paint. That was my whole point in the beginning anyway. I applaud the simplicity of Liquid's GUI and and highly recommend it. A FREE authoring tool that can be used to make menus. I havn't seen anything else like it for free.