How to random play MPEG-tracks on DVD?

[pahapoika]

Hi!

Does anyone know how I could play the MPEG tracks on my music video compilation in random order? Is there a DVD-authoring program available where I could put a "random play all"-button in the main menu?
One DVD can hold up to 80 music videos so it would be very nice to have the possibility to play them in random order. If this is possible to do somehow I would be very happy to know how.
..and by the way does anyone know how many tracks can I put on a DVD?

Thank you for any advices!

[northcat_8]

EDIT: I stand corrected

As far as the TDA tracks....I'm not 100% but I think you can put as many tracks as you need.

[nexus123]

my rca dvd player has a random track play option and would play the scenes like track in random order 80 bucks from walmart

[petar]

Actually DVD players can perform arithmetic operations and assigning a random value to a GPRM is one of them. You can then use this value to jump to a particular video.
Have you seen Star Wars Episode II on DVD? Each time you play it you'll get a different intro. It's cool. One of the best menus I've seen.

[Roderz]

DVDLAB PRO BETA states it can do this.

[petar]

It gives you access to the vm commands so just link the "random play" (or whatever you want to call it) button to a command object, there set a random value for a particular GPRM and then jump to particular video depending on the value of that GPRM.

[stru0016]

Hey could someone with Scenarist or something pro like that make a DVD with say five chapters and set it to play back in shuffle mode. According to some guides I have seen around the place, there is an option in Scenarist to select between sequential, random and shuffle. Then either post or send me the VIDEO_TS.IFO and VTS_01_0.IFO files so I can compare the differences in IFOedit and see if and how hard it would be to set manually. Or if anyone knows what to change in IFOedit then just posting that info would be fine.

[petar]

I doubt the IFO files will be of much use because the same DVD can be authored in many different ways, depending on the menus and the navigation. But here's one simple example without menus. Say you've authored a DVD with DVD Shrink and has 5 VTSs and you want to shuffle them.

In the VMG PGC set a random value for GPRM0 (Rnd GPRM0,4)
Mov GPRM1,0
If GPRM0==GPRM1 jump to title 1
Mov GPRM1,1
If GPRM0==GPRM1 jump to title 2
and so on (you get the picture ). In the post command section of each title PGC call the VMG PGC.
Any other commands (in the VMG or the VTSs) remove them.
You can get the commands in hex-decimal for entering them in IfoEdit here:
http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/vmcmdset.php

[stru0016]

Hmmm yeah thats what I was trying to do. Got a pretty complex system worked out now. I'm compiling a disk of music videos and I don't want them to play in the same order each time I use the disk. What I'm hoping to do is divide the clips into say 10 groups with X videos per group. Then use registers 1-10 to store a bitmask of the clips played in each group. Then to play random, i'd randomly select one of the 10 groups, then randomly select one of the X clips in that group, check if it's been played, if not play it, if not pick a new random selection. Continue until all clips are played (or most depending on whats easier to work out). Did a trial run last night with just one group, so if I can replicate that into 10 groups could be a winner. Out of interest how large are the general purpose registers? I would assume 16bits which would mean a max of 16 clips per group giving 160 songs total. Depending on how I use that registers for randoms and compares, I might be able to use a couple more groups.

What I really wanted to do is use the shuffle function on the DVD players. The specs around say that a PGC can either play back sequentially, random (possible repeats) or shuffle (no repeats). In IFOedit there are options for PGC playback which I can change from sequential to random or shuffle, but it doesn't seem to effect the playback on PowerDVD. Not sure how the standalone player would be effected as my played won't accept the DVD-RW I bought.

As another avenue, my DVD player has a random button on the remote, but the manual states that it can only be activated for audio cd's and karaoke disks. Could there be a way to change the disk to make the dvd player think it's a karaoke disk and allow the random play function. I have tried it with a normal disk, but it just displays the illegal operation icon.

[petar]

Yes, for what you want to do it's best to use the PGC repeat/shuffle feature rather than random jumping based on GPRM values. But I'm not sure which tool apart from Scenarist will let you author this. For the PGC repeat/shuffle feature to work, you'll need to put all videos in separate programs within this PGC but without any PTTs (chapters). Also you should not have any commands in this PGC.

As for your other avenue, I have no experience with karaoke discs whatsoever so I can't help you there.

[petar]

Simon, I was curious if this can be done with another tool apart from Scenarist, so I did some playing around and it seems possible. It can be done with TDA, adding the videos to a single track. After the first video, for each other video you add, delete the first chapter. At the end it will create a single PGC with each video in a separate program.

Then using IfoEdit in the VTS_PGCITI table delete the PGC command table. Next you need to modify the "PG playback mode" but I've discovered a bug in IfoEdit (v0.96). The fields for "PG playback mode" and "Still time in seconds" are reversed. You need to modify the "Still time in seconds" field. For random mode it's -1+the number of repeats, for shuffle mode it's 127+the number of repeats. For example, if you want to shuffle 5 videos, each to play only once, it would be 132.

[stru0016]

Thanks for the info, I'll give that a go then. The dvd's I was trying to change to shuffle mode were single tracks with many chapters. I had assumed that the shuffle would shuffle chapters rather then tracks. That will explain why it didn't work.