question about seamless branch authoring??

[mazinz]

hey i was wondering, since i have never authored a seamless branching dvd before, do the clip assests have to match, or does that not matter??

I have clipA which is a regular 4:3 ratio nothing special with it at all. I then
have clipB which is an animorphic, 16x9 widescreen pic.

Essentially i want clip A via seamless branch to go into clipB (clip A being an intro).

Can this be done or would clipA also have to be a 16x9? If thats the case anyway to make clipA a 16x9 (say in tmpeg) but still keep it at the 4:3 ratio (it was from tv pan/scan footage)?? thanks again

[Dimmer]

All the video within a VTS must have the same aspect ratio. Doesn't matter whether you use seamless branching or not.

Yes, you can turn 4:3 into anamorphic 16:9 by adding the black bars on the sides. In TMPGEnc, set the video size to 720x480 and aspect ratio to 16:9. Then in Advanced settings set Video arrange method to Center (Custom size), and the size to 540x480. The 4:3 picture will be stretched on a widescreen monitor back to its original size.

In case anyone's wondering where 540 comes from, it's 720 * (4:3 / 16:9) .

[mazinz]

thanks for the info, it worked great! However i wanted to make sure of something. On the Ifo file i had it as "16x9) (pan/scan & letterbox). That would be the correct setting right?

Also though the main film i am using is just 16x9 letterboxed. Im still not going to keep them as one vts (obviously), being my main film would be vts_1 and this extra clip would be vts_2, so is it safe to assume the clips will still work with eachother via seamless branch even though their ifo info is slightly different?


I am not watching this on a widescreen tv, but i still want to keep it that way

[adam]

This is not seamless branching, this is just a seamless link. Seamless branching is a much more complicated feature that requires that you make what are called stories. Its a series of groups which each share certain cells, and you can jump from one story to another seamlessly.

A seamless link is just two cells played back to back with no pause in between them. I am fairly certain that a seamless link is not possible except from within the same VTS. You can still make the link from one VTS to another, and it may play, more or less, seamlessly on any given DVD player. But if you want a guaranteed seamless jump on all DVD players I believe you will have to have them in the same VTS, which means they will have to have the same aspect ratio.

[Roderz]

Doesn't dvdlab pro do multi VTS (which can be different AFAIK) and can jump from 1 to another?

With Multiple VTS you can put a completelly different movies on one DVD, you can mix aspect ratios, different size or even put PAL and NTSC on the same DVD.

AND

special new linking aid called VTS Bridge allows you to link together any two objects even across multiple VTS.

Isn't this what your after?

[adam]

Yes of course you can link from one VTS to another but he said he wanted the link to be seamless.

A link can be set to either seamless or non-seamless, and the effect is just what you'd expect from the name. Non-seamless may play seamlessly depending on your hardware, but there is no guarantee, so on any given player there may be a pause. Seamless links are guaranteed to play seamlessly on any dvd compliant hardware, but they can only be set under certain circumstances, and as far as I know this can only be done from within the same VTS.

[Dimmer]

@mazinz
Guys are right, you're talking about seamless link, not branching. Seamless branching is kind of a holy grail of DVD authoring that's so far only possible on MAC hardware with $80,000+ software.

thanks for the info, it worked great! However i wanted to make sure of something. On the Ifo file i had it as "16x9) (pan/scan & letterbox). That would be the correct setting right?

"16x9" (pan/scan & letterbox) in IfoEdit means that both p&s and LB are allowed on 4:3 monitor. Most DVD players have a monitor type in the setup, where you choose 16:9, 4:3 p&s, 4:3 LB. If you set your player to 4:3 p&s and play your DVD, it will cut off the sides to fill up the screen. If you set in IfoEdit "16x9" (letterbox) like in most commercial DVD, it will force LB display mode, same as if you set your player to 4:3 LB. All this doesn't make difference when you play the DVD on computer or widescreen TV.

Also though the main film i am using is just 16x9 letterboxed. Im still not going to keep them as one vts (obviously), being my main film would be vts_1 and this extra clip would be vts_2, so is it safe to assume the clips will still work with eachother via seamless branch even though their ifo info is slightly different?

You probably meant to say that you want main film to be Title 1, and the extra is Title 2. No, in this case you can't link them seamlessly. Player would have to stop after the main movie, read the IFO file, and only then play the extra. The only way they would play seamlessly is if you have them both within the same title with the extra as a last chapter.

But if you play DVD on computer, especially from HDD, non-seamless links are pretty much unnoticeable.

[mazinz]

i had a feeling about that. Yes you are correct i did mean to say titles. i still am after making it seamless though, i know Maestro doesnt offer that, but i assumed Sonic scenarist did?

I can encode the small intro to be the same as the main film and work with it. Does Maesto offer a seamless link function? I do not recall ever coming across anything like that with it?

I could always try dvd-lab or worse comes to worse have this intro i want as an extra instead.

PS; i will try the "whole movie and extra clip as one title" and see if it works well enough for me


thanks for the info

[Dimmer]

i had a feeling about that. Yes you are correct i did mean to say titles. i still am after making it seamless though, i know Maestro doesnt offer that, but i assumed Sonic scenarist did?

It doesn't depend on the authoring program. You can't have titles playing seamlessly due to the DVD standard limitations. In addition, it actually takes some time for a player to reposition the laser when title 1 is finished, read the IFO file to find out what to do next, and move the laser back to title 2.

There is a possible workaround in Scenarist. You can create Title 3 in the same VTS, which would include the tracks from both titles 1 and 2. Therefore, title 1 would contain only the movie, title 2 - only extra, title 3 - both movie and extra linked seamlessly. This is how they often do "select one/play all" on the lists of extra features (deleted scenes, interviews) and on DVD with TV show episodes. This won't take any extra disc space as long as the titles are in the same VTS.

[Arky]

hey i was wondering, since i have never authored a seamless branching dvd before...

If you'd like to read up a little on the subject of Seamless-Branching, mazinz, you could check out this thread (it was too long to type out again here, so I hope the mods won't mind the link!): http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=75359

This is not seamless branching, this is just a seamless link. Seamless branching is a much more complicated feature that requires that you make what are called stories. Its a series of groups which each share certain cells, and you can jump from one story to another seamlessly.

I am fairly certain that a seamless link is not possible except from within the same VTS. You can still make the link from one VTS to another, and it may play, more or less, seamlessly on any given DVD player. But if you want a guaranteed seamless jump on all DVD players I believe you will have to have them in the same VTS, which means they will have to have the same aspect ratio.

Correct. In order to navigate from one VTS to another, the player must jump to the VMG domain, and then back down to the target VTS. This will obviously result in the Track buffer emptying, so the transition between VTSs will be rendered non-seamless. This is part of the DVD spec, irrespective of what authoring system you use (although Scenarist or Creator will build disks with faster navigation between VTSs because they create spec-level scripts in the VMG domain, rather than the convoluted examples produced by DVD Maestro). The 'VTS Bridge' feature of DVDLab is nothing more than a dummy PGC in the VMG domain, directing navigation back down to the desired target VTS.

Seamless branching is kind of a holy grail of DVD authoring that's so far only possible on MAC hardware with $80,000+ software.

Just under $2,000, actually!

PS; i will try the "whole movie and extra clip as one title" and see if it works well enough for me

Maestro and Scenarist allow you to concatenate (join) MPEG files on their timelines, so you need not re-encode both clips into one. Just make one the same format as the other, then concatentate them in Maestro or Scenarist's timeline.

Dimmer's recommendation, above, for Scenarist is also a nice idea, although I have never tried it. In principle, Maestro also offers manual VTS allocation (provided it's 2914 or above), but there is very little documentation available on how to do this. Personally, I'd just opt for concatenation and have done with it!


Arky ;o)