looping tracks / no menu project PLS HELP!

[obrian93]

I swear I've searched all over for this. If it's been in front of me the whole time, feel free to flame away . . .

My desired result is a DVD that plays track 1 on bootup and loops it forever. Disc jumps to track 2 with the forward key (>>|) and proceeds to loop that forever. And so on.

Nothing I've tried gives me this kind of simplicity on playback. I can either make something that loops track X without end until you force it into a menu, or it plays through to the end of the disc.

My next attempt was to create a series of useless menu pages with the clips as backgrounds, only to discover that I only get 1 GB for menus on a disc.

I've totally got this with an SVCD (with VCDEasy, methinks), but the quality lacks in comparison and I can only pack an hour into it.

The ONLY buttons that will be available (it's for a kiosk-type thing) will be play/pause, next, and prev. Dagnabbit.

So then, I've got two things I'm asking for. Maybe.

Possibility one is doing it with an authoring package I haven't already tried. I've got access Encore and whatever the Sony/Vegas package is at work, and can beg around (work in a cluster of TV studios) to use just about anything else. Maybe get cracking on scripting?

Possibility two would be maybe force-feeding an SVCD onto a DVD. SVCD's structure with DVD video? Header tricks? I've crammed plenty of VCD streams onto DVDs for Cartoon Network road-trip discs for the young 'un, but this is pushing the specs of anything way past that.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[jimmalenko]

I believe IFOEdit can do it.

I've only read about it, and I'm sure there's people here that are *much* better versed in IFOEdit than I am, so hopefully they interject with the "how to".

Add a post command to title 1 to jump back to title 1, do the same for title 2 .... and so on.

That's the theory ... how you actually do it is beyond me I'm afraid

[guns1inger]

Add a blank (empty) menu at the end of each track, that has an auto-action button back the start of the track. To may need to double jump forward to get past the menu - something for you to test out.

[borax]

It can be done quite easy with GUI for dvdauthor if you tweak the author.xml file a little bit...
Assuming your titles have the same properties (resolution, aspect, video norm) you can switch off 'Use titlesets', set 'Start action'='Show movie', 'End action'='Next title'. Drag&drop your titles on the menu background. Right click on the menu background and set 'Pause' to '0' and 'Action' to 'jump title 1;'. Use the 'Create batch' function. Open the author.xml file with a text editor. It should look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<dvdauthor dest="C:\Filme\Volume1">
<vmgm>
    <menus>
    <video format="pal"></video>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\MMMenu.mpg" pause="0"/>
        <button name="MMB1">g1=1;jump title 1;</button>
        <button name="MMB2">g1=2;jump title 2;</button>
        <button name="MMB3">g1=3;jump title 3;</button>
        <button name="MMB4">g1=4;jump title 4;</button>
        <post>jump title 1;</post>
      </pgc>
    </menus>
</vmgm>
<titleset>
    <menus>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\EmptyBackg.mpg" />
        <post>jump vmgm menu 1;</post>
      </pgc>
    </menus>
    <titles>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film1.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 2;</post>
      </pgc>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film2.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 3;</post>
      </pgc>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film3.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 4;</post>
      </pgc>
      <pgc>
        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film4.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>call vmgm menu 1;</post>
      </pgc>
    </titles>
  </titleset>
</dvdauthor>

Change the <post ... lines below the <vob file= lines to jump to the same title:

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film1.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 2;</post>

to

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film1.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 1;</post>

and

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film2.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 3;</post>

to

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film2.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 2;</post>

Do the same for all titles within this file, also for the last:

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film4.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>call vmgm menu 1;</post>

to

        <vob file="C:\Filme\Volume1\Film4.mpg" chapters="00:00:00.000"/>
        <post>jump title 4;</post>

Save the author.xml file
Double click the 'MainBatch.bat' file.
Burn the VIDEO_TS folder like usual.

P.S. Things get a little bit more complicated if you want/need titlesets (this post would just get to long), so tell me if necessary. I will send you the necessary changes for the author.xml file with a PM.