MenuShrink 1.0 is here!

[jeanl]

MenuShrink Version 1.0 is here!

MenuShrink is a small application that turns large motion menus into tiny still menus with or without audio. Menus can usually be shrunk down to 5% to 10% of their original size, while keeping full functionality.

Version 1.0 has the following new features:

• Menu intros and outros can now be entirely skipped (most of them!) for a much smoother navigation. Thanks to blutach for the idea!
• A slider to select which frame to use in the still menus (replaces the first/last/largest options in Beta 0.800)
• A new "Soft DVD Player" button that can open the output DVD in a soft player (not all of them though, see user manual). Thanks Orion|69 for his help!
• Four user-definable "hot keys" (F1-F4) to open the output DVD with your favorite tools. See the user manual for how to set that up.

along with a couple bug fixes.
Get the new version at the usual place:
http://jean.laroche.free.fr/MenuShrink/

Here's the change log.

UI:

• Added a slider to select the still frame.
• Added a toggle to skip or not skip buttonless cells (menu intros/outros).
• Added user-definable hot keys F1 through F4. Requires editing the .ini file.
• Added a Soft DVD Player button.
• Added caption to Log Panel.
• Added New icon. Thanks Emile!
• Added message in red when error.
• Added the OneSecondStill option in the INI file. Only set to 1 if your settop box freezes on very short<> cells (jsoto's thomson player does!).

Engine:

• Added code to skip a cell if it has no buttons, no cell command and a cell immediately following it in the PGC. This entirely skips many buttonless menu intro/outro.
• The cell elapsed time is now corrected in the VOB files.
• The button info is now back-propagated to the first NavPacks. Fixes the preview problem with PgcEdit
• The end presentation time of the vobu is now adjusted for a 1-VOBU cell with no buttons. This makes the cell play much faster (in fact, it's invisible on my settop).
• Simplified processing when I-frame didn't have enough room for end-of-sequence and padding code.

Bug Fixes:

• The video format (PAL/NTSC) was not updated when a new DVD was loaded. This is fixed.
• Fixed crash when the number of VTS was larger than 23.
  

Enjoy!
jeanl

[HatchetMan]

This sounds interesting. Any other users out there care to comment on it?

[smakayee]

I have used this amazing tool (Beta 0.800) couple of days before I got from Doom9.org. It shrinks my 250MB menu to just 8 MB. This is a good program, if you don't want to keep motion menu. It converts your motion menu to still menu and keeps all the functionality of a menu, except the motion video. If you want to shrink motion menu, look elsewhere.

Congratulations jeanl.

[jeanl]

Thanks smakayee!
jeanl

[lordsmurf]

Most menus occupy very little space (under 100MB), so few people will find this software of any value. It should also be noted that menus already succumb to the "shrink" process anyway, as visibly seen by macroblocks. Furthermore, most menus are already encoded at minimalist settings, unlike the actual disc content.

[jeanl]

Most menus occupy very little space (under 100MB), so few people will find this software of any value. It should also be noted that menus already succumb to the "shrink" process anyway, as visibly seen by macroblocks. Furthermore, most menus are already encoded at minimalist settings, unlike the actual disc content.

Well, you're probably right for a lot of DVDs, but there are quite a few with surprisingly large menus. Here's a few extreme examples!
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=937c222fd052d02c47409f0f53ee69fe&post...096#post240092
or
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=240088#post240088
or
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=617345#post617345
or the star wars menus, some of which are larger than 700MB!

jeanl

[MackemX]

looks good though I won't use it seeing as I don't make that many backups . I do know from the requests I've seen that it will come in handy on quite a few occasions for people, especially when creating new compilation DVD's for example

[jeanl]

For the naysayers , here's some examples of space savings obtained from shrinking down menus:
From 1846MB to 6.9MB (Mulholland Drive, shrunk by Whitespliff). See here!
From 1391MB to 11.9MB (Black Hawk Down R2, shrunk by Mig$y). See here!
From 1217MB to 11.4MB (Lord of the Rings, Two Towers extended edition disk 2 shrunk by glisoni). See here!

these are just 3 examples, you can see more on MenuShrink's home page (link in my signature)...
jeanl

[jeanl]

MenuShrink Version 2.0 is here!

The new thread is here;