How to create a chapters menu with VideoPack ?

[MaxSteel]

I have VideoPack 5 and I want to create a SVCD. I get a MPEG file and I add entry point for the chapters. I want to know how to make a chapters menu with chapters buttons so that when I click or select a button, it brings me to chapter I chose, just like DVD.

[Headhunter3000]

start a new project.

drag the backgrund image for your menu in your project

drag the movie file in your project under the image. it is now a child of the menu pic (the hierarchy is represented in VP5 by a tree).

now select the menu pic in your project and hit the "new element" button (first icon on the "video" toolbar) x times where x is the number of desired chapters minus one. several empty elements should now be in the same hierarchy level as the movie file. They are siblings.

now select the movie file in your project. right click on the first empty element and select ~"copy content of selected element" (i don't know what it's exactly in english - it's the second menu item from the bottom of the context menu).

Do this with all of the empty items (the movie always selected - only use right mouse button)

Now go to your first movie element (the "original" one).

I don't know if the following is necessary: add an entrypoint at TimeCode 00:00.

Now go to every sibling element and add an entrypoint at the position of the chapter start. The other entrypoints are still there, but grayed out. that'S ok. only the one that'S blue is the active one. so make sure that every chapter has the right entrypoint in blue.

Now press the Routing button (fourth icon on the "video" toolbar) to create a standard routing between your elements.

Finally you can design your menu pic as desired (select menu pic go to button editor, get wild and do what you want!)

Before burning you should first make an image and test the menu in the CD-ROM Emulator.

That's it!

Keep in mind that entrypoints are not real chapters like the ones on a DVD. When e.g. your chapters are 1 minute long, so that Chapter 2 goes from TimeCode 1:00 to 2:00, and Chapter three goes from 2:00 to 3:00 and so on, and you jump to chapter 2 (TimeCode 1:00), watch the movie and then press the skip forward button at TimeCode 2:30, you won't get to Chapter 4 (TimeCode 3:00), but BACK to Chapter 2 (TimeCode 2:00) as the chapters are not "counted" during playback.

To go around this problem you could alter your routing so that the skip buttons are either dead or lead to the chapter menu. but that looks strange. just live with the fact that the skip function is not that perfect.

If you want real chapters you could split your MPEG file an dadd several titles but this is not recommended as almost all players freeze for some moments between the tracks.

Hope that helps


Merry X-Mas!


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Headhunter3000 on 2001-12-22 19:07:52 ]</font>

[MaxSteel]

Thank you Headhunter. I will be able to make my own SVCD with menu now.

[tendtend]

[quote]
On 2001-12-22 19:05:50, Headhunter3000 wrote:
start a new project.

Keep in mind that entrypoints are not real chapters like the ones on a DVD. When e.g. your chapters are 1 minute long, so that Chapter 2 goes from TimeCode 1:00 to 2:00, and Chapter three goes from 2:00 to 3:00 and so on, and you jump to chapter 2 (TimeCode 1:00), watch the movie and then press the skip forward button at TimeCode 2:30, you won't get to Chapter 4 (TimeCode 3:00), but BACK to Chapter 2 (TimeCode 2:00) as the chapters are not "counted" during playback.

To go around this problem you could alter your routing so that the skip buttons are either dead or lead to the chapter menu. but that looks strange. just live with the fact that the skip function is not that perfect.
-------------------------------------------------
Are you sure you did test the (S)VCD made using videopack5? I have made 6 SVCDs with seamless chapters, and all of them perform as DVDs. That means the ->| and |<-do work as DVD. "***watch the movie and then press the skip forward button at TimeCode 2:30*****",
I do get to Chapter 4 instead of Chapter 2 during
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
playback.
^^^^^^^^

That's a great feature intrdoced by videopack.

I ever read a article (the author may be Micheal Tam) that VCD can not have the chapter feature like DVD, but videopack does smake a SVCD like a DVD. Any explanations?

[Headhunter3000]

You can't have "real" chapters on VCDs, I tested it on several VCDs. E.g. when you start the film from the beginning (1st chapter) and press the skip button shortly before the end, it jumps to chapter 2.

I don't know how SVCDs "behave", because my SONY DVP-NS900 doesn't play SVCDs with PBC (it plays the movie directly without displaying the menus and chapters are not working - I have index marks instead)

Some additions to the tutorial above:

If you let all chapters in one hierarchy and use the default routing like described, the VCD jumps to the next chapter not only when you press the skip button but also when the movie ends. This is because the path assigned to the "skip next" function is also used for the ENDPLAY function (when the movie reaches its end). To avoid this you have to do the following:

1. Add the first chapter as described above (drag the mpg file under the menu pic so that it is a child of it).

2. Now create a new element AS CHILD of the 1st chapter. and copy the content of the 1st chapter to the empty element.

3. Do this for all the following chapters. Remember that each chapter element must be a child of the previous chapter element. So you get a kind of a "stair hierarchy". We do this, so the chapters are menu elements itself (every element with childs is a menu element. Menu elements have 2 more routing pathes (PLAY and ENDPLAY). So we can assign different functions to NEXT (Go to next chapter) and ENDPLAY (Go to main menu).

The image size bar at the bottom of the screen will show a huge value, but that doesn't matter. We will fix this now.

4. Go to the first chapter and open the button editor. There is one button with a big "1" somewhere in the picture. Click on the arrow right to the button. A menu opens. Select the first option ("Do not display" or something like that / "Nicht darstellen" in German). You can move the button anywhere you want, it will not be displayed.

5. Do this for all the chapters except the last one (it is no menu element -> no childs). You will see that the image size bar at the bottom of the screen is showing a normal value now.

6. Generate your entrypoints for each chapter as described above.

7. Now you have to do the routing. This is a bit harder, because you have to do it manually, the default routing of VideoPack is useless in our case.

Menu elements have 5 routing elements (the little orange icons at the right side of the menu element). The first one (->) represents the NEXT route (skip next button). The second one (<-) the PREVIOUS route (skip previous). The third is the RETURN route (Return button). The fourth is the PLAY or DEFAULT route (Play button). The last one is the ENDPLAY route (automatically executed when the video ends). You create a route by dragging a route element to another element in the menu hierarchy. A line will be displayed representing the routing. If you want to disable a route element, just click on it. The displayed line will not lead to any other element, but to the element where it started. Make sure every route element has a line attached even if it is a "disabled" line. Routing elements without any line will produce unexpected menu behaviour. The player could jump to a random chapter for example.

a. Routing for the menu pic: Disable all routing elements except the PLAY element. Drag the PLAY element to the first chapter. So you can use the PLAY button (and "1") to start the movie.

b. Routing for the chapters:
NEXT - drag to next chapter (except for last chapter: disable)
PREVIOUS - drag to previous chapter (except for first chapter: disable)
RETURN - drag to menu pic
PLAY - disable (except for last chapter: not available)
ENDPLAY - drag to menu pic (except for last chapter: not available)

That's it. As you see, the menu pic only has one button (the one for the first chapter), so it is not possible to jump directly to a specific chapter from the main menu. Instead you could create another menu (or even menuS) underneath the start menu for the chapters.
If you create such a menu create a bunch of empty child elements under that menu (all on the same hierarchy level). Now select the first chapter element. Right click on the first empty element and select ~"create reference". Do this for all chapters and you have a lot of buttons on the chapters menu pic.
If you create buttons with previews or still images of the chapter, don't make them too small. I make a maximum of 4 preview buttons per page. Also keep in mind that your television set will cut off a margin of about 10% of the menu pic. So don't place text and buttons at the edge of the menu pic.