How to make hi stills menu, with sound, for VCD (704x480)?

[Paradebh]

How to make hi stills menu, with sound, for VCD (704x480)? I only can make 352x240 with Tscv and TmpGenc

[benzel]

this is the way to make stills http://www.geocities.com/mikk999/VCDStills.htm

and then to add sound...
http://www.geocities.com/mikk999/StillsWithAudio.htm

Works GREAT!
Ben

[mzidanic]

Has anyone tried using tmpgenc to make a high res still from a bmp? If I tell it to make a video-only system stream it acts like ti encoding something, but the mpg doesn't show up. I have to tell it to make an audio+video system stream to get an mpg. Even with no audio file I get 2 audio frames (at least that's what VirtualDub tells me). This wouldn't be an issue if i only needed a single menu, but what I'm trying to do is play continuous audio that's been broken up into separate wav files and switch from one still to another inbetween. So with two empty audio frame I get a moment of silence as the first audio times out, plays the still, then starts the next audio mpg.

How do you get a mpg stream with just a single video frame (actually a few wouldn't hurt), but no audio????

[dinesh]

If you are using VCDImager The answer is in the above two links.
There is a way making Mpeg Stills using TMPGEnc. CheckOut
www.geocities.com/diarav2002/vcd
You may not be able to remove the audio part using TMPGEnc.
Remember however this method is non-compliant may not be suitable for all players. It works for me.

[mzidanic]

There is a way making Mpeg Stills using TMPGEnc. CheckOut
www.geocities.com/diarav2002/vcd
You may not be able to remove the audio part using TMPGEnc.

Following this guide is exactly the way I encode and author hi-res stills with audio. My point is that two audio frames (presumably empty/blank) are inserted into the hi-res still mpg by tmpgenc. I don't have VCDToolkit or use any other encoder so I don't know if this is a limitation of tmpgenc or a general mpg limitation. Stills sandwiched between audio-only mpgs work great in my Apex AD-660. What I haven't done yet is to try and play two audio-only mpg's back-to-back from the SPI (one timeouts into the other) and see if it can play them smoothly through the transition. If it can't do that then there's no hope of it doing any better with a still video frame (no audio frames) sandwiched between them.

Thanks for giving me this idea to test. But in the meantime, I'd still like to find a way to get a single video frame mpg without ANY audio frames.

Does anyone have an example of a DVD player that can't handle a hi-res still timing out to an audio-only mpg? What happens? According to the VCD2.0 specification in the VCDImager documentation, these mpg formats are supported in the SPI.

[dinesh]

Did you try the VCDImager link? www.vcdimager.org/stillencode
It has a way you can generate a VCD compliant Hi Res MPEG still.
I checked out that this still has no Audio data in it.

[vitualis]

mzidanic,

The answer to your questions are already in the supplied links and even this thread...

You CANNOT use TMPGEnc to encode compliant VCD still images.

Regards.

[mzidanic]

hey thanks, i just tried it and it didn't like the .bmp's I gave it but it converted jpg's ok. Interesting that when you give it a hi-res it looks like it puts both a hi and lo res in the mpg. i think I read about this somewhere else. maybe that can help if a DVD player doesn't support hi-res? Either that or maybe that's the key for muxing a still - maybe you need at least two video frames? I tried using the mpeg tools of tmpgenc and loaded up a couple of bmp's and it still didn't create an mpg unless I included an audio stream. So don't know what else to try there.

I haven't double-checked for absence of audio frames with the MJPEG Tools web interface, but you said that works. That's a nice workaround, but it would be nice to figure out how to get tmpgenc to do it. At least I've got the mpg's to do some more testing to see if this is worth pursuing any further.

[mzidanic]

You CANNOT use TMPGEnc to encode compliant VCD still images.

I guess that implies that the tmpgenc-generated (audio+video) mpg's from a single .bmp are not VCD-compliant? OK, fine, I never saw that stated explicitly. So the only two possibilities on Earth at the moment to generate VCD-compliant stills are with VCDToolkit or MJPEG Tools.

[vitualis]

Well, a number of proggies will generate compliant VCD stills. The free options you have listed... actually at the moment at http://www.vcdimager.org, hvr has put up an experimental web based still generation system so you could try that...

Otherwise, you could use Nero to generate a small VCD image with stills and use VCDXRIP to extract them. You could do the same with a little know (and now defunct) proprietary VCD/DVD authoring proggy called "DVD Motion".

Good luck.

BTW, most if not all DVD players that support VCDs will definitely support properly made hi-res mpeg still images. In any case, if they can't handle the hi-res, it should play the low-res version of it.

Regards.