gui for dvdauthor HELP

[dontpanic]

i get this message


d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp>Time: 02/07/2007 20:27:16
*mux to MMback.mpg
INFO: [???] mplex version 2.0.0 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $)
**ERROR: [???] Unable to open file d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp\MMBackg.m2v for reading.
*creating menufile MMMenu.mpg
The system cannot find the file specified.
REM *creating letterbox menufile MMMenuL.mpg
"C:\Program Files\GUI for dvdauthor\spumux.exe" -s1 "d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp\MMSpuL.xml" <"d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp\MMMenu.mpg" > "d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp\MMMenuL.mpg"
The system cannot find the file specified.

d:\DVD\Temp\gui\Temp>Time: 02/07/2007 20:27:18


when i try to create a dvd

am i doing something stupid or have i got serious bissues here?

[borax]

This error simply says, that the file MMBackg.m2v is not there. The problem is why...

Is this the full log file?

Usually this error arises because of problems with the Cygwin framework. A 'known' problem with cygwin is outpost firewall (but should be fixed now):
http://www.outpostfirewall.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18495&page=1

If your video (and audio/subtitles) is elementary and 100% DVD compliant, you can try to use the MuxMan authoring engine (permanent default settings).

[suroit]

I just found the same problem.
I was trying, for the first time, to test an animated background for my menu background (62 seconds of .m2v and .ac3 streams with "loop and trim animation" checked).

c:\_Videos\Anim_test_gfd\Temp>Time: 8/1/2007 6:50:56 AM
*creating MMback.m2v

c:\_Videos\Anim_test_gfd\Temp>Time: 8/1/2007 6:51:09 AM
*mux to MMback.mpg
   INFO: [???] mplex version 2.0.0 (2.2.3 $Date: 2004/01/13 20:45:26 $)
**ERROR: [???] Unable to open file c:\_Videos\Anim_test_gfd\Temp\MMBackg.m2v for reading.
*creating menufile MMMenu.mpg
The system cannot find the file specified.

c:\_Videos\Anim_test_gfd\Temp>Time: 8/1/2007 6:51:09 AM

I also enclosed the whole log if anyone notices some other anomaly (I am still new at deciphering these logs).

Borax, I will try your suggestion and use muxman instead of mplex.

Dontpanic, any luck with this?

gfd_log_070801.txt

[borax]

Do you have a correct avisynth version (2.5.7 or higher) installed?
What happens if you click on 'Preview' (with the option 'AVS' activated)?

[suroit]

Yes I have Avisynth2.5.7 installed. I have done many animated menus (animated buttons for chapter selection) without problem (after the learning curve).
But this is the first time I try an animated background where I provide short elementary streams (m2v and ac3) to menu background.
When I click on 'Preview' with 'AVS', it doesn't play, and I get an error message in the player window instead. I didn't capture that message. I thought that since I was providing the elementary streams, avisynth wasn't used, but I really didn't know.

I just tried using GFD with Muxman (for the first time also), and found another steep learning curve in front of me! I think I converted the dvdauthor commands to muxman, but still got a lot of errors (log uploaded). I am not too sure about the syntax, because I am just starting to learn Muxman.

Now I am starting to suspect that my video files might be corrupted (they play OK on WinDVD and VLS players, but I recovered them from a crashed HDD). I am going to do another test with video files that are beyond suspiscion.

By the way, many thanks for Gui for Dvdauthor. It is a very cool and powerful tool, and I have done lots of DVDs with it, sometimes complex ones.

log_gfd_muxman.txt

[suroit]

Just another side note. When I looked at my elementary streams with AVIcodec, it tells me the video part is MPEG1. When I looked at the VOB file obtained after multiplexing the audio and video streams, it says it is MPEG2! Is that possible? (I am still thinking about these video files being corrupted).

[borax]

...Is that possible?
Yes, you will probably have an mpeg1 encoded video within a mpeg2 'container'.
AFAIK mpeg1 is not allowed for menus.

When I click on 'Preview' with 'AVS', it doesn't play, and I get an error message in the player window instead. I didn't capture that message. I thought that since I was providing the elementary streams, avisynth wasn't used, but I really didn't know.

Avisynth is used for all kinds of animated menus. Even if you only use an animated background as the only animated element on the menu, the texts, buttons... have to be 'overlayed' and encoded to get the 'final' menu background.
You should try to capture the avisynth error message.
Your MuxMan error seems to be the same problem:
The menus MMBackg.m2v and TS1Backg.m2v are either not created at all (due to an error from avisynth or dgindex or HC/QuEnc) or corrupted. You should check your source material carefully.

[guns1inger]

G-Spot often (always ?) shows mpeg-1 for VOB files, even when I know damn well they aren't.

[suroit]

I will post the error message tonight. It had something about AssumeFPS error, an offending line 11 in a script.
Any recommendation about a tool to analyze/verify mpeg or elementary streams? I will try Gspot as well. AVIcodec indicated a quality ratio of 73% or 83% for the material I tried, including those in this project. This quality ratio was actually sometimes worse on material I used to burn perfectly good DVD, so at this point, the quality of the files doesn't look worse than what I used in the past, but I don't know what criteria is used to calculate this quality ratio anyway.

[suroit]

Here is the error message I am getting:

Script error: Invalid arguments to function "AssumeFPS"
(c:\...\Temp\TS1Script.avs, line11)

This is when I run the Preview with AVS.

[borax]

Usually this error occurs, if an old avisynth version is used.
See here for example:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic310993-60.html#1656441

Only version 2.5.7 (final! not any previous beta) support the AssumeFPS("ntsc_video"/"pal_video") argument. Could you please recheck (or reinstall) your avisynth version?