Weird. Menus that you can see in dvdr disappear in dual layer.

[Talayero]

Hi,

this is a weird issue. I have a ntsc dvd9 that I have reauthored to add another subtitle stream. Before burning the dual layer disk I make a test with a dvdrw disk. Everything is perfect. Then I burn the dual layer and I can only see the buttons of the menu, not the backgound.

The dual layer is a verbatim and I've already used two of them. So I give up. Thery are too expensive to keep trying.

I must say that I can see the menus of the dual layer in my PC but not in my television set. I started to think that might be a problem of configuration of the standalone player or the television, but the thing is that the same film compressed in a dvdrw show perfectly its menus in TV. So I don't understand it. The dual layer has some issues with those menus, maybe because they are grey, I don't know. Or it has also something to do with the player and the TV... But then, why can I see the menus in the dvdrw?

Thank you in advance.

[Talayero]

Well, I found something.
I run this dual layer dvd in my PC with Sonic DVD Preplay and as soon as it arrives to the menu it stops and says:

Play time of cell 1 is 00:00:01
Pause: infinite

So, I think this is the problem. I only need to know how to fix it.

PS: What a silly thing I said. "Pause: infinite" only means that it is a still menu. I thougt the problem was there...

[Bjs]

Back on hard drive , load it up in pgcedit

Locate offending menu
Double click to open
You will see large area listing cell's ... infinite would show as 255 ... change it .

Then you need to check how it is linked , next action it will perform .

Lets say 20 ... after 20 seconds it can :

Go elsewhere , directed by post command instruction .

Or

Moves on to next cell .

If no next cell exists , in cell command , add 1
Close this window

You see

Pre
Post
Cell

Left click cell , then right click , select add after .

Here you would set the next move ... try a few different nav instructions ... blue is fine , red is not

You get stuck , ask

[Talayero]

Thanks a lot for answering.

I'm starting to think this is an unsolvable problem.

I opened in pgcedit a still menu that I can't see in my tv and antother one from the same dvd that I do see in my tv.

I'll try to upload both captures. I don't notice any significant differences. They have the same configuration the one I see and the one I can't see in my TV. It's weird.

This first one is the one I can't see.



And this is the one I can see perfectly in my TV. What's the difference?



I think it has something to do with the dual layer disk, because, as I said before, if I compress that dvd to fit a dvdr, then I can see all the menus without problems. Anyway, I've been burning dual layers for almost a couple of years and it's the fisrt time I see sometihing like this.

[Bjs]

I would suggest imgburn to do the dl burning as it has facilities to check layer break placement , and can suggest better points if required .

Leave that 255 thing alone .

The missing background thing bit me the year before last and is caused by using a single background frame .

I think they mentioned it should be a minimum of 00.00.00.15 , but there was no guarantee in the final details .

I'd say , if its pal , the make it 25 frames long , and nstc , in the case of you project , 30 frames long ... never had it reappear since .

Take that replacement background , and encode it to an m2v ... set to 30 frames , and redo the replacement of background menu again should resolve that problem of missing background .

Dvdauthorgui includes a simple function to do this .
Set project type
Hit CTRL + S
Locate background image
Set required frames ... project use's 30
Let it rip

Use this new m2v as the background replacement and it will be sorted .

However , do not rely on a single dvd play back program on the pc to indicate all is correct prior to burning .

Windows media player is basic at best , and can not be relied upon .
Nero showtime is better
Avs dvd player is fine
Koolplaya is ok

Windvd , powerdvd , both have issues

Ifoedit ... if you can get it to not crash constantly under xp , is the best troubleshooter ever when playing dvd from folders ... if it says problem ... you had better fix it before burning .

----

The other thing noticed is the vob cell id's are different .

The dl being 6/1
The dvdrw , and dvdshrink , being 7/1 ... dvdshrink has some capabilities of making changes to navigational commands .

Vob / cell id's .

Nav commands calling such things may also indicate a fault with calls made to titles and such.

In pgcedit , load the dl

Info > dvd commands > save > to desktop > post here

----

I'd say you have a combination of the above faults contributing to the condition .

Replace the background as explained above .

Then well take a look at those nav commands , and see if anything stands out as an issue .

[Talayero]

Thanks a lot, Bjs.

As you said, I replaced the still background menu for a 30 fps m2v made by Dvdauthorgui and it finally worked. Now I see the menus in my dual layer disk.

Do you happen to know if there's some place where I can read more about this strange issue? Well, I don't know if it's worth keeping wondering why that happens... but I'm still a bit curious.

I sum up the issue:

I have an original ntsc dvd9.
If I copy an iso image of it in a dual layer disk, no problem at all.
But then I demux the thing in order to add a new stream of subtitles, I remux and make a new dvd with this new stream using dvdremake pro.
I burn it to a dual layer and then the menus disappear, I can't see the still images in my TV. But if I burn the same thing to a dvd5 (compressing the film or using just the menus) the still images are there.

Anyway, now thanks to you I know how to fix this problem.

Next time I have to burn a dual layer with a movie involving still images menus, I should do some tests before risking losing an expensive disk.

One thing I realized is that if I rip the offending dvd, the m2v files corresponding to the menus are smaller than the new ones that I made 30 frames long using Dvdauthorgui. That's the only test that occurs to me know, to rip a still menu and see if it's too small. Because Pgcedit doesn't tell any differences between the 30 frames one and the original menu.

Well, thank you again.

[Bjs]

I remember the discussion took place over at doom.org a while back ... alot of talk , yet nothing was definitive as to why it should happen as such , only a value was mentioned as minimum ... 15 or some where abouts .

I'm a numbers person ... and if the fps is a set value as defined by dvd specification's , then I'll make sure any menu supplement still's are equal ... it's never appeared since ... problem resolved .

Yet solving the mystery is another thing when considering pc vs home player's as to why it work's on one , yet fouls up on the other ... and take into account as to why it worked on dvd-rw , and not on the dvd-dl used when value's have remained the same , is another question .

Iso to iso = no issue

Demuxing to add includes it's own unique issue's , I would have to see what it is dvdremake pro actually dose .

The only thing I would suggest for simplicity would be to load the ripped title up in pgcedit , check those value's , and compare with dvdremake pro afterwards , to see if any changes took place .

Dvdshrink shouldn't make any changes , apart from transcoding of title , unless menu's where set to still's , which could be another place to check .

Change's made to navigational commands , if in error , can contribute to problem's , especially with home players as they are less tolerable when it comes to faults ... pc's on the other hand can manage ... not all pc dvd playback products work effectively , some are better than other's , which is why I recommend play test in more than two ... it give's a better chance of it working fine without having to dig around in the properties of the title .

Though pgcedit help's ... I still do not use it's trace method's ... I'd rather do it physically .

It's a bit like those spam tool's that supposedly learn from user input , and ask for money , when most user's don't understand they can manage such things by using message rule's to accomplish the task for free .

I did looked further into the issue since I resolved the problem myself ... but I'll put it into the to do list next month ... IT studies are boring .

As for pgcedit not telling the difference after the event has taken place , it's not pgcedit's fault , that's to do with what is reported in the ifo's set ... so who's not updating them ... could it be dvdremake pro fault ?

What program was used to inject the replacement m2v ?

[spyhawk]

Menu replacement in DvdReMake Pro has been working fine. Before blaming on it, please state the version you're using. Did you use 'Replace with still' option, which only replaces the background. Nothing else is changed.

[Bjs]

spyhawk

It looks like chalk , smells like chalk , tastes like chalk , it must be chalk ... but is it really chalk ?

Dl's for testing here aren't an issue if wasted , I have 100's of good old verbatim dl's , but other's are more cautious because of the cost's involved when they don't work .

Possibilities exit because they can ... not that they alway's do ... you wouldn't waste money on any program until it was thoroughly checked out for bug's ... which alway's exist with anything more complicated than a simple back tool , which these program's are not ... no program is dead set perfect when it come's down to it ... you learn to work around these fault's by gaining knowledge from other's with more experience ... even if it means using another "helper" application to resolve the issue .

If it work's , it work's ... if it dosent , I'll take my chalk and go back to the drawing board .

[Talayero]

What program was used to inject the replacement m2v ?

I used scenarist to recreate the menus with the new 30fps m2v menus.

Hi, spyhawk. I didn't have any problem with DvdReMakepro. It's a very good program.

I just used it to add a new subtitle stream. I loaded the original dvd and the dvd with the new stream and replaced the original pgc with the movie and exported the new dvd and that's all. Then the problem with the missing menus showed up, but I think it would have showed up anyway, not recording the untouched iso of the original. It's a very strange issue, the first time that happens to me, and I had never before heard of it .

[Bjs]

Bit pricey ... I might have suggested vobblanker instead to anyone else , just to try the solution out .

The problem is knowing if , and when it might reappear in the future , and if it is indeed repeatable ... I have just got used to doing it my way and have never had the problem reappear .

I'll recreate the original project and check later today as to what changes take place ... and return after .

[spyhawk]

@Bjs,

No programs are perfect, even freeware ones. Good luck on finding a program that is totally bug free and then you decide to purchase it. I think DRMP's price is just right. There are many commercial products, though not having exactly the same functionalities, that are even more expensive than DRMP. Besides, DRMP is very user friendly and combines both the main functionalities of both PgcEdit and VobBlanker. Each of these 3 products has its own strengths and weaknesses, and I use all 3 depending on the task but I mainly use DRMP as it is all I need.

Suggesting to use VobBlanker is fine but the OP is using DRMP. So I'm curious to find out what's really the problem.

@Talayero,

You still have not stated the version so I have no clue. It is strange indeed that the menus disappear upon playback if you don't touch the menus. Is it totally black and unselectable? Is this the first thing you see when you play in software player and standalone? Have you tried to do an export on an unedited DVD to see if the menus are still missing?

[Talayero]

The version of DvdRemake pro is 3.6.2. It came out just a few days ago. Once you buy the program you always have the last one, because the creator, Dimad, get always in touch to let you know there's a new version.

It's true that the same I did to add the new subtitle stream could have be done by VobBlanker.

As you say, spyhawk, it is strange that the menus disappear if you don't touch them, but it happened twice, with two verbatim dual layer that I ruined. That's why I can't make more tests. All the tests I did were with dvdrw, to see that the menus were still there.
And it's true that as soon I changed the still menus for 30 frames long stills the strange problem disappeared.

It may be that this problem shows up one time in a thousand and last time happened to me

[TBoneit]

Quote: "I used scenarist to recreate the menus with the new 30fps m2v menus."

If the menu video was truly 30fps then it isn't within DVD specifications. From what is a DVD. "29,97 fps*
23,976 fps with 3:2 pulldown = 29,97 playback fps" for NTSC or "25 fps*" for PAL. https://www.videohelp.com/dvd.

If you really used out of spec video it could be as simple as that being the problem.

[Talayero]

Quote: "I used scenarist to recreate the menus with the new 30fps m2v menus."

If the menu video was truly 30fps then it isn't within DVD specifications. From what is a DVD. "29,97 fps*

Sorry, I made a mistake in my writing. I meant: "to recreate the menus with the new 30 frames long m2v menus"

[Bjs]

spyhawk

You forget programs rely on the current os , and level of os patchs currently applied .
Any os patch can return faults with any program that had been working without fault previously .
Installing other program's can cause conflicts as well .

Talayero

What did ifoedit report as fps for video when you load the original video_ts.ifo from original source before making changes ?

[Talayero]

30 fps

[Bjs]

Created projects using still's and this works , but notice where I marked it .



255 being reflected in two place's .

I am still curious as to why the id's of vob / cell , reflect changed ids , even though the one dvdshink created works .
Are you positive you didnt inject your replacement background by accident into a blank cell nearby .

To change those "0" , where mine shows "255" , load ifo for menu in ifoedit .
Go to > vtsm_pgci_ut > locate lu menu involved .
In lower window of ifoedit , drag it down to almost halfway .
You will see "pgc playback mode" , your's will report "0"
Double click that 0 , enter 255 .

Locate any other lu's with issue , save ifo when done

Pgcedit will now show correct value as 255 in both places ... not that it appears to matter , just nice to be correct .

Other fault can come from non-closed gop , but I cant say how scenarist gose about such things with still's .

I think you might want to repeat you original "replacement" method to see if its repeatable .

Windvd seem's work correctly now , before it couldnt be trusted .

[spyhawk]

You forget programs rely on the current os , and level of os patchs currently applied .
Any os patch can return faults with any program that had been working without fault previously .
Installing other program's can cause conflicts as well .

Yes, but this problem has nothing to do with it.

As you say, spyhawk, it is strange that the menus disappear if you don't touch them, but it happened twice, with two verbatim dual layer that I ruined. That's why I can't make more tests. All the tests I did were with dvdrw, to see that the menus were still there.
And it's true that as soon I changed the still menus for 30 frames long stills the strange problem disappeared.

Doing test in dvdrw is the right choice as nobody wants to waste DL discs.

So you're using Scenarist to create still menu. This could be the problem there until you resort to using 30 frames long to make it work. I can create still menu with just one frame and I do that with MuxMan. There should be only one navpack if you look in VobEdit. You can change the still time to infinite in DvdReMake Pro after doing the replacement.