Can background from DVD Menu be extracted from buttons/subpic?

[Scav2003]

Is it possible to extract the background image from a VIDEO_TS.VOB file without the buttons on it, or do they get hardcoded into the picture when the DVD is authored?

[gadgetguy]

I don't think so. On all the DVDs I've made, the button images are encoded into the menu video.

[Baldrick]

Hardcoded. Try open the video_ts.vob with virtualdub-mpeg2 and you will see what it look like.

[Scav2003]

Thanks...that's what I was expecting checking the .vob in quicktime pro, but I figured I should ask as there's lots of folks who know far more than me to confirm.

[guns1inger]

It depends on how it was authored. You can have static or motion menus where the buttons are all sub-pics only, however they tend to look pretty rough as sub-pics have limited anti-aliasing. Or the buttons can be designed as part of the video or static images, and sub-pics used just for selection identification. The latter is how I design mine, but both are possible.