How to create VCD menus and chapters with VCDEasy

[thegig]

Some pointers to the above posters:

1. The still images as encoded by VCD Easy (i.e., based on MJPEG Tools) may not be fully standard in that there have been some reports that they do not play properly on some players. This is as opposed to, e.g., VCD Toolkit encoded stills that play on everything. However, it is still a MUCH better situation than TSCV which uses TMPGEnc + hex edit to make stills.

Regards.

Could that be the reason I get images that look like like pattern cuts going diagonal??

00000000000
---000000000000
------0000000000000
---------00000000000
00
--------------0000000
000000

[jarhead862]

hey gonz0. First of all your guide helped out a lot, but i'm just a little confused about the buttons someone would push to navigate through the menus. They would push play to return? Next, Previous for the menus right, and numbers 1-99. Ok the numbers is where i am confused. Let's say on each menu of scene selections, i want to put 4 thembnails, and in numeric order so the person viewing pushes that number to go to that chapter. Well if 1 is the beggining, how can someone push "12" to access scene 12 if they have to push 1 first. There has to be something im missing, could u help?

[gonz0]

Well if 1 is the beggining, how can someone push "12" to access scene 12 if they have to push 1 first. There has to be something im missing, could u help?

This depends on how your DVD works. On mine, I have a button called ">10". I have to push this before I enter any values 10 or higher. When I do that, it waits for me to enter both numbers.

They would push play to return?

Here's a summary of how VCD interactivity functions map to the DVD remote buttons:
previous = skip backward
next = skip forward
return = return button (if you have one, otherwise the "stop" button may work)
default = play, unless your remote has a "default" button

[gonz0]

Well if 1 is the beggining, how can someone push "12" to access scene 12 if they have to push 1 first. There has to be something im missing, could u help?

This depends on how your DVD works. On mine, I have a button called ">10". I have to push this before I enter any values 10 or higher. When I do that, it waits for me to enter both numbers.

They would push play to return?

Here's a summary of how VCD interactivity functions map to the DVD remote buttons:
previous = skip backward
next = skip forward
return = return button (if you have one, otherwise the "stop" button may work)
default = play, unless your remote has a "default" button

[OneDanShow]

Everything worked as expected, but the MPEG Still Image was messed up. I've only play the VCD in my standalone DVD player and the MPEG Still Image was sliced horizontally and made stairs to the left. Has anyone else had this problem? I can give more information if needed.

Thanks for your time!

Daniel

[pb]

I had the same problem, so it probably has something to do with a previous post about hoe VCDEasy handles MPEG1 stills (not correctly). Because I use Vegas Video 3 for all capture/editing etc, and it accepts any image file, I made 5 sec DV AVI with the images and text and encoded with TMPG as an MPEG 1 file. This played perfectly, and I could even add music (although I've not tried it). I think I could use Photoshop for a multi layered menu still, and encode this in Vegas/TMPG etc.

[gonz0]

See if this helps: http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=84812
Get the latest version of MJPEG tools here (assuming the site is not down again): http://www.vcdeasy.org/modules.php?name=_BetaDownloads

[ABS]

Hi!

Anyone knows a program with which I can create a still that has background audio IN THE SAME SEGMENT FILE?

Problem is, the only program that I know about doing such thing is the Ulead DVDWorkshop which is about $300 (in other words, $300 too much!).

VCDEasy btw, WILL accept these files...

Any idea?

ABS

[pb]

Why are the "All" buttons greyed out under the interactivity tab in VCDEasy 1.1.1?? I would like to use this feature through all my selections.

[gonz0]

As the "hints" or "pop-up" help states in VCDEasy, "All propogates the choice to all chapters of the current sequence or to all stills."

If you have multiple mpeg videos, you can't propogate the choice to all the videos in the play list. Although this feature would be quite useful. Furthermore, if you have a chapter sequence, make sure you've selected the first item in the sequence - otherwise "all" will be greyed out.

[vitualis]

@ thegig: Perhaps... if you go to the VCDEasy website ( http://www.vcdeasy.org ), you can download an updated version of MJPEGTools that may or may not fix your problem.

Anyone knows a program with which I can create a still that has background audio IN THE SAME SEGMENT FILE?

Problem is, the only program that I know about doing such thing is the Ulead DVDWorkshop which is about $300 (in other words, $300 too much!).

No I don't. However, it should be mentioned that these files are not VCD compliant and don't work on some players.

Regards.

[HellBoen]

After creating the cue file and burning it I find that my chapters has not been placed where I told DVDEasy to place them. WinDVD also reports the movi to be about 12% shorter than the original Mpg file was. A guess is that the wrong movie length and the missplaced chapters in some way is connected but why does this happen?


(The mpg file was made with TMPGEnc.)

[ygreene]

This guide is great. However I do have a question? What if my source was not a dvd but and mpg, avi, asf, or any other format. How would I create the stills for the menu? Because I have tons of movies that I am converting to s/vcd and want to add this feature to them but just need to know how.

[gonz0]

After creating the cue file and burning it I find that my chapters has not been placed where I told DVDEasy to place them. WinDVD also reports the movi to be about 12% shorter than the original Mpg file was. A guess is that the wrong movie length and the missplaced chapters in some way is connected but why does this happen?

My version of WinDVD does not display the video time correctly. Windows Media Player and TMPGEnc generally do a better job. I'm not sure exactly why this happens, but I think it's related to the fact that it's expecting to play a DVD.

This guide is great. However I do have a question? What if my source was not a dvd but and mpg, avi, asf, or any other format. How would I create the stills for the menu? Because I have tons of movies that I am converting to s/vcd and want to add this feature to them but just need to know how.

This will depend on what kind of menus you want, and how sophisticated you want them to look. A main menu will be straightforward - just capture an image from the movie to create the background and then add text in an image editing program. If you want chapter menus like the ones from a DVD (with snapshots from each chapter), this is not a very easy process. I did this once using WinDVD and Microsoft PowerPoint - WinDVD to capture images from each chapter manually; and Powerpoint to arrange the images on each page and add text (name and number of each chapter). Then I could save the file as bitmaps, which I used to make the stills. In the end, I had very nice menus; but I probably wouldn't do it again. If your satisfied with chapter menus without snapshots from each chapter, then the process will be much easier.

There is a program called TSCV that will create chapter menus more easily, but it doesn't create true MPEG stills. I tried this once, but wasn't able to get it to work. However, others have had success with it.

If you don't have WinDVD, VirtualDub is good for capturing images from your movie.

[pijetro]

Wow, my head's still spinning. Got everything to work. Thank you.
3 questions though.

1) Can both simulate and burn boxes be checked in the main menu, so that the bin doesn't get written three times (it seems like that's what's happening, and it's a time swallower)
2) What does it mean in step f) Now select "All", and the sequence is assigned to the rest of the MPEG stills? Is it necessary?
3) How can I add text or pretty up my menus without learning a comlicated app. (am already familiar with nero though)

While i'm here, in tools, do I really need to burn a que/toc image file?

[gonz0]

1) Can both simulate and burn boxes be checked in the main menu, so that the bin doesn't get written three times (it seems like that's what's happening, and it's a time swallower)

Once you've successfully burned a CD, I don't see any reason to use the simulate option. I used it a few times to make sure the CDRDAO settings were correct. By removing the simulate step, it will only "write" twice - once to the hard drive and a second time to the CD.

2) What does it mean in step f) Now select "All", and the sequence is assigned to the rest of the MPEG stills? Is it necessary?

What I would recommend for the chapter menus is that you change the number keys to go to each chapter. To save time, you can select "all" after you're done to propogate the choice to the rest of the menus. Now for the main menu I'd recommend that also you use number keys - "1" to play the movie, and "2" to go to the chapter menus. This isn't exactly what I suggested in the guide, so I'll need to update it soon.

3) How can I add text or pretty up my menus without learning a comlicated app. (am already familiar with nero though)

You'll need an image editor such as Paint Shop Pro, MS-Paint or Imaging for Windows. None of these are very complicated, and the last 2 come standard with Windows.

While i'm here, in tools, do I really need to burn a que/toc image file?

If the burn option is checked, this step is done automatically.

[bruce73]

gonzo,

I created a simple, two-disk VCD movie. Each disk has 4 scenes each (one .mpg file per disk).

Using your guide, I successfully created a title page which segues to a menu page after 3 seconds. On the menu page, 4 numbered thumbs (one for each scene) assigned to corresponding keys (1-4). So far, so good. I can click any number and go directly to that scene. On the second disc, I have the scenes numbered 5-8, with those keys assigned to their corresponding chapter entry points.

When I play the movie, I want to be able to do the same thing, i.e. navigate to any scene via its number. If I bring up the movie sequence clip in the "Play Item:" dialog, override the key assignment defaults, and re-assign the numbers to their corresponding scenes, then click "ALL", will that take care of it, so that no matter what scene I'm watching, clicking a scene's number will bring me that scene?

Or, more simply, when I create the menu image and re-assign the keys there and click "ALL", does that carry through to the movie clip and all its segments as well or *only* to any other existing menu stills?

Guess what I'm trying to ask is: does the re-assigning of keys need to be done separately for MPEG stills *and* the movie sequence/segments.

Whew...hope you understand.

Bruce

[gonz0]

Guess what I'm trying to ask is: does the re-assigning of keys need to be done separately for MPEG stills *and* the movie sequence/segments.

Yes, currently it has to be done separately. You can either assign the choice to all stills or to all chapters in a sequence. You can't propagate a choice across several movie clips or from a still to a movie clip or vice versa. This is rather inconvenient when you want the same number keys in a still as you do in a movie clip or when you want several movie clips to have the same number keys. However, the author(s) of VCDEasy has plans to make the "all" selection more flexible. For example, the "all" button will be replaced with an "Apply to" button, which will then allow you to select all the sequences and segments that you want to propagate the choice to. When this feature is available, I'll update the guide. I hope I answered the question you were asking.

[bruce73]

Yes, that does answer my question (congrats on deciphering what I was trying to ask!!). And thanks for the quick reply.

I realized after the fact that when I re-assigned number keys to the scenes in the clip, I did so only for the the first segment. So when the movie starts, I can skip a couple of scenes by clicking the scene's number, but, once in that scene, the keys revert back to the defaults. I trust that, next time, hitting the ALL button will take care of that.

Which brings me to a related question that I just posted in the Authoring forum: is there a way, after viewing a BIN in DAEMON to somehow load up the XML in VCDEasy to edit mistakes or misses like this without having to start from scratch? I know you can load up an XML to create a BIN, but I'm not proficient enough to edit the XML file directing in Notepad first. I don't really see any way of saving a project in VCDEasy, other than to the BIN, CUE, & XML files.

Thanks, Bruce

[gonz0]

Nope, there's no way to save and reload a project. You're best option is to leave VCDEasy open while viewing the bin in Daemon Tools. Otherwise you can edit the xml as you mentioned. It's really not too bad especially when you can tell VCDEasy to insert comments.

[bruce73]

As I suspected. Leaving VCDEasy open was something I had thought of, too.

What exactly do you mean by telling VCDEasy to "insert comments"?

[TheLarch]

First of all a big "Thank You!" for the guide.

Secondly a stupid question:
how do I go about making chapters from a converted DivX movie?
(i.e. Shrek-DivX.avi comverted to Shrek.mpg)

If there already is a guide covering this I've not been able to find it.

Thankfull for any suggestions,

TL

[Olli]

Please do a search on

www.tmpgenc.net

if you are having floating point errors. This has been answered many times in the forums.

[gonz0]

Secondly a stupid question:
how do I go about making chapters from a converted DivX movie?
(i.e. Shrek-DivX.avi comverted to Shrek.mpg)

Here are the correct chapter times for Shrek. Sometimes you can get these off blockbuster.com.
Chapter 1 = 00:00:00:00
Chapter 2 = 00:04:56:19
Chapter 3 = 00:11:42:03
Chapter 4 = 00:15:57:53
Chapter 5 = 00:20:10:20
Chapter 6 = 00:26:17:70
Chapter 7 = 00:31:38:36
Chapter 8 = 00:35:10:86
Chapter 9 = 00:40:21:53
Chapter 10 = 00:44:58:53
Chapter 11 = 00:49:13:36
Chapter 12 = 00:55:24:43
Chapter 13 = 01:00:50:43
Chapter 14 = 01:05:29:26
Chapter 15 = 01:09:11:76
Chapter 16 = 01:11:28:26
Chapter 17 = 01:14:46:60
Chapter 18 = 01:17:29:10
Chapter 19 = 01:20:48:10
Chapter 20 = 01:22:56:50
If you don't have the chapter timings, just create equidistant chapters. For example, 10 equally spaced chapters or a chapter every 5 minutes.

[TheLarch]

Thanks you very much Gonzo.
Much appriciated.

[crystaldon]

Boy, I must be blind! I'm stuck on step D (add chapters) where he says to refer to other guides to create chapters. Which guides, is there something on creating entry points? My display say "Number of possible chapter entry points: 1", what did I miss?? Thanks

[mwhiz01]

I have succesfully created/burned VCDs using VCDEasy. They playback OK in my DVD player, however I cannot get the Chapters to work. I am using SmartRipper 2.41, DVDx2.0 and VCDEasy 1.1.2. After ripping, encoding and then adding my MPEG file in VCDEasy, I go to the Chapters section and right click in the pop up window area to "Paste SmartRipper". I am getting an error that says "TV System not found in the SmartRipper IFO information". I have looked through as many of the User Guides and other questions in the forum I could find, but nothing addressed my problem. Does anyone have any ideas?

[jhowlett]

Ok this is what i want to do...

5 mpeg stills
1. Main
2. Scene 2
3. Scene 3
4. Scene 4
5. Scene 5

when you press each menu item you can
1. press return to play the present scene
2. press previous and next to it's corresponding scenes mpeg still
3. press any number to go play a specific chapter w/o the corresponding scene mpeg still
4. You can press the selections above even during playback of the present scene.
5. During playback when previous is pressed, it goes to the present scene's mpeg still and not the previous mpeg still.

My problem is this.
It worked fine in WINDVD. But when I played it on my VCD Player the following problems occur.

Except for the (Main Scene), all the other scenes during playback does not respond to the following commands...
1. previous and next (it just goes blank screen and it is now stuck)
2. numbers does not respond.

This is also true during playback when numbers are pressed.

also how can i activate the pause button (if I can)?

Can someone shed some light here 'coz it worked on WINDVD but not in my player so I don't know whats wrong. Help please

[gonz0]

jhowlett,
You didn't say what make and model DVD player you have. Since it works in WinDVD, I suspect you're not doing anything improperly in VCDEasy. It sounds like the problem is with your DVD player. My player has an option to turn on or off playback control. I think its on by default, so that I can navigate through chapters and view menus, etc. When it's off, it just plays the mpeg straight through and doesn't give me any navigation options and won't display menus (only stop, forward, reverse, and pause will work).

I'd suggest looking up your player in the DVD compatibility section, and/or you can try posting this message (with info about your player) in the DVD player forum.

[nandi_nokuri]

For my scene selection menu it is only allowing me to insert the first five chapters for the numeric keys. Why ?