moving svcd menus possible?

[Aznboi_nz]

Was wondering if it is possible to have moving svcds menus, been reading the guides but they only show still images one

[stalker11]

I usually have menus for my VCDs for my short films. What I do is use VCDEasy and make my menus into video files, regular mpg (VCD formatted of course), and simply use those video files as menus. With VCDEasy, just make the menu videos without a time-out on it. Removing the time-out on it will make the video pause on the last frame, simply make your video menu and have the last frame be whatever you want to the video to look like. I have never made a video menu this way that loops, but i suppose you could make it time-out into itself. For the menu options do it the same way as the still menus since you can still use numbers for video files.

Again, I only did this with VCD, but if you're using VCDEasy it should be the same.

[Aznboi_nz]

im sorry, are u using mpeg stills or mpeg clips?

[adam]

http://home.att.net/~adam.poole/Introduction.htm

Try my guide, it covers moving menu's.

You don't make mpeg stills, you just make a regular mpg program stream. You can only use # keys to navigate on a moving menu though, so you may have to overlay some #'s onto your picture.

[Aznboi_nz]

I downloaded ur sample disc and boy was I amazed, I never knew that svcd can be so advance

One thing I dont get is it able to change audio tracks and have selectable subtitles in svcd? and how would u go along doing that, also on the scene selection page it only showed 4 scenes, how would I make it so that I can check the next 4 and so forth?

[adam]

If you think that sample is advanced then you are in for a suprise. I specifically picked that dvd as an example because its menu structure was so simple, and thus a good dvd for beginners to start with. Like I've always said, just about anything that you can do with a DVD you can at least simulate, effectively, on a VCD or SVCD.

Addional sub and audio streams can only be seleted via your remote, so no you cannot have a menu for these. The corresponding menu screen on the sample disk, and in the guide, is just used for information ie: you go to that screen and are informed that the (S)VCD has x, y, and z audio tracks and x, y, and z subtitle streams, which you can toggle during playback with your remote. There is a way to sort of simulate a subtitle selection menu, though it is a lot of work for not much payoff, try a forum search, I explained how to do it not too long ago. If you can't find it let me know and I'll repost it. Perhaps I should add that to my guide?

When on the chapter selection page you use the next and previous arrow keys to go forward and backward between the different menu's. Essentially these keys work as the directional keys would with a DVD. If you go to the subtitle and language menu and use the next and previous keys you will see that you can toggle between the two available buttons, one takes you to the movie and the other back to the main menu. When the desired button is highlighted you use the Enter button on the remote to select that option.

If any of this is unclear you'll have to read the guide. Its alot easier to explain this stuff with pictures than with just words.

[Aznboi_nz]

That was a very good explanation, but still got to ask a few questions, im using powerdvd to test ur sample, u say that going into the language/subtitle select screen using next and previous changes the highlighted buttom from "main menu" and "resume movie" and yes this does work, but however when I press play(enter) it doesnt go to the menu. Is this the samples fault, or just that fact that I play it on powerdvd and not a standalone.

Also since most svcds are on 2 cds and with ur chaptor select screen it shows the chaptors of the WHOLE movie, I was wondering if svcd would be advance enough to tell u to insert disc 2 and then change to that part u selected on the 2nd cd if u happen to choose a chaptor on the 2nd cd.

[adam]

Play and enter are not the same thing. The sample is made to be played on a hardware player, also it does say this on the download link. If you use a hardware player everything will work, if you intend to play the disk on a software player you have to use hotspot buttons, which actually work exactly like DVD menu's (click on the button) but I did not implement this on the sample disk.

No, I don't believe there are any hardware players that can create links a location on a separate disk, you could always have that chapter link take you to a "change cd" type of screen, but that's nothing special. Yeah I just threw all the menu's on there assuming that some people would only look at the disk and not bother with the guide, and with all chapters it is a more of a finished product. If you follow the guide it shows you some very simple ways to setup the subsequent disks with just the relevant chapter selection menu's for that disk.

[Aznboi_nz]

I suppose u could pu the chapters selection screen on both disc, that why it would be better and all chapters selected on the 2nd disc can be redireted to the plz insert disc 1 screen like u said.

Thanx alot, if I have any troubles I'll ask

Also can vcdeasy overburn?

[adam]

Yes VCDEasy uses Cdrao, which can overburn.

I always try to put all the menu's and features, within reason, on disk one, and then just include the chapter selection menu's on each subsequent disk. I suppose you could make a chapter link to a next disk screen but I think that would be a little annoying if you hit the wrong button. I prefer to just only show the relevant chapter selection menu's for that particular disk. So disk 1 has menu's 1, 2, and 3, and disk 2 has 4, 5, and 6.

[Aznboi_nz]

another question, is it possible to have a background music on still menus? Im making it so like if u go into the language/subtitle info page it plays a background music

[adam]

If you want music on a still menu then the only way to do it within spec is to just make an mpg program stream. This can easily be done by loading your bmp file as the video source in TMPGenc and loading your audio as the audio source. When you encode it, TMPGenc will duplicate your single frame over and over for the length of your audio, and since there is no movement you can get away with a much lower bitrate. The downside to this is that you are limited to 480x480 resolution. You can use the normal 704x480 res of still pics, but it won't be compliant and may or may not play correctly.

There is another way, though it is far less compatible with dvd players. In your xml file (what tells vcdimager how to author your disk w/ menu's, and what VCDEasy will create for you) you can load the audio as the audio source. You can actually do this for as many menu's as you want, so you will have a bunch of still pics all using the same audio track. Like I said, not all dvd players support this though so you are best off with the first method.

[Aznboi_nz]

one more thing im a little confused about is that, what if I dont have the orignal dvd no more, how can I go about creating the chapters

[adam]

You can manually add chapters using VCDEasy, or most other (S)VCD authoring programs for that matter. Look on the Chapter tab in VCDEasy, its pretty straightforward.

[Aznboi_nz]

I know that software and hardware dvd players have a large difference, and since Im having a few problems I was wondering if there was a program that mimics exactly what a hardware one does, if now which would be the closes?

[Aznboi_nz]

why is it when I untick the checkboxes to make them stills I can can make my menus play forever >_<

And when I do tick it I am able to make it play forever but I am unable to make it play forever

[adam]

Well if your looking for the simplicity of a hardware player than you may want to use DVD2SVCD. It essentially automatically goes through all of the steps that you would normally do manually. You seem to be interested in menu's and such though, and there is no automatic way of doing this.

And when I do tick it I am able to make it play forever but I am unable to make it play forever

I don't understand what your problem is, it seems contradictory.

As a general rule, set stills (unchecked) to "play once" and "Wait Infinite."

Set motion menu's (checked) to "play forever."

Set movie sequences (checked) to "play once" and wait to 0 seconds. Then set the timeout to wherever you want to jump after that item has finished playing.

[Aznboi_nz]

ok cool thanx alot mate, I didnt know u could set it to play once and wait infinite

[Aznboi_nz]

ok sorry adam for bringing this back from the dead but I just started making my menu's yesterday, I have this one prob though. Its hard to explain but I'll try


OK so as you can see in this pic the content of my svcd is big BUT when going into assigning a button to an action I am limited to the what I can add, example in this pic . As you can see I am unable to assign a button to "insert2.mpg"

[vitualis]

No, I don't believe there are any hardware players that can create links a location on a separate disk...

Actually, you can... It is part of both the VCD and SVCD spec. I believe that you can author a disc so that when it hits an endlist it will automatically start up the next disc of the same album set (this is where volume number and count matters as well). This, however, is only useful if you have a multi-disc VCD/DVD player of course. Since I don't have one, I don't know how well supported this is (and I've never actually tried making one either).

Regards.

[Aznboi_nz]

anyone?

[adam]

Interesting Vitualis, I had no idea. I have a 3 disk changer so I'll see if I can test this out, and actually this may be some very welcome information.

My player autoplays the disk when first put it in or if you switch to another disk, but when one disk ends it doesn't automatically start the next one. It would be nice to have it start reading the second one automatically.

Aznboi_nz: that's weird, I can't think of why that item isn't showing up in the list. If you remove any of the other items from your layout does that change cd one appear?