From: Cyrus P. <cy...@fb...> - 2004-04-29 16:08:19
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On 28 Apr 2004 at 12:17, dvd...@li...urceforge wrote: > 1) The end users are comfortable on the Windows platform, so Windows > executables would be desirable. define "comfortable". If they have enough savvy to use command line tools, then dvdauthor will fit the bill just fine. > 2) Bookmark and classify the raw video material. you're beginning to sound like a powerpoint presentation. :) > (list of files with in and out points and possibly > classification code(s) and descriptions) thats better. :) If I understand you correctly, what you want to do is build a "storyboard". That is something you do on paper, or on a drawing board. That way you have an overall picture of the whole project, and can focus on individual snippets as needed and still not lose the overview. Put each "scene" (as a screenshot for instance, but text will do too) on one sheet of paper. Hang the sheets up in the order that they will appear. "Walk" the film by describing each scene out loud to your students. Voila! you are now a director. :) > 3) Using step 2 (list of files with in and out points and possibly > classification code(s) and descriptions) create a DVD with menus. You already know how to make how to make titles only, and I won't go into menu creation here, as that has been amply covered in the examples linked from the dvdauthor home page. > I have the following additional questions: > > a) What tools are available to automatically generate a set of menus > based on the classifications in step 2)? dvdauthor is not just a single program. It is a whole suite, and includes tools for menu generation. ie, 'spumux'. > A basic tool to generate menu items from a text file should be > sufficient (the material would be used for teaching purposes so > the 'look' is not that important), dvdauthor/spumux do not place any limits on how fancy your menu(s) _can_ be. How fancy they are is entirely up to you and the features of your favourite bitmap/picture editor. > it is necessary to be able to logically restructure the menu buttons > according to the classifications in step 2. So it would be useful to > be able to specify on what page a specific menu item should be placed. dvdauthor/spumux do not dictate structure. How you organize things is up to you. > Is it perhaps possible to hide a button visually using DVDAUTHOR? of course. :) A "hidden" button is nothing but a button that is transparent when in a "not selected" state, and something else (eg the 4-color image of a fish as in "finding nemo") when in the "highlighted"/"selected" state. > The menu structure for my application basically corresponds to a > two dimensional grid (where the user can select say a row and then > play all the columns, or vice versa). However, for each element in > the grid there would be more than one version to play. > So presumably one would have to generate a menu for each of the > possible versions? Well, that depends on what decides which "version" to play. > It would be desirable if one could easily navigate to closely > related entries in the grid (corresponding to hyperlinks in a web > page). Umm. The DVD specification was not designed for what (I think) you have in mind. For instance, a) menus can only at most 32 buttons. There are also limits on how many titles/titlesets you can have. > b) To change the play order it is possible to use cell commands in > different PGC's dvdauthor currently does not support cell commands. > c) As regard user interaction with a DVD, I assume something like list > boxes and combo boxes are not (directly) available? I think its time to clarify what a DVD menu is: A DVD menu is just a _picture_ (or a series of pictures == film). The "buttons" are simply other bitmaps/pictures overlaid on it. In fact, _everything_ you see on a DVD is a picture - even subtitles. But if you really, Really, REALLY wanted to, you could make something that /looked/ like a list box. Take a screen capture, and play with that in your bitmap/photo editor to see what it would look like. > I realize that a DVD player cannot hope to emulate the sophisticated > indexing / search functions available on a computer, but still > wonder what is (in principle) possible today? A DVD Player _is_ a computer. Not a general purpose one that you are using to read this message with, but a highly sophisticated specialized one, that does one thing only, and does it very, very well - much, much better than your desktop computer ever will. :) It is designed to be cheap, fast, robust, user-friendly, quiet, crash-proof, look good, and not need oodles of memory or Mhz. And like your desktop computer, it was not designed to wash your clothes, start your car, make cellphone calls, and all the other things that other specialized computers are designed for. > d) Is it possible to update the index .IFO files on the DVD after > writing? Did you mean "patch" when you said "update"? If so, yes (not once its on a -ROM of course) as long as the file's length does not change. Incidentally,... DVD players do not even "see"/use the .IFO/.VOB/.BUP "files"/filenames. They are all purely sector based, which is why all DVD "files" as you see them on a desktop computer are an even multiple of 2048 bytes long. > After using the DVD t is likely that new 'Play orders' would > be generated. Updating the DVD with just the index files would then be > useful (prerably on recordable DVD material instead of rewritable > DVD). Its not impossible, but there are no (semi-)automated tools to help you do that. If you're not afraid of learning by trial and error, even if that involves making quite a few unplayable DVDs in the process, take a look at 'IFOEdit'. > e) Is it possible to cut out unwanted video material from the DVD > (based on step 2)? As far as I know DVDAUTHOR does not at present have > provision to specify an in and out point in a MPEG file? Logically cut, yes. Use the <cell start="xxx" end="xxx" /> sequence. Physically cut, no. dvdauthor is entirely non-destructive. :) Do physical cutting using a GOP-level cutter or the mpeg tools built into 'Tmpgenc'. > f) Is there a tool available that can allow easy editing of an > existing DVD? The user should be able to extract any 'Chapter' or > 'cell' easily from the DVD (preferably using the existing menu > structure). This can be done with the individual pgcs. See 'dvdshrink' and reauthor mode. Using the existing menu "structure" is not possible, because, as I said before, the menus are _pictures_, and as such are not machine interpretable. > g) Is it possible to 'merge' an existing DVD with a DVD authored by > DVDAUTHOR (reauthoring)? The idea would be to use the menus from an > existing DVD and add extra menus and functionality using DVDAUTHOR? Yes. Step 1. Extract the menus from the existing DVD as mpegs - For example, use 'dvdshrink' reauthor mode to extract the menus as individual titles (one .VOB file per menu). Step 2. Then run the entire set (beginning with VIDEO_TS.IFO) through dvdunauthor in order to generate a new set of .VOB files that include palette information. Step 3. Those second set of .VOB files can be used in the <vob file=xxx> statements in dvdauthor. Determining which button on screen goes with with which <button>...commands...</button> in the xml can be done either using trial-and-error, or by "disassembling" the .VOB with spuunmux. > Best regards, > Theo All the best with your venture. :) --------------------------------------------- * Windows NT: No Thanks; Not Trusted, Not Today, Not Tomorrow. |