Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

You only need one group for the Wide/P&S case because the player can simply crop the ends off the Wide button overlay to create a 4:3 version of the menu. (Think about it.) No scaling is involved. You could certainly have two groups in this case (Wide and P&S) but you can get away with one. However if the VTSM specifies Wide/LTX then you must have two groups because players do not scale the button overlay nor the button geometry (coordinates on the screen) which is required for LTX presentation. If the VTSM specifies Wide/P&S/LTX (a perfectly legal combination) you could either have two groups (one for Wide/P&S and one for LTX) or three groups (one tagged for each display type). I think that in Sonic Creator you get three groups. Not sure what DVDSP does and Spruce doesn't support Wide/P&S/LTX at the same time.

As to all the combinations listed for "Display Type" by DVDAE...

The "Display Type" field in a button group is probably comprised small set of bits (AKA a bit field) with one bit corresponding to each of three possible aspect modes plus "normal" (which may be represented by all bits being set to 0). Player behavior for some combinations of bits (e.g. "LB & Wide") is probably undefined. However I would hazard a guess that when there's only a single button group, the player ignores the "Display Type" field and uses the one group for all possible display modes - what else can it do? So DVDSP may not set the "Display Type" correctly - but it doesn't matter in this case because it is ignored and John Brisbin, the original programmer for DVDAE, may have included all possible combinations of bits in the drop down list even if they didn't make sense.

(This is just a WAG on my part. If someone else, like Larry A. has more info, please do speak up.)

Michael

You can design a menu in 16:9 but position all the buttons (and important visual elements) in the 4:3 safe areas. The player can then be instructed to present this menu in 4:3 or 16:9. This is done in many if not most H'wood titles. In an app like Spruce the resulting VTSM will be marked 16:9 in the "Aspect Ratio" field and "pan-scan" in the "Automatic Display Mode" field. Further down, the nav packs for the menus themselves will have one button group marked "normal." This works because the buttons are in fact in the same locations (using the same proportions) with the menu and overlay simply cropped in the case of 4:3 presentation.

Perhaps this is what you are seeing? In fact, even though it's a choice in DVDAE I actually wonder if there's a legal use of "LB & Wide" on the nav packs as the proportions of the buttons would necessarily change when 16:9 video is resized and matted by the player for LTX playback. Maybe when there's only a single button group to use for the nav packs the player ignores how it's tagged and DVDSP is doing the wrong thing but getting away with it for this reason?

Michael