Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

Posted Jan 13,2005 3:49 PM ianshepherd

Hi,

I've successfully re-made Ben's "moving buttons" project without using seperate cells. Ben has just tested the build for me in his "fussy" Pioneer player and it checks out fine. Hopefully Trai will upload the build for me ( it's only 8 MB ) and you guys can burn some copies and check it out in your players too.

The key difference ( I think ) is that each nav-pack with changing hot-spot areas needs it's own "start and stop times" correctly entered, otherwise some players lose track of the changes. Ie, using a "paste repeated" on the button highlight properties doesn't work. Uli, your animated buttons disc doesn't work on one of my players, and I think it's for this same reason ? I'll take a look and check it out.

Now the tricky bit - getting all those highlight start/stop times entered correctly was easy enough with this project because I was copying and pasting from Ben's project, which has cells and therefore the correct information. With a freshly imported VOB without cells, we have no way of knowing what those numbers should be, without some seriously tedious arithmatic.

So, I guess the easier implementation of this method will require a feature request - namely, "set highlight start/stop times by nav-pack sectors" - or something similar. We'll also need a nice quick way of setting all the nav-packs to "All new info". So, I guess in turn this feature will have to wait until version 3 is out, and come along in the 3.5 release ! Never mind, at least it works in principle :-)

Cheers,

Ian

---

Posted Jan 13,2005 5:07 PM Arky

Good work, Ian & Ben. Congratulations!

All the best,

John.

---

Posted Jan 13,2005 6:26 PM hyptique

Very nice !!

I look forward to download the build...

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 2:12 AM Trai

Hi Ian,

Great Job! I'm sure we can find a place here for that cool build folder. And we will definitely work on features to make this easier.

Many thanks,

Trai

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 5:59 AM Uli Plank

Hi Ian,

the players on which I tested my animated highlights project were just a few, so I'd like to check this issue again. Could you tell me which one was the player that exposed problems? You mention a fuzzy Pioneer, but my trusted old 525 didn't complain.

I'm looking forward to testing your moving buttons,

Uli

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 9:10 AM ianshepherd

Hi Uli,

The player is a ( VERY cheap ! ) Technika dvd 108a.

Ian

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 9:18 AM ianshepherd

Uli,

I've just opened up your project, and in each nav-pack the following highlight properties are listed:

Highlight Start Time ( PTM ) 662400
Highlight End Time ( PTM ) -1

Whereas in the working verson of my my/Ben's moving buttons test, each navpack has different values for these properties, and it seems that the "problem" players need these to be correct. ( Note - In trying to shed a little more light on this subject, I've uncovered a quirk in the current beta version. It is reporting the values for Highlight Start Time ( PTM ) and Highlight End Time ( PTM ) incorrectly, so to see the issues I'm discussing, you'll need to use version 2.03 )

Hope this helps, let me know if you need any more info,

Cheers,

Ian

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 2:41 PM benchmarque

Uli-

My problematic Pioneer player is a DV-343 and is several years old. Though your animated highlights project won't play on this player correctly because it is NTSC (works fine in my PAL/NTSC player), I have successfully used your method several times, producing animations that playback perfectly on the Pioneer.

Since animated overlays are usually faster than 2fps, I'm not so sure there is a relationship between the overlays and nav packs - but who knows? So far, so good...

-Ben

---

Posted Jan 14,2005 3:22 PM Trai

Hi Gentlemen,

We are following this thread closely, and will look at and address any and all abnormalities found.

Awesome Guys!

Trai

---

Posted Jan 17,2005 5:33 PM effect

Hey Guys good work ! I downloaded and tested the build on some of my players .

LG LGD415 doesn't work as it should only the last hot spot is shown
APEX AS-5131 Doesn't either .
But it worked on my Pioneer DV 343 model and old toshiba sd -2109

---

Posted Jan 18,2005 4:42 AM ianshepherd

Hi Effect,

Interesting - do you mean that the highlights are invisible until the final frame of the animation ? And is the behaviour exactly the same on both players ? I guess we should upload Ben's version of this project, which uses cells, and see if that works or not...

Ian

---

Posted Jan 18,2005 10:39 AM benchmarque

Weird - I thought we nailed this one. It works well in all 3 of my stand-alone players, which are all drastically different. Let's see if Trai can put the Cells version in the downloads section and see how that works for you.

-Ben

---

Posted Jan 18,2005 11:39 AM effect

Yes Ian and it's kinda of the same on both players 1 (LG) player just played the last highlight TFDVDEDIT (meaning nothing was visible till we reached TFDVDEDIT)
and the other player APEX had only the f highlighted until we reached TFDVDEDIT .
Kinda took me by surprise that my newer players didn't play the highlights but my older players did.?

---

Posted Jan 18,2005 12:19 PM ianshepherd

Ben,

You mentioned some LBA differences between our builds - I guess it's possible that the numbers I've pasted from your project don't work exactly for my re-build...? I'll take a look and maybe do the maths by hand just to see. I've also noticed unusual behaviour in WinDVD - the highlights all display correctly but flash on and off...

[Edit] I see - the VOBU End address ( LBA Shown ) of my rebuild is 2 less than the original. I'll try editing the Highlight Start/End times correspondingly and see if that helps... Trai, what do your verifiers say about this project ?

[Another Edit] Except, the VOBU presentation times match... hm...

A little more troubleshooting, I think :-)

Trai / Larry - what is the easiest way to work out the correct highlight start/end times based on the information 'Edit gives us ?

Ian

---

Posted Jan 19,2005 4:54 AM Trai

Hi Distinguished Nav Packs,

Here's the cells version of the moving buttons project, thanks to Ben:

http://www.tfdvdedit.com/members/programs/fileinfo.cfm?id=88&action=disp...

Way to keep at it Guys,

Trai

---

Posted Jan 19,2005 8:52 AM ianshepherd

Hi Effect,

Would you be able to d/l that and try it on your players for us ? Thanks !

Ian

---

Posted Jan 19,2005 1:33 PM effect

No Problem

---

Posted Jan 19,2005 1:48 PM effect

Same Reaction on both players .

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 5:50 AM ianshepherd

OK. Thanks, Effect ! Ben, which version of 'Edit did you use to create your "cells" version ? Could you try re-creating it using 2.03 and see if any of the numbers change ? Tony reported a problem with 2.05 trying to place layer-break cells, and I wonder if your original build is a few sectors out somewhere...

Ian

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 7:32 AM benchmarque

I don't remember which version - but the cells were created in a DVDSP3 track. The only thing I used TFDVDEdit for was to assign button commands and move the track to the menu domain.

I'll take a look...

-Ben

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 8:16 AM benchmarque

I did a "redux" with v2.0.3 and didn't notice anything different. I did change the force select button parameter from 1 to 0 (it still changes to 2 for the last several nav packs). I also changed the cell command to "link PG 1 button 1" as something funky was going on with "link Cell 1 button 1" with the Apple DVD player.

The build is ready to be posted to the site, so hopefully it will be available soon.

-Ben

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 10:51 AM ianshepherd

Ah, interesting about the Force Select parameter, that might sort it ! Effect, do the highlights appear if you try moving from one button to the other in your "problem" player ? And, if they do, do they stay visible when the menu loops ? Thanks for your help !

Ian

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 12:07 PM effect

No I tried that .

---

Posted Jan 20,2005 5:47 PM Trai

Hi Guys,

Ben's moving button project re-done in TFDVDEdit 2.0.5 (or was it 2.0.3?) is now in the members download section:

http://www.tfdvdedit.com/members/programs/fileinfo.cfm?id=89&action=disp...

Thanks,

Trai

---

Posted Jan 23,2005 1:19 PM ianshepherd

Thanks, Trai.

Effect, would you mind testing this version for us as well, please ? If it doen't work we'll have a little more sleuthing to...

Ian