Remote control subpicture problem

[VRYK]

A video has 6 sub-picture streams :1-English; 2-French; 3-Spanish; 4-English; 5-French; 6-Spanish. DVD Shrink reports streams 4-6 as empty (0MB in size). The sub-pictures function correctly when selected in the Languages menu. However, when selected in the remote control (right-clicking) the following pattern emerges: 1–English; 2-English; 3–French; 4–French; 5_Spanish; 6_Spanish. That is, only buttons 1 and 6 function correctly ?

How can this be corrected ? I tried deleting streams 4-6 in PgcEdit and then "cleaning up" with FixVTS, but this didn’t work.

[blutach]

If the domain streams attributes are different in the final than the original, you have probably logicvally remapped streams. This is a no no in my book (due to button remapping) although the PgcEdit plugin for that program tells you when you can do it safely.

Regards

[r0lZ]

However, when selected in the remote control (right-clicking) the following pattern emerges: 1–English; 2-English; 3–French; 4–French; 5_Spanish; 6_Spanish.

What player do you use? Seems it sorts the streams alphabetically. Anyway, if you remove the empty streams, they should not appear in the list. But are you sure they are really empty? A size of 0MB may be the result of the rounding operation, and mean that the stream has only a few forced subpics. You can verify if they are really empty with DVDSubEdit.

Note that deleting a stream in PgcEdit doesn't remove it from the VOB files, and unfortunately, although after that operation it is unreferenced, FixVTS doesn't strip it from the VOBs neither. If you want to remove it totally, use DVDS*****. As blu said, verify with the PgcEdit plugin if you can enable the "logical remapping of enabled streams" option.

[VRYK]

If the domain streams attributes are different in the final than the original, you have probably logicvally remapped streams. This is a no no in my book (due to button remapping) although the PgcEdit plugin for that program tells you when you can do it safely.

Regards

Many thanks for your reply.

<If the domain streams attributes are different in the final than the original, you have probably logicvally remapped streams.>
The Domain Stream Attributes are the same in both versions (except of course that the modified version has only 3 subpicture streams): 16.9 Automatic Letterbox; NTSC 720x480.

Going back to my original version (i.e. with the 6 sub-picture streams), how can my problem be solved ?
Both the Audio and Sub-picture streams are “unspecified”. For the audio the streams are “normal” (not director’s comments or for the visually impaired) – should they then be rather set to “normal” ? As regards the sub-picture streams, should these also be set to normal ?
Originally there was a French LU which I deleted. Could sub-picture streams 4-6 be linked to this LU ?


Best wishes

[VRYK]

What player do you use? Seems it sorts the streams alphabetically. Anyway, if you remove the empty streams, they should not appear in the list. But are you sure they are really empty? A size of 0MB may be the result of the rounding operation, and mean that the stream has only a few forced subpics. You can verify if they are really empty with DVDSubEdit.

Note that deleting a stream in PgcEdit doesn't remove it from the VOB files, and unfortunately, although after that operation it is unreferenced, FixVTS doesn't strip it from the VOBs neither. If you want to remove it totally, use DVDS*****. As blu said, verify with the PgcEdit plugin if you can enable the "logical remapping of enabled streams" option.

Many thanks for your reply.


<What player do you use?>
I haven’t burned the video yet so I am using virtual players – could there be a difference between real and virtual player behaviour in the present context ?

<You can verify if they are really empty with DVDSubEdit.>
I have just opened DVDSubEdit for the first time (haven’t used it before). I shall have to study the User Manual; File →Open Full Domain shows the video’s Menus in the main window which can be browsed with the slider below (I expected to see the sub-pictures instead).

<verify with the PgcEdit plugin if you can enable the "logical remapping of enabled streams" option.>
The plugin reports indirect SetSTN commands and hence recommends setting to OFF.


Best wishes

[r0lZ]

could there be a difference between real and virtual player behaviour in the present context ?

Yes.
When you delete a subpic stream that is not at the end of the list, and the option to remap them is off, you create a gap in the list of subpics. Some players do not like the gaps, and display "something" in their list of subpics instead of simply skipping the gap. The player may, for example, repeat the previous subpic stream. Some players assume it's the end of the list when a gap is encountered, and you cannot select the next streams.

This is why there is that "remapping" option in DVDS. There is no universally good solution. When the option is enabled, the streams are physically shifted to fill the gaps, and the SetSTN commands are automatically fixed to point to the new stream numbers. However, the indirect SetSTN commands cannot be fixed, so if the DVD contains some of them, a wrong subpic might be selected by default and the subpic selection menu may not work properly. The PgcEdit plugin checks if some indirect SetSTN commands are present in the DVD, and in that case if suggests to turn the option off, and leave the gaps, with the risks they imply for some players. Unfortunately, it's the case of your DVD.

Note that the problem is exactly the same for the audio streams.

File →Open Full Domain shows the video’s Menus in the main window which can be browsed with the slider below (I expected to see the sub-pictures instead).

It should show the subpics over the video. The slider can be used to jump to any subpic, but cannot be used to display the parts of the video without subpics.

Note that you can select a specific stream to examine it with the topmost dropdown listbox in the top right corner of the window. By default, it displays "All Streams" at the same time. If you select a 0MB stream and the slider disappear, then that means that the stream is really empty.

If you think that all this mess is too complicated, I suggest to leave all streams in place. The subpic streams consume very little disc space (especially when they are empty!) so removing them is imo a relatively difficult and useless work.

Originally there was a French LU which I deleted. Could sub-picture streams 4-6 be linked to this LU ?

No, the menu LUs are independent of the movie subpics. (In some very rare cases, a different SetSTN command might be issued in each LU to select automatically the same default language for the movie, but anyway, I doubt this could be the cause of your problem.)

[r0lZ]

Since your movie is in 16:9, the subpic is probably different for the two display modes (16:9 widescreen on a 16:9 TV, and 16:9 letterboxed on a 4:3 TV.) For example, the first stream (English) is in fact made of two different physical streams in the VOBs, although it is listed only once in Domain Stream Attributes.

Maybe the software player you use to test your DVD is "smart enough" to display the two streams in its list of streams, even if it should normally display only the stream suitable for your screen, to allow you to use the wide subpic on a 4:3 screen, or the letterbox stream on a 16:9 screen. That's not standard compliant, but that could be considered as a feature. Anyway, if it's the case, it should do the same thing with the original, unmodified DVD.

BTW, you haven't replied to my question: what software player do you use?

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your very comprehensive reply.

< If you think that all this mess is too complicated, I suggest to leave all streams in place.>
I definitely agree. Sometimes one comes across videos with a long list of (mostly useless) subpics. So, I guess the procedure is to use the PgcEdit DVDShrink plugin; if re-mapping is feasible then DVDShrink’s Preferences options “Logical remapping of enabled streams” and “Disable all subpicture except menus and forced streams” could be ticked. Otherwise, leave well alone. Presumably, I could also use PgcEdit to delete subpics ?

< BTW, you haven't replied to my question: what software player do you use?>
Sorry, I use VLC and MPC.

Could you help me with a (somewhat) related problem, please. I used MenuShrink to convert an animated menu into a still one. The result is that I have 6 cells with 0, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1 buttons respectively. I find the expected 5 button outlines only in cell 2. How can

Best wishes

[r0lZ]

Presumably, I could also use PgcEdit to delete subpics ?

No. As I have explained above, PgcEdit removes only the references to the subpictures in the IFOs, but doesn't remove them from the VOBs. If you want to regain some disc space, do NOT use that method.

You should use PgcEdit only to remove the IFOs references after having stripped the physical streams from the VOBs with the remap options off. It is easier to remove the stream reference at that time, as you can easily fix the remaining SetSTN commands.

How can

???
Something is missing here!

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.

<Something is missing here!>
Sorry, I pressed the Reply button prematurely by accident!
Here is what I wanted to say:

Could you help me with a (somewhat) related problem, please. I used MenuShrink to convert an animated menu into a still one. The result is that I have 6 cells with 0, 5, 5, 1, 1, 1 buttons respectively. I find the expected 5 button outlines only in cell 2. How can I handle the other cells which seem to be populated by “phantom” buttons ?

Incidentally, in my earlier thread “Moving Chapters” I thought I had posted replies to messages 14 and 15, but can find no trace of these.

I find DVDSubEdit extremely opaque – I have yet to discover how to visualise a sub-picture ! Is there a less complicated application which would allow me to change the font and possibly the colour for all subpics in a video ?

Best wishes

[r0lZ]

Do you mean that you cannot see the buttons when you play the video, or in PgcEdit? Anyway, if PgcEdit reports that there is a button in a cell, you must be able to select that cell and see the button outline. Although it can be extremely small in the case of an hidden button, you should at least be able to modify it with the menu editor.
Note that you might have to select the right cell with the dropdown menu at the top of the menu viewer (before clicking on the Edit button).

IMO, DVDSubEdit does its job very well. You may think it is opaque, but it's probably because you don't know how it works. It is the only program able to modify the subpics directly in the VOBs, without having to decode them to text (with SubRip or... DVDSubEdit!), to build the .SUP stream (with Subtitle Creator), to demux the video and audio tracks (with PGCDemux), to remux all streams with the new subpic stream (with muxman) and finally to reimport the new title in your DVD (with PgcEdit.) If you prefer the hard way, re-read the previous sentence, and use that programs, but you will certainly find that method much more difficult and time consuming.

However, given that it doesn't re-encode the subpics from scratch, DVDSubEdit has some limitations. You cannot change the font, for example. DVDSubEdit is mainly designed to resync the subpics, hide the unnecessary ones, change the colors and transparency, move them, or delete some words in the subpics for hearing impairs. You can also export the bitmap, modify it with an external image editor, and reimport it. That's handy, for example, to add a new button highlight in a menu (something you cannot do with the hard method explained above, as you can only generate text subpics.)

Anyway, in your case, you should simply select the stream you want to examine (in the top right corner), and then use the slider to see the subpics (if there are some.) That's not really complicated imo. Maybe you should try the program with a correctly authored DVD, with good subpic streams. Perhaps your DVD has some authoring errors that prevent DVDSubEdit to show you the subpics.

To change the colors of the subpics, the simplest way is to use the PgcEdit PGC Editor. You have to know what color slot to change (again something easy to determine with DVDSubEdit), and then click on that spot. You cannot change the transparency without DVDSubEdit, and changing the font requires the hard method.

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.

< mean that you cannot see the buttons when you play the video, or in PgcEdit?>
In PgcEdit Trace mode. I did eventually find 1 button in one of the other cells. I have since used VobBlanker to create a still main menu. This seems to have fixed the problem except that 4 cells were created in VobBlanker of which I retained only 1. The <Play Movie> button’s command (LinkPGN Program 4) thus refers to an object which no longer exists and the Trace log window shows “##### Target not found” . There are also 3 Cell Commands:
Link TopPG
LinkPGN Program 3
Set gprm(8) = Mov(4096) ; LinkTailPGC

Trace gives a sound warning but otherwise the film then plays OK. Should the commands be edited ?

This video’s subpics menu is consists of 3 cells each with 12 buttons, of which only the first cell is of interest. Since I can’t use Kill PGC playback, do the buttons in cells 2 and 3 have t o be hidden one by on or could they populate New dummy PGCs to which Kill PGC playback could be applied?

< Perhaps your DVD has some authoring errors that prevent DVDSubEdit to show you the subpics>
This seems to have been the case since I loaded another video and can view the subpics OK.

Re the setting of default values for Audio and Subpics, it seems to me that DVDShrink can do this, but on condition that the main movie only be retained (no menus etc). Does this concern setting SPRMs 16 and 18?

Best wishes

[r0lZ]

A command that jumps to nowhere is always a dead end. Some players may ignore it, but most will hang. Such commands must always be modified (or removed.) You have to figure out what was its usage before your edits, and replace it by an equivalent command that jumps to the real target.

If you are sure that the cells 2 and 3 of your menu cannot be played, you can simply remove them with the PGC Editor. But usually, there is at least one button to jump from the first cell to the second one. You should either hide that button or modify its command to jump elsewhere.

The current audio and subpic streams are stored in SPRMs 1 and 2. The SetSTN command modifies those SPRMs to change the current streams. SPRMs 16 and 18 reflect the preferences of the user (defined with the setup menu of the player) and cannot be changed when a DVD is playing. They can be tested by the VM commands to decide what is the best combination of audio and subpic streams to use by default. Note also that if no SetSTN is issued during the navigation before the playback of the movie, the player should normally use SPRM 16 and 18 to automatically select the right streams. However, some cheap players select always the first audio stream and no subpic, regardless of the user preferences, and some bad players have no setup menu at all!

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.

< A command that jumps to nowhere is always a dead end.>
This video – at least the animated main menu -= is a real mess, both in its original version and after having tried to convert the menu to a silent still image in both MenuShrink and VobBlanker.. At some point I might try to re-make the DVD; that would, of course be well beyond my capabilities at present, but maybe a bit further down the road !

< If you are sure that the cells 2 and 3 of your menu cannot be played>
They can be played – but they contain exotic languages which will never be used.

< The current audio and subpic streams are stored in SPRMs 1 and 2.>
The following prompted me to raise the point about imposing default audio and subpic settings: in PgcEdit Trace mode the default language is English (sprm(1) = 0) and subpics are off (sprm(2) = 67). However VLC comes up with English audio and English subpics, while MPC opens with French audio and no subpics !

I’m going though a bad patch at present. In another video I used PgcEdit’s “Jump to PGC upon DVD insert” command to open with the Main Menu. This functioned OK in PgcEdit and in both software players, but my standalone player started on the main movie.

With best wishes.

[r0lZ]

SPRM 1 = 0 means that audio 0 is selected, and SPRM 1 = 67 means that subpic 3 is ON (not off!) Your players may select other audio and subpic streams if their configuration is different than in PgcEdit. Most software players use a default configuration based on your Windows language. Verify the PgcEdit's "virtual player configuration".

Seems your standalone player has some kind of bug, as it should jump to the main menu, like the software players.