VobBlanker - replace menu background

[VRYK]

I would be grateful for help in replacing a menu background cell in VobBlanker.
Having brought up the “MOTION 2 STILL in MENUS” Window, where do I go from here?

The Paths have been configured to Muxman and the Temporary Working File. Also
“Use Input Folder” and “Process Menus” have been ticked and “Process Titles” unticked.

[r0lZ]

In that window, click on the "BMP" button to load your background (or drag and drop it on the window). You should see the background change almost immediately. Accept all windows and process the menu domain.

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply – everything is fine. My problem seems to have originated in having made an error when saving the relevant PGC as a BMP image from PgcEdit.

The hidden menu button opened a Trailer which had originally just two pre-commands (no cell or post-commands):
1 Set gprm(11) =(mov) 50
2 LinkPGCN PGC 2
After applying Kill Playback these two commands were copied over as post-commands and two commands appended to the pre-commands:
1 Set gprm(11) =(mov) 50
2 LinkPGCN PGC 2
3 NOP
4 LinkPGCN PGC 2
********** post commands:
1 Set gprm(11) =(mov) 50
2 LinkPGCN PGC 2

The appended pre-commands (lines 3 and 4) were highlighted pink which I take to be a warning, but the video seems OK.

[r0lZ]

Are you sure they were highlighted in pink? They should have been highlighted in purple. Pink indicates an error, and purple is used to highlight dead commands (useless commands that cannot be executed, but that are not illegal). In this case, commands 3 and 4 cannot be executed, as command 2 jumps outside the PGC, and there are no GOTOs to jump to command 3 or 4. Kill Playback doesn't check the dead commands that it creates sometimes, but they are easy to remove and harmless anyway.

[VRYK]

Taking e.g. the Keyboard Shortcuts table of the PgcEdit Manual, the highlight colour corresponds to that in the Ctrl+T (Trace mode) cell and not Ctrl+G which is mauve/purple.

I'm thinking of putting the video through the Remove Useless Stuff wringer.

[VRYK]

Changing menu backgrounds had been working fine up to yesterday when I hit VobBlanker’s main Process button, but had inadvertently left the relevant VTS action on Skip. I corrected the latter to Process, but the drag/drop action has since failed (including with a different video). The replacement menu is a 24-bit bmp image. I am mystified – could VobBlanker have been corrupted ?

[r0lZ]

Are you sure the path to muxman is still correct in the VB options?

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply. Yes, the Muxman path is OK. The folder where the images are stored is also used as the working folder - this cause any problem before.

[VRYK]

Finally, I went the long way round by selecting File from the Frame Selection drop-down menu and then browsing to the edited image. That works – it remains a mystery why drag and drop doesn’t.

Now another problem has cropped up for which I would appreciate your help. In the Main Menu the last two headings were Special Features and Languages. After hiding the Special Features button in PgcEdit, the Main Menu was edited by deleting the Special Features heading and moving Languages up to replace it. However, the hotspots have remained in place. How can I remove the Special Features hotspot and move the Languages hotspot up to just below the Languages heading (perhaps Muxman is required) ?

[r0lZ]

Use PgcEdit. Right-click on the menu PGC in the left pane and select Menu Buttons to open the menu viewer. Click Edit to open the menu editor.

Select the Languages button with the Edit Button slider, and move the X, Y, Width and Height sliders to move it on top of the Special Features button.

Select the Special Features button. (Be sure to select the right button, as now, you have two buttons at the same position!) Then select the menu Hide Button -> Jump to Non-Deleted Button. (It is best to hide the button rather than deleting it, as otherwise, a wrong button may be selected automatically when the DVD is played, or, even worse, a wrong command can be executed when a remaining button is activated. Hidden buttons are not visible, but are still present.)

Save. That's all.

Note that, unless you have edited the subpic of the menu with DVDSubEdit, the edited button will use the original highlight (in your case, the highlight of the Special Features button).

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.

In another video the Language Menu PGC consists of 3 cells. Cell 1 contains 12 buttons: 3 spoken languages (to be kept) + 6 subtitle languages + Off + Main Menu + Next (i.e. move to cell 2). Cell 2 contains 15 buttons: 11 subtitle languages + Off + Back (to Cell 1) + Main Menu + Next (i.e. move to cell 3). Cell 3 contains 2 buttons: Back (to Cell 2) + Main Menu.

In Cell 1 four subtitle languages are to be deleted and the other buttons kept. Cells 2 and 3 are superfluous. What is the best way to deal with cells 2 and 3 – should I also simply delete the Next button from Cell 1 ?

If I understand correctly, PgcEdit and DVDShrink can delete references to the hidden subtitle buttons in the IFO files, but not delete them from the VOBs. I would again be grateful for your help on how best to proceed?.

[r0lZ]

What is the best way to deal with cells 2 and 3 - should I also simply delete the Next button from Cell 1 ?

It's the way to do it, yes. But doing that only will not remove cells 2 and 3 from the VOB files. If they are still menus, that's not a problem, but if they are animated (or still with audio), they consume disc space for nothing.

It is easy to remove the useless cells when the menu is made of several cells in different PGCs. It is sufficient to select the PGC with the menu cell to remove, and kill it (PGC -> Kill PGC Playback), and, when prompted, select the button that returns to the previous menu, and finally accept the offer to remove the cell reference from the IFO. When it's finished, the cells can be physically removed from the VOB file with VobBlanker or FixVTS.

But it's not the case with your DVD, so it's much more difficult. I can't explain easily how to do it, as the method depends of the authorinbg of the DVD, but if you really want to regain the disc space, you can simply convert the useless cells to still frames without audio with VobBlanker or MenuShrink. A still frame without audio consume so little space that it is useless to follow a complex method to remove it completely.

Of course, you should also remove the button that jumps to cell 2 from the first cell. You know how to do it. (It is not a problem to leave it in place, as the other cells being still there, you can easily return to the first cell, but leaving the useless button leading to useless cells is confusing.)

Good luck.

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply. Cells 2 and 3 are stills without audio, so I simply hid the Next button in Cell1.

I would be grat4eful for your guidance on my second question about deleting references to the hidden subtitles from the VOB files.

Another thing: There is a full set of menus in the same VTSM for two other languages (LU2 and LU3) which mirror exactly the English-language menus and are superfluous. How should I best deal with them

[r0lZ]

Not sure I understand your second question. Anyway, there is no need to delete the subpicture of the button from the VOB file, as you will not regain disc space, and the button highlight is not visible when a button is hidden. Furthermore, all buttons of a menu cell use the same subpicture(s) stream(s) (one, two or three subpic streams, depending of the aspect ratio of the menu and the authoring of the DVD), so you cannot delete it (them) if there are remaining buttons. It is possible to erase the button highlight from the subpic(s) with DVDSubEdit, but that's totally useless.

Removing useless LUs with PgcEdit is extremely easy. Select any PGC in the LU to remove, and use Menu -> Remove LU. Repeat for the second LU to remove. After that, you can strip the unreferenced LUs out of the VOB with FixVTS or VobBlanker (if you need to regain the disc space).

[VRYK]

Many thanks for your reply.
As regards the hidden subtitles buttons, the “Check Streams Remapping safety” macro detected the presence of indirect SetSTN commands. I would be grateful if you could remind me how to search all commands for the presence of “[41”.