Calling all VP4 specialists,

I made a trial VCD with VP4 to test its button control features. The content contains 2 still images and 1 mpeg track with 2 entry points. Pressing button 1 should play the first image, button 2 the second, button 3 the first entry point of the mpeg track and button 4 the second entry point on the same mpeg track.

My layout has a selection list node right on top with 4 selection items. Below it are 4 playlist nodes, each connected to an out-point of the selection list node above. The outnode of the first playlist is connected to the in-point of the 2nd playlist, the second to 3rd and so on and the last playlist is routed back to the selection list.

Problem:

1. Previous and Return button function don't work. Next function is apparently OK.

2. Return to menu cannot be activated when an selection item is playing. Previous won't work as well.

Any tips is very much appreciated.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000

Answers

Did you assign the Previous and Return paths on all your play list nodes? They are left unassigned by default.

They are also not visible in the default view. It's been a while since I worked with VP4, but there is a menu option somewhere that toggles the view and allows you to see and assign the Previous and Return paths.

-- Sean (sean@magnuminvestments.com), March 10, 2000.

Daniel,

I have been following this thread -> http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002hWd

and I am very interested in your results. VideoPack 4 documentation is not very good. I have been trying to create menus and chapter selections using VP4 for use on a Pioneer 525 but I am unable to at this time. I have one video for the lead-in (Start), one bitmap for the menu and one mpeg for the video. I have the menu set for 5 selections going into 5 playlists. The first playlist starts at 0 with the others starting later on. Each playlist (next) setting goes to the next in the sequence (1 to 2 to 3 etc)

I would rather not split up this single mpeg for chapters(ifilmedit assigning incorrect total time on split mpegs) and would rather use the entrypoint selection in VP4. I am always getting the "unable to set entry point" error doing this.

I am using the Panasonic Premiere plugin encoder.

Have you been successful in doing this and how?

Thanks,

KG.

-- KG (kevg99@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000.

Use LSX MPEG Encoder to encode your mpeg files. In LSX only you can create MPEG file with sequence header. So you can easily change the chapters through VP4. But the only problem is the LSX allows only .avi input.

-- Balaji (vaidyasr@psgvl.ps.ge.com), March 10, 2000.

Balaji,

I am not happy with the mpegs created with LSX. LSX shows way too many artifacts in the mpegs that it creates. I like panasonic's because I feel the mpegs are of much better quality. Colors are dull but less artifacts. Also for ease of use with the Premiere plugin. I have tried using MSPro6 with LSX plugin but it still leaves too many artifacts (blocky). So I guess I can not do chapters using panasonics then. If anyone has succeeding in doing this, please let us know.

KG

-- KG (kevg99@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000.

Sent privately, but reposted here for the benefit of the group: -------------------

right click the VideoCD desktop (the area where all your objects are located). Select Desktop, then uncheck Show Menu Routings.

-- Sean (sean@magnuminvestments.com), March 10, 2000.

Daniel,

How do you create entry point for your mpeg1 clip? what did you used and how? Please share it step by step. I am trying to do the same thing and was not successful. Thanks

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000.

Thanks very much for all the responses. Many thanks to Sean especially for his generosity in sharing his knowledge on how to resolve my problem. I value his contribution and I believe others may benefit from it as well.

My problem was about making a vcd with menu using VP4. The vcd I created could only NEXT to next play item but could not PREVIOUS nor RETURN to the menu. The reason behind this was that the Previous and Return paths were not assigned in my vcd structure.

I realise from the online help that there is a Default level in which a playlist node should have a PREVIOUS, NEXT and RETURN outnodes for assigning the various paths. But the default window, or video window as VP4 calls it, somehow shows only one outnode for the NEXT path. So I wasn't able to assign the other paths. Thinking that PREVIOUS and RETURN might be automatically set, I went ahead to burn the vcd. As expected, I ended up with a VCD with no PREVIOUS and no RETURN capability.

To bring out all the outnodes for the playlist, this is what Sean advised:

1. Right-click on the video window (any place outside the nodes) 2. Select Desktop in the pop-up menu. 3. Uncheck Show menu routings.

This is just what you need to do to see all the outnodes. You must do this if you want to create a menu-driven vcd with PREVIOUS and RETURN functions.

Good deed Sean for sharing this tip which you took a month to discover.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000.

Daniel,

I am understanding the previous, next and return issue. What I, and some others, still would like to know is how did you get VP4 to accept the entrypoints on your mpeg file? I believe from another thread that you were using only one mpeg video file and adding entrypoints in VP4 to the other "chapters". Is this correct? If so, can you give us step by step how this is performed? Again, I am using the panasonic encoder (Premiere plugin). I keep hearing that this encoder does not support sequence-headers at i- frame. I though you had said earlier that you were able to do it using just the i-frames ( which should be within .5 seconds of each other). When I attempt this, VP4 returns an error that it is unable to locate the entry point.

Also, do you have the Pioneer 525 DVD player? Do you see the actual 'menu buttons'? I tried another VCD using a simple 1 button menu but I am not able to see the button on the Pioneer 525.

Any help would be appreciated.

-- KG (kevg99@hotmail.com), March 10, 2000.

I have more or less figured out how to use entry points with VP4. My trial CD produced quite satisfying results. I hereby share my findings for the benefit of those still facing problem.

Below is what I did:

1. Merge 10 short mpeg clips about av. 1.5 min duration each using iFilm and record respective entry points. 2. Create a vcd structure with VP comprising a selection list and 10 playlist nodes.

3. Route the desired paths for the nodes - selection items, Previous, Next and Return.

4. Add corresponding play items to selection list and playlists. For playlists, the entry points are added in mpeg track Properties and assigned to the playlists in chronological order by highlighting appropriate time.

5. Click red record button to burn. That's all.

My vcd was burned on a CDRW at 4x(had to rush) and tested with Philips DVD725. Here's the observation:

1. Menu shows the 10 selection buttons. Number-select play item through remote control works fine.

2. Previous, Next, Return functions are ok.

3. Slight inaccuracy in entry - 1 to 2 secs earlier.

4. Last few clips a bit sticky.

Note: If selection list node has no play item, burning is not possible.

Problem in 3 may be due to the fact that I had altered the entry points. When merging the mpeg files, I took down all the end-times of every 'record' session. But somehow, after merging all the files, the entry points shifted earlier. I used the new set of entry points and the result is that the start-point is a bit too early. In other words, if I stick to the original set of timing, it might be ok.

Problem in 4 may be due to the 4x burn speed.

Hope this is helpful to K.G.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@hotmail.com), March 12, 2000.

Daniel, If I have an mpeg-1 clip which is 30 minutes long, do I have to split & merge it? Cause according to your post you are trying to create entry-points by creating I-Frames as your header info by re-joining the clip portions. To me, what I need to do is, get a 30 minutes long mpeg-1 clip and have VP4 to accept entry-points, without chopping the original clip. Is it possible ? Do enlighten me. Thanks.

-- Angel (angel@aol.com), March 12, 2000.

Concerning Angel's question above, the answer is yes. There is absolutely no need to merge files in order to use entry points. The procedure above merely shows that it works with merged files as well.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@hotmail.com), March 12, 2000.

Daniel, If so, then you don't have to go into assigning entry-points at all, simply connect the nodes as NEXT and PREVIOUS and/or create Hot-buttons, click next or previous or click on the numeric pad of your remote controller and the requested play item will play. Is this correct ? if not, do enlighten me. Thanks.

-- Angel (angel@aol.com), March 13, 2000.

Angel,

If you don't assign entry points, then where is the reference for VP4 to Previous and Next to?

The whole idea of entry points is to behave as if they are the start points of a number of mpeg files. Without these entry points, where will you link your hot buttons. Remember you are working on one mpeg file only.

Of course, if you are talking about linking a few mpeg files, you don't need entry points.

Angel, I suggest you experiment with it yourself if you have not done so.

-- Daniel Lee (siangneng@hotmail.com), March 13, 2000.

I have another question actually -- which I think has been mentioned but I couldn't find an answer -- I don't know if I am doing something wrong, but every time I try to record, and have set entry points, I always get an error from VP4 saying that it was unable to set entrypoints.... ARRGH. I have no idea what I am doing wrong!! I have tried following Daniel's description, but somehow, I feel that I am totally missing something.

-- Tom Pan (tom@ii3.com), April 19, 2001.

VideoPack 4.0 > RAW image file problem...!!! ---------------------------------------------

i too made a small demo VCD with vediopack 4.0 with complete authoring menus. i used a single file (mpg 20 MB) with 3 entrypoints, with a menu & with a introduction 10 sec. video sequence.1 it worked fine... OK i checked the final VCD with Xing player for the menu routings. every thing went fine as expected. return, previous, next - all these routings worked fine with my VCD.

for information > i use HP 8200 IDE CD-Writer - internal Drive. i use 20 GB hard disk - seagate ide drive. which i think may be useful to others.

PROBLEM ??????? --------------- what problem i face now is... for the second demo VCD i used a litter bigger mpg file > 595 MB, with a menu of 9 items + 9 entry points for that same file and also a starting intro mpg sequence for 8 secs. i made all the node, container and list connections & menu routings correct. so far every thing was correct, even i checked for the menu routings with the program and the results was correct.

inserted a CD-RW media in to my HP-CD Writer. started crkeating the VCD. menu structure verification was correct. it started creating the VCD.....

Bingoooooo !!!! now came the problem.......!!!!!! it first made the image RAW file for the intro sequence with in 3 seconds in my hard disk, then it came for my 2nd 595 MB-mpg file, which is my actual main vcd data file. just for creating 3% of RAW image file for my 595 MB mpeg file, it just took arround 2 minutes + 1.6 GigaBytes of my hard disk bytes

remember all those space for just converting 3% of 595 MB mpeg file and i finally cancelled my VCD creation process and i checked with the file in my hard disk. and the Raw file size was just arround 1.7 GB... i just got astonished...!!!!!!!

QUESTIONS ??????? ----------------- why RAW image file occupies this much amount of hard disk space ????? what if one need to create VCD for a 600 MB mpeg file, do he want to have arround 500 GB of hard disk space ????????? if this is the case, where to go for 500 GB of hard disk space ?????? is there any other method for VCD creation with videopack 4.0 ????? (i. e.) with-out creating RAW image files just like Nero-Rom software does.

if this is the only posibility, how people are doing it easily for commercial purposes ??????

if some body could help me out of this problem, please, let me have all ur solutions. regards, nana. subanana@yahoo.com

-- nature nana (subanana@yahoo.com), August 11, 2001.