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6 Menus
There are 11 main menus which drive most of the PgcEdit functions. Each menu has several submenus.
These are discussed separately.
Note: The Menu Editor is accessible from any menu PGC which has buttons (including titles which have BOV).
6.1 File menu
Open DVD (Ctrl + o): Loads all IFO files of the selected DVD.
Save DVD (Ctrl + s): Saves the IFO files of the DVD (and any VOBs that were modified by the Menu Editor), in the original folder. The tables of VTS sectors are updated according to the VOB files contained in the folder at the time of the save operation (see also Options – When saving, leave at least 32k of space between IFO and BUP).
Reopen DVD (Ctrl + r): Reloads the IFO files of the current DVD. Use this menu if you have modified the IFO files with an external program, such as IfoEdit or just want to start over and not save your changes.
Find BOVs: Searches for buttons over video, which are buttons in the titles domain (VTST) as opposed to buttons in the menu domain (VMGM / VTSM). You may set PgcEdit to scan for these automatically when you open a DVD, as opposed to this function, which does a manual scan. See also Options – Automatically launch BOV finder when DVD is opened.
Save IFOs as: Allows you to back up the IFO files of the current DVD in another folder. Only the IFOs are backed up (not any changes to the menu VOBs) and the calculation of the VTS Sectors will be done without the VOB files (or with the VOBs present in the destination folder at the time of the backup). Therefore, the calculation will not be correct. This function is intended simply for the temporary backup of IFOs, or for future reference. Note that the destination folder of the “Save DVD” menu item is left unchanged by this operation.
New DVD: Create a new, empty VIDEO_TS.IFO in a specified folder of your choice. This file is then loaded in the editor, and may be used as a basis to import titles and menus from other DVDs.
Import VTST Titles: Import all titles of a VTS from another DVD. A new VTS is created and the global table of titles is updated. The source VTS menus are not imported. The VOB files may be copied (or moved) automatically. The original DVD commands are not modified. This task is left to you.
Create Backup (Ctrl + b), Incremental backup, Restore Backup and Delete Backup: Backup/restore and delete the IFO files, in case things turn sour! See also the Options menu. The Incremental backup renames the original PgcEdit_backup folder to one which contains the date and time it was last modified and saves your IFOs in a newly created PgcEdit_backup folder. This is very useful for progressive saving of your work.
Open Scratchbook and Save Scratchbook: Allows you to open/save the contents of the Scratchbook to/from disk.
Import PGC Commands (Ctrl + i) and Export PGC Commands (Ctrl + e): Enables you to import and export the current PGC’s commands. The Import function will overwrite the commands in the current PGC. Note that only the commands are exported. The other PGC parameters (i.e. parameters you can edit with the PGC Editor, such as the Prohibited User Operations and the cell table) are not exported. The file format is PgcEdit’s internal format (ASCII).
Import all PGC Commands and Export all PGC Commands: Same as above, but will import/export all the DVD’s PGCs in one operation. The import function will try to import all the files whose names match the current DVD’s PGCs. So, to import only some of the PGCs, you may delete or rename the files you don’t want to import.
Check DVD +/- R Size: Calculate the space used by the IFO, BUP and VOB files of the DVD source folder, and displays the used percentage of a standard capacity DVD-R or DVD+R. Note that this calculation does not take into account the possible modifications made to the IFO files loaded in PgcEdit. To obtain an accurate result, save the DVD before using this function.
Burn DVD / Create ISO: Allows you to burn your project via DVD Decrypter. An ISO image is created first on your hard drive. You will need to have mkisofs.exe and cygwin.dll installed (get these from ImgTool Classic at www.coujo.de), as well as DVD Decrypter. There is a one-time setup of the burning function – this is explained here (step 5).
Explore DVD folder (Ctrl + f): Opens the DVD folder in an Explorer window (this command available only on Windows platforms).
Quit and Kill: Exit program. The Kill menu will exit immediately, without confirmation, without saving the setups, and bypassing error messages, if any.
6.2 Edit menu
This menu is also accessible by right clicking a command. As well, the quick-click action buttons at the bottom of the main PgcEdit screen mirror the top part of this menu.
Edit Cmd (Spacebar): Call the Command Editor for the current command (see below). A command must be highlighted in the right hand pane first.
Edit PGC (Enter/Return): Call the PGC Editor for the current PGC selected in the left pane (see below).
Add Before (Ctrl + Shift + <) and Add After (Ctrl + Shift + >): add a NOP command before or after the selected command(s).
Delete (Del): Remove the selected commands.
Duplicate (Ctrl + d): Duplicate the selected commands.
Copy (Ctrl + c), Append (Insert), Cut (Ctrl + x), Paste replace (Ctrl + v), Paste before (Shift + v) and Paste after (Ctrl + Shift + v): Clipboard functions.
· Append adds the selected commands to those already present in the clipboard
· Paste replace replaces the selected commands by the contents of the clipboard
· Paste before and Paste after add the commands on the clipboard before or after the selected commands.
Decr GOTOs (Ctrl -) and Incr GOTOs (Ctrl + Plus sign): increments by -1 or 1 the number of the target line of all the GoTo (and SetTmpPML) commands contained in the selection.
Move Up (Ctrl + [) and Move Down (Ctrl + ]): Move the selected commands in the list.
Jump to Target (Ctrl + j): If the currently selected line is a Goto, this function will select the destination line. If the current line is a Jump, Call, Link or Set+Link, the function will select the destination PGC.
Undo cmds changes (Ctrl + z): Resets the current PGC commands to the original state.
Warning! This function is very limited – it only works for commands and the undo buffer is reset each time another PGC is displayed. This means that if you go to another PGC, the PGC you are leaving will lose its undo capabilities. However, you can go to the scratchbook and return to the same PGC without losing the undo.
The scratchbook also has a limited undo function, as it can be reset to whatever it defaulted to when PgcEdit was opened (see Options – Save current scratchbook as default).
Copy as text: Copies the currently selected commands exactly as they appear in the main listbox to the clipboard. You may control whether to copy the hex codes.
Append to scratchbook: Adds the selected commands to the scratchbook directly.
Delete all commands: Deletes all the commands in a PGC (but not the cell parameters).
Note: The keyboard shortcuts only work when the main pane (containing the commands) is active.
6.3 Trace menu
Trace Mode (Ctrl + t):
Toggle Trace mode on or off. You may also start trace mode by clicking the
trace toolbar icon. 
In this mode, you can ‘play’ the DVD, simulating the execution of all the DVD’s commands. In Trace mode, a new sub-window is opened in the lower part of the interface as depicted below:
Trace is a very powerful debugging tool. The controls allow you to play, stop, watch registers and PUOs, set breakpoints (at PGCs or any or all of the registers), log the trace, enter values to registers and many other things. These are described below.
Virtual player setup
The first thing you need to do is setup your virtual player to imitate the system that you play your DVDs on. Click Setup in the trace window (or from the main menu, click Trace – Virtual Player Setup) and enter the data pertaining to your setup. This data includes:
· Preferred languages for menus, audio and subtitles (and extensions – you can usually leave these at “unspecified”)
· Video screen shape and for 4:3 TVs, whether you view in letterbox or pan and scan
· Parental management country code and level (usually leave blank)
· Preferred region codes
· Your system’s audio capabilities
· Whether your player holds the program number or chapter number in SPRM 7 (small test DVD available for download on the PgcEdit homepage).
Click Save to store these settings permanently. If you wish to make a temporary change, click Use.
Preview setup
This is straightforward. You may choose whether, in trace mode, to:
· Start preview automatically when playing a cell (i.e. video is present and played). A shortcut for this is to tick the little box to the right of “Setup”. This will open the preview window and you may select whether to play the cell or fast forward through it etc. See Preview for more details.
· Automatically start preview playback – when a cell is previewed, playback is automatically started at normal speed. The other preview controls are still enabled.
· Close preview automatically at the end of a cell – this will close the preview screen when the cell has finished playing and move on to the next cell or the cell/post commands (if the last cell).
· Close preview automatically after a short delay – this will play the cell for the time specified on the playback slider down the bottom and automatically close the preview and move on to the next cell. Set the cell duration playback slider 1.0 seconds or more for this to take effect.
· Skip preview of short cells (less than 1 second) – this stops annoying black screens from popping up all the time.
The other setup options are self-explanatory.
Watching registers and other info
Trace allows you to step through the DVD in order and watch how it proceeds and how things change. On the Trace menu, click Watch and check which options you would like to view. The options are:
· Input (see below)
· GPRMs
· SPRMs
· SPRM labels
· PUOs
· Registers (GPRMs, SPRMs and Input)
“Input” shows the effect of the command and how many times the register has been set. At a break in the playback, or if you are tracing in “step mode”, you may also input your own value in the input box to see the effect of a change in command before you actually change it. You may input in decimal, hex, ASCII (for languages) or button numbers. Illegal/invalid inputs are rejected by PgcEdit.
This watch is more comprehensive, adding the registers and SPRM labels. At the start of your session, the SPRM registers will reflect your virtual player setup. During the trace, the registers are updated as each command is executed. Registers not yet used are greyed out. You can see that GPRM(12) was the last set (it is in yellow) and was set to 0, while GPRMs 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 haven’t been touched yet.
You may trace in three modes:
· Step (one command at a time)
· Next PB – traces and breaks at the next cell to play video
· Run – just play the DVD as your standalone player would
During playback, you may:
· Quickjump to any of the defined menus, which breaks the playback and goes to the menu
· Press the Next, Previous or Return buttons to skip chapters or execute the GoUp action
· Break the trace (the Run button turns into a red Break button during playback)
· Slow things down by pressing Step
· Preview the cell being played
· Eject the DVD (by pressing the load/eject button)
Notes:
· If you wish to restart the trace from the beginning, you must press the load/eject button (just think of the trace as a normal DVD player!)
· It may be necessary to “Break” the playback to click on a defined menu type or one of the Next/Prev/Return buttons.
· Trace will probably not perform properly if you don’t trace in the precise order that the DVD commands are executed. You may want to manually go to another PGC for a while but the state of the registers will most likely not be correct
· The duration slider (to the right of Run) controls the speed of the trace. Set it to meet your needs.
Breakpoints are events that stop the execution of the DVD’s commands. You may set breakpoints at any or all of the following:
· When any or all of the GPRMs and SPRMs have just been written to (a Register Breakpoint)
· At the start of the pre- or post commands of one or more PGCs (a PGC Pre/Post Breakpoint)
· At the start of playback of one or more PGCs (a PGC Playback Breakpoint)
· All menus
· All titles
· When specific user selected characters (e.g. SetSTN) are written to the log (log output)
When the trace is halted for whatever reason, you may click on the value showing in a register to give it focus in the input box, where you can input values of your own, if you wish (and see other pertinent data for that register – e.g. Set count, value in hex).
Start playback again with the Step, Next PB or Run buttons.
Shortcuts
· Left click a register number (either GPRM or SPRM) in the watch list to set a Register Breakpoint (register will turn red).
· Set a pre/post breakpoint with Ctrl + Shift + t (PGC will turn red in PGC Selector).
· Set a playback breakpoint with Ctrl + Alt + t (PGC will turn blue in PGC Selector)
· (If both a Pre/Post and Playback breakpoints have been set for a PGC, it will turn purple)
· Right click in the log and select Search to bring up the log search box. Set a “break on log output” by ticking the Break box and entering the characters you wish to break on in the search box (note that you can only define one log breakpoint at a time and you may also use the case and regular expression options)
These controls are toggles. Repeat them to turn off the breakpoints.
You may also set a breakpoint by holding down the shift key and left-clicking on a PGC in the PGC Selector. First click is the pre/post breakpoint, the next is a playback breakpoint, the third is both pre/post and playbacks and fourth turns off all breakpoints.
You may also clear all PGC breakpoints in the main menu (Trace – Clear all PGC breakpoints) or the Breakpoints menu of the Trace screen.
Trace State
This menu allows you to:
· Remember and restore all GPRMs and SPRMs whenever you wish. (You might like to remember your registers before experimenting in the input box, or before manually moving to another PGC to do something there and restore them after your return)
· Clear the register changed flags (greys out everything in the watch and while not changing the value in the register, it changes the state to unused)
· Clear the highlights from the PGCs that have been visited
Trace allows you to copy registers used as commands. Optionally, you can append the commands to the Scratchbook.
The difference between “used” and “changed” commands is as described in Trace State. If you clear the register changed flags, you can run through the DVD and break and then copy the registers which have changed since then. On the other hand, at the same point in time, “copy used registers” will copy all registers in use.
Trace Log
During the trace, the log records every action of the DVD. You may choose to limit this with the Log filter in the Log menu. So, if, for example, you are only interested in comparisons, you would only log IF conditions.
At any point, you may log the registers. The Log menu contains commands to Log all GPRMs/SPRMs now.
At any break in playback, you may right click in the log window to bring up a menu where you can:
· Show the log in a text viewer
· Select all the log and copy it
· Search the log (and set a log output breakpoint)
· Save the log as a text file
· Clear the log
· Force the log of a particular register (by clicking on its value in the watch window and then clicking on the green or yellow field in the input window).
Even if you have closed Trace and re-open it later, the log and the trace will be intact (providing you have not opened a new DVD or re-opened the current project).
Expand (and contract) the log window with the + button on the lower left of the log.
6.4 Preview menu
The preview window is a little DVD player (without the audio), where you can Play the PGC, go forward or back by an I-frame at a time (> or <) or by 5 frames at a time (>> or <<). You may advance forward to the next cell (Cell+) or back to the previous one (Cell-). You may also make a bitmap of the current frame by pressing the BMP button. Pressing Shift-BMP will make a graphic in the PPM format. Checking the info box will give information about the cell being played, including its VOB/Cell ID, aspect ratio, frame rate, time, the sector being displayed, number of buttons (if a menu) etc.
Toggle play on and off with the spacebar.
The options in the preview menu are available only under Windows or Linux (if you have installed WINE).
Preview PGC (`/~ above the Tab key): Launch the preview for the current PGC. All cells are shown, in sequence of the cell table of the PGC. To see a particular cell, you can also use the Play button (at the extreme right) in the cell table of the PGC Editor. The preview is also available in the menu button viewer and in Trace mode. In the Preview window, you can toggle the Always On Top mode in the little system menu of the Preview window and you can change the default window size with the Options -> Preview video screen size menu.
Preview full domain VOB(s): Shows the whole VOB file (or files) of the current domain. This is helpful if you wish to preview the content of the whole domain before blanking all PGCs.
Automatically start Preview playback: If this option is checked, when the preview window is launched, playback will begin immediately.
Full Size, Medium Size, Small Size. Allows you to change the default size of the preview window and of the menu button viewer.
Disable DirectDraw overlays: Direct draw overlays use the very low level overlay buffer, which is much faster than the usual way of displaying video to the screen. However, PgcEdit has no idea what is being displayed so you can’t take snapshots of the GUI while this option is selected (but you can make BMPs of what’s inside it). On some systems it may actually be faster to disable DirectDraw. As well, Linux users should disable DirectDraw overlays, otherwise the display will crash.
Use Preview? (requires restart): This is self-explanatory – turns preview on! If Preview is causing problems or is not supported (eg Mac/Linux without WINE), then use this option to turn it off. With preview off, the menu button viewer will still work but will not show backgrounds.
6.5 Utilities menu
Title Play Map table: Displays the global table of the DVD Titles (VMG_TT_SRPT), and enables you to modify the Prohibited User Operations (PUOs) defined in this table.
Domain Streams Attributes: Allows you to modify all the stream attributes of the current domain (VMGM menu, VTSM menu or VTST title).
Region Code: Allows you to modify or clear (region free) the region code of the DVD. There is also a button to launch a search for “sprm(20:player region code)” in all the DVD commands. Some DVDs (mainly region 1) use this SPRM to check the player region code.
Filter Prohibited User Operations: Selectively removes some of the prohibited operations, separately for all the menus of the Video Manager, for all the menus of the Title Sets, for all the Titles, and for the global table of Titles. Note that there can still be PUOs in the VOB files. These PUOs are not accessible to PgcEdit, which only deals with IFO files. To eliminate these, rip the disk with DVD Decrypter using the setting remove PUOs in VOBs.
Enable Navigation Buttons: Allows you to use:
· The Previous button on the remote when you are in the first chapter to jump back to the beginning of the chapter (menu and title domains)
· The Next button on the remote when in the last chapter to jump to the end of the title (menu and title domains)
· The Return (GoUp) button to jump to the beginning of the title (title domain only).
· The Return (GoUp) button on the remote to either go back to the beginning of the current PGC or resume playback of the last visited title (menu domain only)
Note that these buttons are not reassigned if they already have a programmed function and the “Next Chapter” will be changed only if there are post-commands in the PGC.
You may apply any or all of these selectively to:
· The current PGC only
· All PGCs in the current domain
· All titles on the DVD (this is usually a good idea)
· All PGCs of the Video manager.
Remove Parental Management: Removes the table and references related to parental management prohibitions. The function replaces also all SetTmpPML with GOTO commands. Therefore, the DVD will be played regardless of the parental level setup of the player.
Note: SPRM 13 (which holds the current parental level of the player) may be tested by the PGC commands. This situation is not modified by the utility. Therefore, some restricted content may still be prohibited. You will need to change all occurrences of SPRM 13 to the constant value 15 to fully remove parental management prohibitions. For example, if you encounter Set gprm(0) = (mov) sprm (13), you would change this to Set gprm(0) = (mov) 15. The utility asks if you want to search for SPRM (13) and shows you if there are any occurrences, which you can change manually.
Blank out all PGCs in Domain (Ctrl + Delete): Modify all the PGCs in the current domain (either menus or titles) of the VTS to inhibit the playback of these PGCs, and replace the VTS VOBs by a tiny 10k blank or optionally, by a ‘feature removed’ imported clip (or, at your option, completely remove the VOB for menus). You also have the choice of killing the playback of this little ½ second VOB (which is usually a good idea). Select “kill playback when it’s safe” and let PgcEdit figure out whether to kill the playback or not for you.
Blank out all Title PGCs in DVD: This utility goes through each titleset and asks if you want it blanked. The same options are available as for the Blank out all PGCs in Domain above. This feature is useful if you have a DVD with several titlesets and you only want to keep the one with the main movie (say Cancel to that any you don’t want blanked). Just use this utility to blank out the rest of them in one easy command.
New Menu: Replaces all the PGCs of the menu of the current VMGM or VTSM. New Menu creates a single PGC (a Title Menu if the current PGC belongs to VMGM or a Root Menu if it is in a VTSM). No video is associated with the new menu. This makes it possible, for example, to jump to the First-Play PGC when you use the remote control Title or Root Menu buttons. Of course, you will have to modify the menu commands according to your needs.
Import Menu: Replaces the current menu with another one, extracted from another DVD. By contrast with IfoEdit’s function “Merge Menu Tables”, Import Menu makes it possible to import a VMGM menu into a VTSM menu, or vice versa (but it is not always recommended!). Moreover, Import Menu also copies the menu VOB file if requested.
Remove Menu: Remove all the data (and if desired, the VOB file) related to the current VMGM or VTSM menu.
Remove LU: Click on any PGC in a language unit (LU) and use this utility to remove the entire language unit from the particular menu (VTSM or VMGM). You will need to do this for all unwanted LUs in all VTSs. This utility removes all traces of the LU from the IFOs (leaving the cells unreferenced) but does not strip them out of the VOBs – to do this, you should process the menus with VobBlanker. Note: You can not remove the last LU of a VTS – to do this, use the Remove Menu utility.
Set Menu Type: This allows you to modify the menu type of the current menu PGC to a Title menu for VMGM and a Root, SubPic, Audio, Angle or Chapter menu for VTSM.
Show/Edit Menu Buttons or BOVs (Ctrl + m): Displays the button layout of the current menu, and the commands associated with them and allows you to edit them with the Menu Editor. The “Jump to Target” button loads the target PGC of the current button command in the main window (if the target is another PGC), or loads the target Program or Cell in the Menu Button viewer (if the target is a Program or Cell within the current PGC). Note that you can use the keyboard arrow keys to select adjacent buttons, exactly like a remote control.
Swap Menu LUs: Swap two LUs (language units), including all their PGCs. This may be used to test one particular LU with IfoEdit or to set the default LU for players that do not allow you to change the default menu language in the setup menu.
Copy LU cmds to other LUs: Copy all commands of all PGCs of the source LU to all other LUs. Normally, all LUs share the same structure, only the video data is different. So this utility allows you to modify the commands in your preferred LU, and then to automatically modify the other LUs accordingly.
New dummy PGC: Create a new PGC. You must select a PGC before calling this function. The new PGC will be created after all PGCs in the same group (for example, at the end of the current Menu LU). You may create this in the menu or title domain, but be aware that dummy PGCs not associated with a title in the title domain are off spec. PgcEdit automatically does this for you.
Clone current PGC: This utility makes a copy of the current PGC, including all the cell values and adds it as a new PGC at the end of the LU. Note, it will be unreferenced. Use this function if you wish to manually re-order a menu or to duplicate a PGC and change some of the parameters in it (e.g. delete some cells).
Swap or copy menu PGC: This utility will swap 2 PGCs around or copy one PGC over another (and in so doing, lose the cells of the PGC that is copied over). To use it, select a PGC, call the utility, select a source PGC and choose whether to swap the two or copy over the original. You have the choice of swapping the commands or not, and the PGC/cell values (streams, cell table, color table etc) or not.
Note that swapping things around will not change the references in other PGCs – if they originally referred to your original PGC, then they will now refer to the swapped/copied one which stands in its place at the same PGC number. You will therefore need to do some (and possibly quite a bit of) re-authoring of the VM commands. This command can not be undone with Ctrl z.
Use of this function is similar to that of Clone PGC.
New ‘Play All’ Title: Create a new PGC with all the VOB/Cell IDs of the current VTS. This PGC plays the whole video of the titleset. This may be handy for a multi-episode DVD, which doesn’t have an option to play all the episodes as a whole. Only applicable to the titles domain.
Delete last PGC in Domain: Deletes the last PGC (title or menu domain). Useful if you have an unreferenced PGC that you have no further need for any more. To delete multiple PGCs, use the Utilities tearoff menu and repeatedly click on this command. Beware of going too far though and only delete unreferenced PGCs! Note: You may only delete titles beginning with the last one on the DVD and may not delete the last remaining PGC from a VTS.
Delete All Commands in Domain: Keeps the PGC and cell structure but eliminates all their commands. The cell tables are not touched. This can be useful if you wish to author your DVD’s commands yourself. Note: This command may not be undone with Ctrl z. If you make an error, re-open the DVD.
Set Provider ID: Edit the name of the DVD provider (a field in VIDEO_TS.IFO/VMGM_MAT that IfoEdit does not let you modify).
Set DVD-TEXT General Name: Create or modify the General Name (and Movie Name) of the DVD. Some DVD players (multi-disc, most of the Sony players) can display this name to identify the DVD. This name is part of the data in VMG_TXTDT_MG. If the VMG_TXTDT_MG does not exist, it will be created.
Remove DVD-TEXT data: Disregard all the DVD-TEXT information of the DVD. Caution: The entire VMG_TXTDT_MG is erased, and not just the general name of the DVD.
6.6 Info menu
PGC: Displays the current PGC commands and various parameters (including the cell table) pertaining to the PGC. Also displays the menu button commands and other information, if applicable. You may save/copy the commands from the text viewer if you wish.
Title Play Map table: This is a text-dump of the global table of Titles of the DVD (VMG_TT_SRPT). See also Utilities - Title Play Map Table.
DVD commands: Display the commands of all the PGCs of the DVD. The commands are displayed in a window and can be saved to disc and searched. This function also lists the menu button commands, if applicable. Complex DVDs may take some time to perform this function.
PGCs params and Cell Tables: Displays the PGC parameters of all the PGCs of the entire DVD. This includes the PGC’s playback and still times, PUOs, Next, Prev and GoUp links, and for cells with video, a dump of the cell table, as well as the PGC’s stream attributes.
Menu Buttons commands: Displays the commands of all the buttons of every menu in the DVD. The button info display is set out by VTS and within each VTS, by VOB/Cell ID. Also includes the location of the first NavPack for each VOB cell.
Go to calling command (Ctrl + g): Displays a popup window showing every PGC which calls the PGC and the command which calls it. Clicking on a calling command goes to that command. Click on the New Target button to do a Go to calling command on that PGC or click on Return to target to go back to the original PGC.
The calling commands are color coded depending upon where they come from:
· Light Green – Menu PGC command
· Pink – Menu button command
· Light Blue – Title PGC command
· Light Purple – Button Over Video command
· Light Grey – Next/Prev/GoUp PGCN links
Calls cross references (Ctrl + h): For every PGC in the DVD, lists all the commands that branch to this PGC. At the end of the output, a list of all unreferenced PGCs is also displayed. You will be asked before this executes, whether you wish to delete all the commands in unreferenced PGCs and if PGCs with unreferenced menus are encountered, whether you wish to delete the menu (so you may strip it out later with VobBlanker or IfoEdit). In this way, by iterating the command, you may “clean up” the DVD of authoring remnants and unreferenced material.
Streams: Display the attributes of the video, audio and sub-picture streams of all the DVD Title Sets (including menus).
Find Unused GPRMs: Displays a list of the 16 GPRMs and their usage in the DVD. This includes commands in the menu buttons and buttons over video. Note that (if you are searching for a spare GPRM) you may safely delete the command that uses a GPRM that is only referenced once in the DVD.
6.7 Macros Menu
Kill PGC Playback (Ctrl + k): IfoEdit can disable the playback of a menu, provided that it does not have buttons. It cannot disable the playback of a Title. This function, on the other hand, can be used indifferently for titles and menus with or without buttons. The macro modifies the commands of the current PGC so that the video is not displayed when the PGC is executed. It does this by copying the post commands to the end of the pre commands and changing any commands that play the video to point to the post commands.
If you have killed playback on a menu PGC (and the cell is not re-used elsewhere), PgcEdit will offer to remove all references to this particular cell (and in so doing, convert it to a dummy menu) so you can strip it with VobBlanker. To save space, accept this option and process your menus with VobBlanker.
Enable all operations: Removes all Prohibited User Operations (PUOs) from the current PGC, and enables the Prev, Next and Return buttons of the remote, where applicable. (See also Utilities - Enable Navigation Buttons)
Reset Used GPRMs to 0: This macro will insert the commands to reset all GPRMs that are used in at least one PGC in the DVD to 0. This may be used before a jump to the FP-PGC to ensure that the DVD will restart in the same state as when the disc is inserted. It is best to reset only the used GPRMs, so that other macros that may need one (or several) unused GPRMs will find them.
Jump to PGC upon DVD insert: This macro allows you to jump to any PGC (mainly menus or titles) immediately upon insertion of the DVD, by-passing all the annoying trailers and studio promos. You may also set your desired audio and subtitle streams in the process. See here for a complete guide to this macro.
Import First-Play (startup) Clip, Import Title’s Intro Clip and Import Title’s Closing Clip: These macros import a title from another DVD and modify the DVD’s commands to play the imported title at DVD startup, or before or after the selected title. Note that the first two macros need an unused GPRM to operate.
DVDShrink Streams Remapping: This macro checks whether you may safely use DVD Shrink’s Logical Remapping of Enabled Streams preference with the current DVD. The macro explains in detail what the risks are (essentially, DVD Shrink cannot modify commands which indirectly set streams resulting in menus which do not work) and this thread also goes through the theory behind this DVD Shrink option.
DVDShrink Remote Buttons: In re-author mode, DVD Shrink (http://www.dvdshrink.org) can put several titles, one after another, on the same DVD. When a title is finished playing, the next title is played automatically. Unfortunately, it is not possible to go directly to a precise title, because there is no menu. 2COOL wrote a very clever guide suggesting a solution to this problem: Using Title Menu Button to Skip Titles in Re-authored DVD Shrink Movies (see here). But this procedure is relatively complex and slow to implement, especially when there are many titles on the DVD. Therefore, I wrote this macro to the procedure. It can be used only on a DVD generated by DVD Shrink in Re-author mode (but probably also works with Nero Recode in the same mode), and allows you to use the Title Menu button on your remote control to jump directly to the following title. This macro also enables the Previous and Next Chapter buttons in respectively the first and last chapter of a title, and the Return button to return to the beginning of the current title. The macro also automatically makes the playback return to the first title when the last title has finished playing.
Fix number of streams in VMGM/VTSI_MAT tables: After blanking titles, it is usual for the audio and subtitle streams in the blanked title to be disabled. This can have adverse effects (see here) and so this macro examines all domains of the DVD and reports if the streams can be safely disabled or not. Answer yes when asked if you want to fix them up. Note, if you re-enable these blanked streams, they will also be selectable by the remote.
Note also, that you can do the same check on a single domain – just use the Domain Stream Attributes utility.
6.8 Tools menu
The Tools menu is a configurable menu in which you can define external programs, which can be run from inside PgcEdit.
Configure Tools: Configuration of the Tools menu. As an example, here’s how to configure IfoEdit.
(a) Select the Configure Tools menu item and click on the Add New button.
(b) In the Label field, type IfoEdit.
(c) The Application field must contain the complete path to IfoEdit.exe. Navigate to it by clicking on the “…” at the right of the field.
(d) Click on the “?” to the right of the Arguments field and examine the definitions of what these mean and choose what’s best for each application you configure. In this case it is “%p\%i” (with quotation marks), which means the VIDEO_TS folder and the current IFO filename. (A good one for VobEdit would be “%p\%v”).
(e) Click on the “…” on the right of the Working Folder field and choose the appropriate folder for your application. In this case, it’s the VIDEO_TS folder and PgcEdit automatically inserts %p for you.
(f) Then, if you want both applications to remain open and be able to independently work on the DVD, check only Run application in background. Caution: there is a risk you might modify the same file in two different programs so use this option only for programs that do not modify the DVD (e.g. your software player).
(g) If, on the other hand, you want IfoEdit to be launched as a function of PgcEdit:
(i) Uncheck Run in application background
(ii) Check Save DVD before launching application (this is not strictly necessary if you are just testing some changes and do not plan to make other changes)
(iii) Check Iconify PgcEdit when application is running (this will minimise PgcEdit to the taskbar and not permit it to be opened) and
(iv) Check Reopen DVD after application is closed (this will reopen the DVD in PgcEdit after you’re done in the other app).
(h) This way when you launch IfoEdit, PgcEdit will save the IFOs, then will be disabled while IfoEdit is running, and finally will reload the IFO files (possibly modified by IfoEdit), before being activated again. This is the safest way of running a program which modifies the IFOs or VOBs (e.g. VobBlanker, DVD Shrink, IfoEdit, VobEdit, MenuShrink).
(i) To finish, click on OK, then on Save (to preserve the setup on HD) or on Use (for the current session only).
(j) Test your newly configured application by pressing Test
(k) Once all is complete, pressing F1 on your keyboard will now launch IfoEdit with the IFO you are currently working on (the VTS highlighted in the PGC Selector).
As you configure more tools, they will correspond to other F keys in order. You may change the order of your applications with the Move up and Move down buttons in the Configure Tools submenu. Note: The separator does not take up an F key – it is just a way of bunching up like applications together.
Tick Display application output to enable the application’s DOS output to the console in a dialog box.
You can, of course, launch anything that has a CLI from PgcEdit. Typical applications include those mentioned in (h) above plus your software players.
6.9 View menu
Toolbar, PGC Selector and Edit Buttons: Show or hide those GUI parts.
PGC Selector side: With this submenu, you can choose the placement and height (if top or bottom) of the PGC Selector.
Edit Buttons: Turning this option on will show the edit buttons down the bottom of the GUI. This is very handy.
Tcl Calculator/Converter: This is a small calculator and decimal/hexadecimal/ASCII converter. CAUTION! This calculator uses the Tcl syntax, which is somewhat unusual! In particular, a calculation which uses only integers will give an integer result! For example: 3 / 2 gives 1, whereas 3 / 2.0 gives 1.5.
You can enter a number in hexadecimal form (0x0A), octal (012), or decimal (10). You can also enter an ASCII text of at the most 3 characters in the little box at the right, to convert it to integer. The language codes used on DVDs are codes of 2 letters in lower case, for example, “en” (25966) for English, “fr” (26226) for French. Pressing Enter carries out the calculation, and the result is displayed in the lower field. If the result is an integer, it is also displayed in hexadecimal and ASCII.
Note that by using the above prefixes, you may type a number in hexadecimal, octal or ASCII directly in most of PgcEdit’s numerical fields.
The Tcl Calculator has many other math functions: for example entering pow(2,5)+3 raises 2 to the power of 5 and adds 3 with a result of 35. For a full list of available math functions, see here.
6.10 Options menu
The Options menu lets you configure PgcEdit (except for the programs of the Tool menu, which is configured separately). Most of the options are self-explanatory.
The Install sub-menu creates shortcut icons and file associations. This sub menu is not present if you use PgcEdit.tcl with an external Tcl/Tk interpreter, or under Linux or Mac. If you wish to open PgcEdit directly by double clicking a file type, it is wise to associate BUPs with PgcEdit. Other programs (such as your software player) may like to have IFOs to themselves.
Ticking Launch Open DVD dialog at startup will make PgcEdit offer to open a DVD folder (or file) for you when PgcEdit is launched. Unchecking this option will start PgcEdit in Scratchbook mode and you will need to open your DVD “manually” via the File – Open command (or toolbar button).
Start in Trace mode (when a DVD is opened at startup) will open PgcEdit in Trace Mode when PgcEdit is started and a DVD is selected to load.
Use file browser instead of folder browser for open/save enables you to browse by file instead of by folder when opening or saving a DVD. Note: Folder browsing enables you to open the DVD simply by selecting a folder containing DVD files. If you browse by file, you will need to select a DVD file.
Selecting Automatically launch BOV finder when a DVD is opened will launch the button over video (buttons in the titles domain) find routine whenever a DVD is opened. This is usually not too bad after the first analysis of a DVD, however, it can get monotonous if you are reloading your project quite often. You may wish to turn this off and simply use File -> Find BOVs to detect BOVs.
Show toolbar, PGC Selector and Edit Buttons at startup is a handy way to access the important PgcEdit functions via the toolbar (see below), PGC selector and Edit buttons (down the bottom). However, those who prefer more screen space may wish to turn some or all of these off.
Create backup when a DVD is opened for the first time – this creates a backup of your IFOs in case you mess up. It is also a repository of VOBs that are blanked. Leave this option on!
Store PgcEdit_Backup folder in parent of VIDEO_TS folder allows you to select where you want the backup folder to be stored, either within the VIDEO_TS folder or in its parent folder, alongside VIDEO_TS. There is no issue with storing it in either location, and this will not affect the burning of your project (if you burn with PgcEdit), however, you may run into conflicts, if you are working on several projects, each storing their backup folders in the parent.
When saving, leave at least 32k of space between IFO and BUP is a way of ensuring that errors on a disk are not fatal by placing the IFO and BUP too close together. This function will save the sector references in a non-standard way, leaving “padding” where blanking has occurred. Note that if you save the DVD in another application such as IfoEdit, DVD Shrink, Nero, these sector references will be recalculated by those programs and the padding will be lost. So only use this in conjunction with a burn through PgcEdit (or ImgTools Classic, or any burning program using mkisofs under Linux or MacOSX). See here for a guide on burning with PgcEdit.
If Auto-adjust Command Editor to contents is checked, the Command Editor’s height will change whenever you select another command, so that the GUI fits exactly in the window. This is a handy space saver.
Allow Menu Tearoffs adds a dotted line as the first element of each menu. Selecting (clicking on) this dotted line allows you to detach the menu as a floating window which you can place wherever you want. You may use this, for example, to change several options at once in a torn off menu. Do NOT use this option with Tcl/Tk Aqua on Mac.
If Popup menus on right mouse button released is checked, then the right click menus appear only on the release of the button, instead of its click.
Hi-lite Errors and GOTO Targets will show errors in pink/red and GOTO targets in yellow. This makes it easier to see at a glance where the command is leading and if there are problems (e.g. a command may be legal but going to an invalid location – eg Jump to Title 99, where no title 99 exists).
Auto renumber GOTOs when commands added/removed will renumber the target line numbers of the GOTO commands when you insert or delete lines in the same section of a PGC. Leave this option checked. But, be careful: the GOTOs that are WITHIN a copied/pasted block are not renumbered!
Include [hex codes] in main listbox and in Info / commands dumps shows the hex codes for the commands (in square brackets) together with the interpreted commands. Leaving this off will show only the disassembled code. Many people may find it easier to view the screens with this option off.
Expert Mode suppresses most messages and dialogue boxes. If you are not a master of this program, do NOT turn this on.
Set current search string as default allows you to open PgcEdit with your desired search string in the search box at the bottom.
Global font enables you to change the default font for PgcEdit (which is MS Sans Serif 8 point on the Windows platform). Restart to make this change take effect.
Fixed width font enables you to select a font for items which display in a fixed width.
Use custom colors for GUI enables you to choose your own color for PgcEdit’s background.
Select web browser… will allow Linux and Mac users to easily access the PgcEdit homepage, online documentation and DVD-Replica online help in the Command Editor.
Save settings allows you to save your options and other setup choices (e.g. preview size and trace virtual player), while Restore defaults will take you back to the state of the program at installation.
The last option, Save current scratchbook as default, will remember your current Scratchbook from session to session. Selecting the Undo function when in Scratchbook mode reloads the default commands.
Note: Some options of the Trace mode are also saved with the options of this menu.
6.11 Help menu
Here’s where you access:
· this document
· the version history
· the licence terms governing the use of PgcEdit
· the international ISO639 language codes
· the PgcEdit homepage and
· the credits