Adding a still frame presentation menu on a DVDShrink reauthored DVD

Version française (texte simplifié seulement)

Scenario: You have a DVDShrink reauthored DVD, but you hate that the movie starts directly when you insert the DVD in the player. You want to have some time to sit down confortably on your sofa, and watch a neat presentation before the movie begins.

Objectives: The operation of adding the menu must be as simple and fast as possible.

Tools used:
DVDShrink v3.2.
PgcEdit (Mirror, Unofficial Mirror) v0.4.5 or more.
still_frame_menu.zip (A special DVD containing a predefined, invisible Title Menu)

First time preparation: Download the still_frame_menu.zip archive, and extract in any directory.

Assuming you have already reauthored your DVD with DVDShrink, in the folder named "shrink", let's begin.

  1. Load either the original or the reauthored DVD in PgcEdit.
    Using the preview, find a good picture that will be used as the background for your presentation menu. Save this frame as a BMP with the BMP button in the preview window.

    Remember if the image is in 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio.
    Quit PgcEdit.

  2. Open the still_frame_menu DVD in DVDShrink.
    Select the Title Menu, and set the compression to Still Image. Browse to the BMP you have saved in the previous step, et select it.

    Backup the DVD in a new folder called "menu".
    Quit DVDShrink.

  3. Open the reauthored DVD (in the "shrink" folder) in PgcEdit, et apply the macro "DVDShrink Remote Buttons". Select at least the option "Always allow the 'Title Menu' button to skip to the next title". (Note: If you don't want this option, you will be able to disable it in step 7.)
    Click on the "Continue" button to apply the macro.

  4. Right-click on the Title Menu (labelled "VMGM, LU 1 (en), 1 (dummy) TitleM") in the PGC Selector pane, and select the option "Import Menu".

    Browse to the DVD created in step 2 (in the folder "menu") and open it.
    Answer "Yes" to the two following questions.

  5. Right-click on the Title Menu again, and select "Domain Streams Attributes".
    If the aspect ratio of the BMP you saved in step 1 is 16:9, you should leave the video setup as it is (16:9, Automatic Letterbox).
    Otherwise, set the video aspect ratio to 4:3, and unselect the Automatic Letterbox checkbox. Quit the dialog box with "OK".

  6. Copy the following commands by selecting them with the mouse and pressing Control-C:

    [00 A2 00 0F 00 01 00 00]   1  if ( gprm(15) == 1 ) then { Break } 
    [71 00 00 0F 00 01 00 00]   2  Set gprm(15) =(mov) 1 
    [30 08 00 02 01 C0 00 00]   4  (CallSS) Call the VMGM PGC 2, resume cell 1 

    Now, click on the Title 1 entry in the PGC Selector (labelled "VTST 1 , 1 TTN 1 (x:xx:xx) Title 1".
    Select the label "******** post-commands" in the main pane, and click on the button "Paste Before".

    This will append the commands above as the last pre-commands of your main movie.

  7. Title Menu button options:
    As it is configured by default, the Title Menu button jumps to the next title, and jump back directly to the first title after the last one.
    If you want so, you may change this behavior to one of the following:

  8. End of playback option:
    If, in step 3, you have selected the last option of the DVDShrink Remote Buttons macro "At the end of the last title, automatically loop back to the first title", then you may want to jump back to the presentation menu instead:

    Copy the following command by selecting it with the mouse and pressing Control-C:

    [71 00 00 0F 00 00 00 00]   1  Set gprm(15) =(mov) 0 

    Select the First-Play PGC (labelled "VMG, First-Play PGC"), then click on the first label "******** pre-commands" and click on the "Paste After" button.

    This will insert the command above as the verry first command.

  9. Menu delay option:
    By default, the presentation menu will wait indefinitely until you press the Enter button on the remote.
    If you want, you may change the delay so that the movie will begin to play after a specific number of seconds:

    Double-click on the Title Menu (labelled "VMGM, LU 1 (en), 2 (0:00) 3b. ...") in the PGC Selector pane to open the PGC Editor.
    In the cells list (in the lower part of the GUI), locate the column labelled "Still Time", and change the value 255 to the number of seconds you want the presentation menu to pause. The value must be between 1 and 254 (255 means infinite pause).
    Click OK to close the PGC Editor.

  10. Save and test.

Usage of the menu

The menu button is invisible. To start the movie, you have the following options:

Resume to the movie (only useful if you have done the optional step 7): How it works

DVDShrink do not allow to save the button subpictures when reauthoring a DVD. This makes it impossible to reauthor menus.
But DVDShrink remembers the buttons definitions in the Nav Packs, even if you compress the cell with the Still Image method. Therefore, the buttons are still usable, although invisibles.
The trick used here is to use a big button, covering the whole image, so that clicking on the image will activate the invisible button.
There are also two little, hidden, auto-activating buttons, to allow the usage of the Left and Right Cursors.
The guide is just a matter of importing the menu, and adding the commands so that it is called when needed.

Discussion thread at Doom9's forum.

r0lZ

Last modified on January 3, 2005.
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