Pioneer 525 and vcds with menus or stills

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has anyone made a vcd with menus or stills that the pioneer 525 read, but while showing the menu or stills? I made a clip once with i-author, it ignored the menu but showed the clip. thanks.

PS If so what program/technique did you use. i have tried a few things but cannot get it to read still pics. oh and as long as its not the i-author program

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), February 29, 2000

Answers

Doug my VideoPack4 menu based VCD played OK on a 525 in Mexico.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), February 29, 2000.

This is a quirk with all Pioneers that read CD-Rs (414, 525, 301k): sometimes they read still pics (such as those for menus), sometimes they don't. If the still has sound, the sound will play but the screen is blank. If the still has no sound it may or may not play. If the still represents a menu, the TV screen is black/blank but the choices on the menu are still valid as if it was visible. I've tried authoring on Easy CD Deluxe because it is one of those garden CD-R mastering apps that at least allow one-level menus. To get Easy CD to accept a still MPEG I've rendered a bitmap on the Ulead Video Studio 4 timeline 640x480 to VCD-compliant. Sometimes it gets accepted as a valid MPEG file by Easy CD, sometimes not. During those times it does during preparation for conversion to a *.dat file to be put in the segment directory of the VCD sometimes Easy CD hangs, more so with ver 4 than any of its predecessors ver 3.01x or 3.5x. Anyway if I'm successful no Pioneer wants to display the still. The Philips does, though. Interestingly Pioneer plays original pressed-CD karaoke VCDs properly, stills for the menus and all. I inspect the properties of these stills (VBR=140KB/s, audio=N/A, etc.) and try to emulate them as much as I can with the Ulead (which uses Ligos LSX engine for MPEG encoding) on those bitmaps I wish to turn into VCD stills with no success on the Pioneer. On original ver 2.0 VCDs, one other thing I noted is that on opening with Xing3.30, file properties show that said MPEG still has 2 video streams (!) Can anyone enlighten me on this?? I was once told it has to do with how bitmaps and JPEGs are encoded into MPEG stills for use with VCDs. Apparently this is more difficult to do than encoding audio/video streams for true blue tracks that correspond to White Book. Stills with or without audio will fall into the segment directory of a VCD (if authoring went wihtout a hitch), and anything inside the segment directory can have audio and video properties that are within a range that's up to the user to set. Maybe that's why Panasonic doesn't encode single bitmaps and Xing does only with audio (again not viewable on the Pioneer). We fortunately have VideoPack and it more or less is able to encode these images properly such that the Pioneer recognizes them and displays them. But in the finished VCD, if those itemxxxx.dat stills are extracted and used again in Easy CD something again goes wrong somewhere and Pioneer doesn't display them. I was about to plonk down $200 for I-Author for VCD but I guess now I have to wait and see. We all wait for a competent, stand-alone or plug-in application, not so expensive, that is able to accept JPEGs and BMPs without fuss and then encode them into MPEG stills, standard- and hi-res, that can independently be used in the VCD ver 2.0 authoring application of our choice, such as wretched Easy CD, and the resulting VCD playable in Pioneer and Philips DVD set-tops, stills and all. CeQuadrat knows it has jewel on its hands that's probably why the MPEG encoding engine for stills is an integral part of WinONCD 3.7 and VideoPack.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), March 01, 2000.

FYI EMatinez, I did used I-author to make a one level menu with an SVCD. The still did not display until I press the next clip button. It display the menu for about 1 minute and then play the clip. I don't know why that is. I will investigate further with VCD this time.

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), March 01, 2000.

Doug .-

Last weekend I made my first Photo Album on a VCD. I used Cequadrat WinOnCD 3.7 PE ( German Version ). That software comes with a PhotoAlbum option which creates the menus and the flow of content automatically.

The pictures were High Resolution Stills ( 704x480 pixels ). And they show beautiful on my Pioneer DV-525 NTSC. I love it.

The American retail version of the Cequadrat WinOnCD 3.7 PE will be available by May as many retail stores confirmed.

I-Author on VCD 2.0 also can do it. This week I will finish of good Photo Album with I-Author.

Hope this helps you.

-- Roberto Gomez Torres (robertogt@bigfoot.com), March 01, 2000.


thanks everyone for all your info

ROBERTO i too have some foreign edition of win but my pioneer did not read the photo cd i made. Did i do something wrong? what did you do? thanks

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 01, 2000.



Roberto

Did you get the same timing of the "slides" on a computer and on a DVD player, my software players from Cyberlink did not cope with that and I have not tried again with the Hollywood card with a full show.

In VP4 I found that only those with a sound track actually played correctly on both computer and DVD. I have had trouble at my work site actually playing menu based VCD's and have had to actually click the screen to make it go from one menu to another, or even come back to the menu at the end of the play item. The old 233 at home does not have that problem at all.

The Hollywood card software does not cope with VP4 menus automatically it goes directly to the first video track, but once you force it to the first menu every thing plays OK - sure are lots of little problems.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 01, 2000.


Doug .-

I will put a tutorial on how to make a VCD Photo Album on my Web Site. I will put one for users of Cequadrat WinOnCD PE 3.7, another for users of Cequadrat VideoPack 4.0 and finally one for the new users of EnRich I-Author Deluxe 1.0. In English and in Spanish. The first will be the one for WinOnCD PE 3.7. Starting this afternoon. The link will be posted when finished.

Ross .-

The VCD Photo Albums that I had created are not time based. For example, WinOnCD PE 3.7 creates photo albums where the picture freezes on the TV screen until you push the RETURN, NEXT or the PREVIOUS buttons on your DVD player remote control.

I can tell that this high resolution stills ( 704x480 NTSC ) photo albums look terrific on my TV screen, but can not tell the same when viewed on the computer using a PC VCD player software. At this time I have not found a good VCD Player for the PC which can respect the resolution and timing of High Resoluton Stills and Menus.

In my opnion, the problem is not with your computer or with your new card, IS THE SOFTWARE PLAYER. The authors only get worry about the Video content playback, missing the other features of the VCD like the resolution of the menus and the high res stills.

After all, the VCD is a CD Physical format developed for be seen on our TV.

Wait for the turorials .....

-- Roberto Gomez Torres (robertogt@bigfoot.com), March 02, 2000.


Roberto

Thanks for that, doing the equivalent of that in VP4 with individual play items is a long exercise and with Vp4's timing inconsistancies from the option for stills and music its not worth it in lots of cases. Guess thats why I mpeg stream my stills to get consistancy and accept that on the computer the still is not as good as it is from the set top DVD to a TV.

Roberto you have one of my PAL VCD's with something like a 100 stills in a mpeg stream generated from my digital camera's low definition option of 25:1 jpegs. 7:1 high definition jpegs are marginally better and only 3 are based on 7:1's on that VCD. Trouble with that VCD is that my quality is now 2 notches higher in processing, the last notch comes from using the free bbMPEG encoder. The menus on that VCD are "high definition" Vp4 stills as well, done in photoshop.

I do not understand that every one seems to see different qualities for the "high definition" stills options in the burner software. I produce my stills in Photoshop 5.5 as jpegs and there is no difference in the still when viewed from a burnt VCD to what I see when I view it in photoshop at 100% size. I burnt a demonstration test VCD last night for Doug with the VP4 high defintion stills option as part of the test and if I play those on the computer there is no difference at all from the original, none!

Indeed, I just played the item####'s from the segment folder on this PC with both of my Cyberlink players and there is no difference at all from the jpeg originals, so I do not really understand all the fuss. I have done the same test with NTSC formated stills with the same results. Windows Media player does not play them correctly so you cannot compare using that software.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 02, 2000.


This WinOnCD 3.7 PE has me piqued and am looking forward to perusing it further. Especially for Mr Torres now, I have to pose these questions, though: 1. Quite naturally now itemxxxx.dat files galore will fill the segment directory after completion of our VCD-authoring and subsequent burning. Is it then possible to take any of these itemxxxx.dat files, extract them back to the .mpg files they once were and then use the resulting .mpg or .mpv in other applications like kvetchy Easy CD?? I am hoping that now Easy CD will then recognize them as hi-res (704x480) stills if that's what they really were to begin with. 2. Will this WinOnCD3.7 allow stills with sound?? Will it in fact allow complete ver 2.0 VCD authoring? This photo album thing is in fact a ver 2.0 VCD, but I like to know whether or not selections in the menu from a 3.7-authored VCD can point to complete AV tracks such as those in the mpegav directory. 3. Is the bmp/jpeg-to-still mpeg converter an internal driver/dll inside 3.7 such that it is only invoked during creation of this photo album or can it be called upon when I want by itself to do it (much like Panasonic being a stand-alone converter for encoding AVIs to White Book-compliant MPEGs)?? I have to say here I'm looking for ammo to pound Adaptec with; Easy CD, in all of its versions and incarnations, has always said it will take properly encoded MPEG stills, standard- & hi-res, and accept them in the authoring process. It seems we may finally have such bonafide MPEG stills (thanx to WinOnCD?), and if Easy CD stills balks at accepting them then I can quarrel with Adaptec et al, to the core for daring to charge me $99 for wretched ver 4. I have always felt that a better-than-be MPEG encoder should always have provisions for encoding and producing stills ALL by ITSELF, the resulting MPEGs to be used where we may wish to. CeQuadrat has sneakily prevented the built-in encoders of WinOnCD3.7 and VideoPack from being used unless in conjunction with authoring a VCD with it. Why can't, for example, Panasonic, so good in encoding whole AV tracks, not put an applet in there somewhere that will do the same for BMPs/JPEGs??

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@yahoo.com), March 04, 2000.

Mr. Martinez .-

You have very good questions there. I will try to answer as good as I can.

< 1. Quite naturally now itemxxxx.dat files galore will fill the segment directory after completion of our VCD-authoring and subsequent burning. Is it then possible to take any of these itemxxxx.dat files, extract them back to the .mpg files they once were and then use the resulting .mpg or .mpv in other applications like kvetchy Easy CD?? >

As much as I know, any DAT file can be get back to MPEG. Is just a header that has to be remove from the DAT file in order to convert in to MPEG. The Photo Albums that Cequadrat WinOnCD 3.7 PE creates, have just one video track ( which is required on all VCDs ) and all the pictures are on the SEGMENT folder.

I have not tried to use one of this DAT pictures on another program ( yet ) like the Easy CD Creator. But if you want to try it before me, I can send you a couple of this DAT files by mail if you want. They are about 350 Kb each.

< I am hoping that now Easy CD will then recognize them as hi-res (704x480) stills if that's what they really were to begin with. >

Good point. Maybe the Easy CD Creator ( on it's VideoCD Creator ) can accept it as a Menu.

< 2. Will this WinOnCD3.7 allow stills with sound?? Will it in fact allow complete ver 2.0 VCD authoring? >

With the WinOnCD 3.7 PE you can create 3 kind of VideoCD projects. a) A videoCD 2.0 with only video tracks. No menus. No stills. A typical project that the ones you can create with NERO or NTI CD- Maker Pro. b) A photo Album. In this kind of project, you only put stills on the VideoCD. You organize them on groups ( called Albums in the program ) and the software creates the Menus with the albums sections, Submenus with the index of pictures ( as thumbnails ) and the flow of each picture with control over the NEXT, PREVIOUS and RETURN buttons on the DVD player remote control. No sound. c) And the third kind of project is the VideoCD with a power editor. Is like a VideoPack environment, but with more power. You can create PLAY ITEMS ( MPEG tracks (video files),Menus,Stills, Slide shows with sound, and CD Audio Tracks. I love this option. Works in the same way as VideoPack, but with the aditional events for TIME OUT ( what to do when the PLAY ITEM finish ), RETURN ( go back to the Menus which corresponds to that PLAY ITEM ), NEXT ( control for choosing to which PLAY item or MENU you go when the user pushes the NEXT button on the remote control) and the PREVIOUS event ( control for choosing to which PLAY item or MENU you go when the user pushes the PREVIOUS button on the remote control). Here you can author ( by hand and with a lot of steps ) a photo album or slide show with sound as a background. And you can limit the play time for each PLAY item or element. MUCH BETTER THAN VIDEOPACK 4.0

< This photo album thing is in fact a ver 2.0 VCD, but I like to know whether or not selections in the menu from a 3.7-authored VCD can point to complete AV tracks such as those in the mpegav directory. >

In order to do that, you need to use the Power Editor. The Photo Album project automatically creates all the work for a bunch of pictures, but not include pointer to MPEG video tracks. You need to do it by hand. But you can.

<3. Is the bmp/jpeg-to-still mpeg converter an internal driver/dll inside 3.7 such that it is only invoked during creation of this photo album or can it be called upon when I want by itself to do it (much like Panasonic being a stand-alone converter for encoding AVIs to White Book-compliant MPEGs)?? >

The WinOnCD for Photo Albums can take BMP, JPEG and some flavours of TIFF files. It handles the convertions. I had better resoults with BMP files.

You only drag all your pictures for a given ALBUM and drop them on the working window.

< CeQuadrat has sneakily prevented the built-in encoders of WinOnCD3.7 and VideoPack from being used unless in conjunction with authoring a VCD with it. >

Well, WinOnCD handles the convertion for Picture Stills, but you need am encoder for the video MPEG tracks. I am using Panasonic and begining to make some tests with the BBMPEG encoder.

< Why can't, for example, Panasonic, so good in encoding whole AV tracks, not put an applet in there somewhere that will do the same for BMPs/JPEGs?? >

I do not know.

I hope this lines can help you in a good way. If you have more questions, please free to write me to my E-Mail addres or to the forum.

And plase, excuse my poor English. =)

-- Roberto Gomez Torres (robertogt@bigfoot.com), March 06, 2000.



please give me jpeg to mpeg convertion with feee software

-- M.Surya Satyanarayana Murty (mssmurty@usa.net), May 07, 2001.

I see a lot of people are looking for a way to do JPEG to MPEG stills (without paying CeQuadrat). I'm willing to take a crack at coding this if someone can point me to a complete specification (on-line) for MPEG stills.

thanks,

r

-- MPEG Stills (wreuven@netvision.net.il), July 11, 2001.


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