Labeling DVD (Technical) Titles

[Lobalobo]

A small problem, but one I thought it can't hurt to ask about. At least on my DVD/Blu Ray player, when a DVD is stopped while playing, the tv monitor's screen reverts to a home page that lists the name(s) of the movies on the inserted DVD. So if the DVD is Star Wars, the screen will display something like "Star Wars: the Movie" and "Star Wars: Additional Content," which represents the two titles the player recognizes from the inserted disk. (Note that this is not the DVD menu, but something the player is reading from the disk prior to launching DVD.) When the inserted DVD has been created by Video Studio Pro X6 and is then stopped, if there are, say, two film clips on the DVD, the screen displays Just the words "Title 1" and "Title 2".

My first question, then, is whether VS Pro X6 allows me to give the clips actual titles, say "The Zoo," and "The Park," so that these titles, rather than the generic "Title 1" and "Title 2" will display when the DVD is stopped.

My second question is whether VS Pro X6 allows me to issue instructions so that when "The Zoo" or "The Park" (or for that matter "Title One" or "Title 2") is selected from the player, that the DVD's menu will come up rather than the selected clip. (This question is even less important than the first, but while I'm on the topic, thought I'd ask; I have adjusted the settings so that a finished clip is followed by the DVD menu, but I'd like to be able to launch the menu from the player without removing and replacing the disk or starting a clip and then interrupting it by selecting Menu.)

Thanks.

[canuck]

I am not clear on exactly what you are seeing or describing. When I stop playing the DVD in my DVD player, all that appears is the name of the DVD player, Samsung in my case. So that is a function of the DVD player it seems.

Also I don't understand what you mean by "Note that this is not the DVD menu, but something the player is reading from the disk prior to launching DVD."
After all, how can the DVD player read the DVD before it is launched.

As to your 2nd question, again it is not clear what you are talking about in this statement "I have adjusted the settings so that a finished clip is followed by the DVD menu, but I'd like to be able to launch the menu from the player without removing and replacing the disk or starting a clip and then interrupting it by selecting Menu". If a clip plays before the menu appears then you have set the clip to play as an intro which means that it will always play as soon as the DVD is inserted and before the menu appears. That is standard behaviour for all DVDs that have an "intro" clip.

[BrianCee]

at any time while playing a DVD you should also have a "Menu" (or sometimes "Top Menu") button on your remote control which will bring up the DVD menu - you should not need to remove and re-insert the DVD to get to the main menu.

[Ken Berry]

My first question, then, is whether VS Pro X6 allows me to give the clips actual titles, say "The Zoo," and "The Park," so that these titles, rather than the generic "Title 1" and "Title 2" will display

Have you not given the two clips a new name when you made the menu? Normally you just left click on the title that appears in the menu preview screen and retype whatever you want as the title. That then appears on the final menu.

[Lobalobo]

Thanks for the replies. Just to be clear, what I'm talking about has nothing to do with the titles that appear within the DVD menu once it is launched; those titles are easily created using the software, as suggested. I'm talking about something else. My Sony Blu Ray player reads information from an installed disk to display on its menu. So if a disk is in the player, let's say a commercial DVD of Star Wars, a menu pops up that allows me to select, say "Netflix," "Amazon Instant Video," "Star Wars Movie," and "Star Wars Director's Comments." The latter two options are generated by the disk, though of course, the DVD has not been launched to play because if I chose, for example, "Netflix" the player's streaming features take me to Netflix. Now imagine though that instead of a commercial DVD, I insert one that I created with VS Pro X6, and let's say there are two clips on the disk (corresponding to the two clips, "Movie" and "Director's Comments" on the Star Wars disk). Say that within the X6 software I label the first clip "The Zoo" and the second clip "The Park" and that these titles appear correctly on the DVD menu when I access the DVD's menu (by placing the disk in the player or by hitting Top Menu on the remote). When I stop this disk from playing, though, bringing me back to the player's menu what I see is "Netflix," "Amazon Instant Video," "Title 1," and "Title 2." Put simply, something coded into commercial DVDs is prompting my Blu Ray player to display producer supplied titles when the disk in inserted but not launched while there either is no way to create a similar function in VS Pro X6 or I just can't find it. Hope this clarifies.

[Ken Berry]

I think I understand. But expecting a program costing around $100 to have the features of professional studio software and equipment costing tens -- or maybe hundreds -- of thousands of dollars would be overly optimistic IMHO. I am not even sure that professional-end editing programs like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas -- which cost many times more than Video Studio -- can do it...

[canuck]

I have different DVD players (none a BlueRay) from 3 different makers (Sony, Samsung and a Philips)and they do not show anything as described by the original poster. Perhaps it is a "new" feature of BlueRay players.

[Lobalobo]

Don't get me wrong. As I said from the beginning, this is not a big deal and I don't particularly expect VS Pro X6 to code the disks in the way I suggest. I just asked on the chance this was an option.

[skier-hughes]

Have a look at DVDlab
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/
It can work with metadata levels.
You cna try it for free.

[Lobalobo]

Thanks, Skier; my issue is not with the prefab templates, though, but with technical coding of titles on the disc (not the disc menu). In any case, as I said, not a big deal.

[GaryG45]

I know this post is more than 6 months old, but I found it while searching the forum for basically the same issue. Recently I started to use a Sony Blu-ray player, model BDP-S780, and, when I hit stop while playing a VS X5 Pro created DVD with 2 video clips, the Sony menu shows Title 1 and Title 2. With a commercial DVD the Sony player connects to the Gracenote database via the internet and returns the movie title and one or two actor's names. The VS DVD displays as a DVD-R VIDEO on the TV screen when I insert it in the player, and the commercial DVD displays as a DVD VIDEO, which I've found means commercial video. VLC Media Player menu option Palyback>Title displays the words" DVD Menu, Title 1 and Title 2" for the VS DVD, and "DVD Menu, Title 1, Title 2, Title 3" for the commercial DVD. I've learned the multiple titles on commercial DVDs can be for the FBI warning, movie rating, and extras. Because of this display I decided to research the folders and files on the DVD.

In the VIDEO_TS folder there is a VIDEO_TS.IFO file that has many data structures. A structure named Video Manager Title Play Map Table, VMG_PTT_SRPT, contains the number of titles on the DVD followed by 12 bytes of information for each title, but nothing related to name. I didn't find a structure that could contain a movie name. I used a tool called IFOEdit to review various IFO files on the DVDs.

My assumption is the Sony player software detects that the VS DVD isn't a commercial DVD and only displays Title 1, Title 2, etc., based on the number of titles found in the VMG_PTT_SRPT structure in the IFO file. For commercial DVDs I've noticed the movie title or part of it is in the DVD volume label. My guess is that the Sony software uses the DVD volume label information as input to the Gracenote database on a commercial DVD. For the OP I think Netflix is returning the commercial DVD information. Therefore it appears that there is no way to have the Sony player display the VS video clip names as titles. I hope this is of help to anyone who may encounter this issue.