Potential 16x9 Pan&Scan/Letterbox menu fix...

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Level 4

1,180 points

Potential 16x9 Pan&Scan/Letterbox menu fix...

Hey Everyone,

For about a year I have been testing something that has really bothered me that clients are starting to want more and more: 16x9 menus being full frame on players flagged for widescreen and 4x3 menus being full frame pan & scan using the same menu. In that year, I haven't found a way to deliver what they want without creating 2 sets of menus and tracking SPRM 14. I wanted to avoid this route and make it easier. After all, that is the whole basis of abstract based DVD authoring.

I believe I might have have found a way to correctly display the above requests I have been facing using DVDSP, where before some people (not on this list) said it couldn't be done!

*Disclaimer*
I know that there are many variables in creating a DVD menu. Also, I made sure that my menu graphics/video were the correct display aspect ratio, pixel aspect ratio and resolution. Depending on what DVD authoring tool is also a factor on how the menu is created, muxed and displayed on DVD players. In regards to DVD players, depending on how the manufacturer interpreted the DVD specification is also a factor on how the final DVD displays.

Now, I at first thought that this was a limitation of DVDSP. I mean, I love it and all but it does have its limitations. I now feel differently, like I might have chipped away at that old cliche!

Anyone can test this if they like (and I encourage it). I will give as much detail as I can in what I did.

I started off by encoding my ProRes captured quicktime movies using Compressor to create elementary stream files (.m2v and .ac3) for the menu.

There were a couple of still menus provided as well. What I did here was create a FCP 30 second sequence and export out video using Compressor as well to create ES files.

Once I had all the elements that I wanted for my menus, title openings and FBI warning that were to be 16x9 FF on WS DVD players and 4x3 FF (P&S) on 4x3 DVD players, I downloaded MPEGAppend (but you can also use any other MPEG2 DVD compliant encoder that has the option to correctly flag the mpeg2 stream for pan & scan) and used the 16x9 Force Pan Scan application. Once created, I imported into my DVDSP project and made sure that the correct flag for the DVD menu was selected "16x9 PanScan" and NOT "16x9 Letterbox & PanScan". Once I muxed my project and verified on several DVD players it worked like a charm 🙂 All overlays aligned perfectly.

Obviously the above is only a summary of the blood, sweat and tears that I had to endure for almost a year.

Me and a friend (anti-abstract layer authorer) came up with a pretty good conclusion, but first you must remember a few things of what goes on behind the mux:
-no matter what, still menus are converted to video
-the video from the menus that are created from DVDSP are NOT properly flagged, even if one correctly sets the desired/correct menu flag
-DVDSP does respect properly flagged mpeg2 video streams

With that being said, conclusion:
-correct menu flags are displayed, but not correct video flags (verified on DVDAfterEdit)
-when using 16x9LB&PS options on menu, overlays are shifted if on P&S mode
-many DVD players only have a 16x9 or 4x3 display settings. Newer DVD players have 4x3 LB or 4x3 P&S. Therefore, older players MUST only respect 4x3 LB and discards 4x3 P&S, since the author is giving the player to many options (16x9FF, 4x3 LB and 4x3 P&S).

Thoughts, inputs and comments very much appreciated.

Mikey M. 🙂

Dual 2.7GHz G5; 2.3TB Internal; 7GB RAM; ATI Radeon 9650, Mac OS X (10.4.8), 1TB eSATA; Atto ExpressPCI UL3D; 2x Dell 24"

Posted on May 12, 2008 1:31 PM

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Answer 1

hanumang

Level 6

9,250 points

May 12, 2008 1:52 PM in response to Mikey M.

Mikey M. wrote:
Once created, I imported into my DVDSP project and made sure that the correct flag for the DVD menu was selected "16x9 PanScan" and NOT "16x9 Letterbox & PanScan".

Were you having issues (previously) with menus displaying incorrectly when set to 16:9 Pan-Scan? I'm afraid I don't understand why all of this is necessary - could you share a bit more of the backstory here?

Did you experience issues with 16:9 Pan-Scan menus not displaying correctly (as 4:3 on 4:3 sets, as 16:9 on 16:9 sets)? Were there set-top players, in particular, that were troublesome? Or is this all based on advice/warnings that you received?

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Answer 2

Mikey M. Author

Level 4

1,180 points

May 12, 2008 2:03 PM in response to hanumang

Hey Hanumang,

I guess this is a big deal for me 🙂

The back story is the following (obviously this is only a summary):
Clients started requesting having menus be 16x9 FF on WS DVD players and the same menu be 4x3 P&S FF on 4x3 DVD players. The clients did not want to pay for the additional menus. I figured, DVDSP can do it. I have not seen it done, heard it done before successfully. There was always a problem with overlays or playback problems. One of the common solutions was "DVDSP can't do it" or use a spec based authoring app (this is all from memory, I have no particular instances of this).

When I imported a 16x9 (DAR) still image into a DVD menu and set the menu flag to 16x9 LB & P&S, either the menu was displayed LB or P&S with the overlays not-aligned (what they were doing is displaying 16x9 overlays on a 4x3 P&S menu background).

Hope that makes a little more sense, if not, please do not hesitate to ask more questions. Like I said Hanumang, all I gave is a summary. I know I omitted information and do not mind sharing at all 🙂

Mikey M. 🙂

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Answer 3

hanumang

Level 6

9,250 points

May 12, 2008 2:20 PM in response to Mikey M.

Just to confirm, no luck (previously) using 16:9 Pan-Scan?

Yes, the use of 16:9 Pan-Scan & Letterbox opens you up to problems, because it's dependent on the exact 4:3 setting -- 4:3 Pan-Scan (sometimes labeled as 4:3 Normal) vs. 4:3 Letterbox -- that the player is set to. But I've never come across an issue with 16:9 Pan-Scan.

I drew this up a while ago based on another situation, but it applies to what we're talking about:

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Answer 4

Mikey M. Author

Level 4

1,180 points

Jun 15, 2008 2:37 PM in response to hanumang

Hey hanumang,

Sorry for the VERY delayed response.

Anyway, One thing that I noticed from your test is that they do not have overlays.

Why don't you create a circle in image processor (make sure it is a still) with the overlay being the outline of the circle. Please do it with a display aspect ratio of 16:9.

Then import that still into DVDSP as a static menu. build and then look at it on a DVD player that supports 4:3 LB and 4:3 P&S.

Here is what I did and the results:
Created image in Photoshop (CS2):
960x540, PAR = 1.0
720x480, PAR = 1.2

Layer 1 = XLAY
Layer 2 = background (circle)

Output as *.psd

Imported into DVDSP as regular menu (still).

Display modes and DVD playback behaviors:
4:3 (display mode in DVDSP menu)
-4:3 P&S DVD player setup = menu anamorphic, overlay correctly aligned
-4:3 LB DVD player setup = menu anamorphic, overlay correctly aligned
-16:9 DVD player setup = menu anamorphic, overlay correctly aligned

16:9 Pan and Scan (display mode in DVDSP menu)
-4:3 P&S DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (cropped), overlay NOT aligned
-4:3 LB DVD player setup = menu NOT correct (cropped), overlay NOT aligned
-16:9 DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (WS), overlay correctly aligned

16:9 Letterbox (display mode in DVDSP menu)
-4:3 P&S DVD player setup = menu NOT correct (LB), overlay correctly aligned
-4:3 LB DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (LB), overlay correctly aligned
-16:9 DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (WS), overlay correctly aligned

16:9 Pan and Scan & Letterbox (display mode in DVDSP menu)
-4:3 P&S DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (LB), overlay correctly aligned
-4:3 LB DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (LB), overlay correctly aligned
-16:9 DVD player setup = menu DAR correct (WS), overlay correctly aligned

please note that the TV was setup for 4:3 viewing. The only display aspect ratio that was changed was the DVD player itself. Also, different DVD players were used for this testing and the majority of them had the above results.

Like I said in my earlier post, it seems that the overlays are muxed with the correct DAR, but the menu is not. I only correct the menu when I change the DAR flag in the MPEG stream, as outline in my initial post.

Something that I did notice was in DVD Studio Pro > Preferences > General, there is a option for "SD DVD Menus, Tracks and Slideshows"; that has different Display modes. I am pretty sure this is just the default for all the initial tracks displayed when you open a new project, nothing more.

Also I noticed in DVD Studio Pro > Preferences > Encoding > MPEG-2 SD tab: Aspect Ratio and it gives you the option for 4:3 or 16:9, but I think this only applies to video not encoded to mpeg2 and has nothing to do with the menus.

Mikey M. 🙂

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Answer 5

hanumang

Level 6

9,250 points

Jun 16, 2008 10:39 AM in response to Mikey M.

Hey Mikey,

I'm afraid I'm unable to duplicate the issues that you're seeing with menus - still or motion - set to 16:9 Pan-Scan. (That is, the menus get center-cropped and the overlays are also aligned).

However, I only have two players (connected to 4:3 sets) to test with, a Toshiba SD-2800 and a Samsung DVD-VR320. The Toshiba (circa 2001) is very spec compliant. The Samsung (a DVDR-VCR combo from 2003 or 2004) typically has a mind of it's own when it comes to complying with the DVD spec (for instance, used to have the 'subtitle automatically turned on' issue with it). With both players, I tested using both 4:3 Pan-Scan and 4:3 Letterbox modes (poping the disc out and cycling power down, for good measure, each time).

If you want to see for yourself, I've placed everything in a zip file ( download the 1.7 MB file here) including the DVDSP project & build, the encoded video files, Motion & Photoshop files as well a .cdr image burned via Disk Utility. Let me know if the players you're testing on exhibit different behavior.

Since I dropped in a Motion Menu (a .motn file) I set DVDSP to encode 16:9 (2-pass VBR, 4.5/7.5 Mbps) because that does matter for menu encoding. Also, everything is DV-NTSC Anamorphic - I didn't use any HD-sized stuff.

Could versioning be an issue here? I'm on 10.5.3, QT 7.5 and all the latest FC Studio updates DVDSP 4.2.1, Motion 3.0.2). The Photoshop files were created with CS3 (v 10.0.1).

Edit: The video track - a gray slug - is set to 16:9 Letterbox.

Edited by hanumang

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Answer 6

Jun 18, 2008 5:20 PM in response to hanumang

Hi Mikey,
Congratulations on getting it all figured out. Im not sure if you posted looking for a solution earlier and I missed it, because I probably could have saved you a lot of headache.

The Pan & Scan flag error has been around for sometime and I filed a bug report a long time ago, so maybe it got fixed in the most recent build.

We started using mpegappend a little over a year ago for the same reason. What was happening was menus were being displayed at 16x9 letterbox but the overlays were zoomed and cropped. Because MpegAppend only sets flags for video, we would also have to encode all of our still menus out as m2v and run it through as well.

it is definitely a very nice set of applications.

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