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.: The Zion DVD Project :. (Released) — Page 23

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Originally posted by: zion
I most certainly would love to get my hands on those fonts, as I've alredy begun work on reconstructing the crawl in After Effects. Send me a PM Moll. I hope you can make it look better than every other generated crawl I've seen (don't worry, I have faith in your abilities, right?).
Daniel, keep in mind that when using angles, you have to split the bandwidth between them. Half the bandwidth may be unnoticable for things like credits and the opening crawl, but when it comes to the rest of the film I'd rather not do it. That is the reason why I'm persuing the branching method instead. I'm going to try out the doom9 technique and see if I can make it work. If not, I may have to resort to angles, but I really don't want to do that unless I absolutely have to.
Ahh yes, bandwidth... well, I'm sure branching can be done, even if it is extremely difficult.(Off topic again, but this is really wierd. Whenever I edit a post in a sticky thread it sends it to the top of the list. These Mod abilities have made me powerful...)
Ahh that explains the strange goings on here...
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I hope you can make it look better than every other generated crawl I've seen (don't worry, I have faith in your abilities, right?).

Well here is my ROTS crawl for comparrision:

ROTS Opening by Zion (20MB, requires XviD codec)

Please save to your hard drive before viewing.

There are a few things I don't like about it, like the way the SW logo flies in and the blockiness of the text as it gets farther away from the screen, but things like that can be fixed easily (it also looks much better in MPEG2).

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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PM seems not to work for me sending one, for some odd reason. I can read and reply fine. >.>

Moll.

"Right now the coffees are doing their final work." (Airi, Masked Rider Den-o episode 1)

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Originally posted by: zion

Half the bandwidth may be unnoticable for things like credits and the opening crawl, but when it comes to the rest of the film I'd rather not do it. That is the reason why I'm persuing the branching method instead.


Using two angles does not mean using half the bitrate. It's a little un-intuitive, but multi-angle bitrates work like this: If you're using two angles, the MAXIMUM bitrate for EACH angle of video plus all audio plus all subpictures must not exceed 8.0 Mbps. Figure on subtracting about another 1.2 Mbps for each additional angle. So for a two-angle encode, you can still have a high maximum bitrate.

As for the seamless branching guide on doom9, it refers to shrinking an exisiting, branching, retail DVD-9 down to a DVD-5 while retaining the branching, rather than a guide on creating seamless branching in general.

In short, you should stick with multiangle.

Hope this helps.
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Using two angles does not mean using half the bitrate. It's a little un-intuitive, but multi-angle bitrates work like this: If you're using two angles, the MAXIMUM bitrate for EACH angle of video plus all audio plus all subpictures must not exceed 8.0 Mbps. Figure on subtracting about another 1.2 Mbps for each additional angle. So for a two-angle encode, you can still have a high maximum bitrate. references? evidence?As for the seamless branching guide on doom9, it refers to shrinking an exisiting, branching, retail DVD-9 down to a DVD-5 while retaining the branching, rather than a guide on creating seamless branching in general.
Very true.

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Originally posted by: DanielB
Using two angles does not mean using half the bitrate. It's a little un-intuitive, but multi-angle bitrates work like this: If you're using two angles, the MAXIMUM bitrate for EACH angle of video plus all audio plus all subpictures must not exceed 8.0 Mbps. Figure on subtracting about another 1.2 Mbps for each additional angle. So for a two-angle encode, you can still have a high maximum bitrate.
references? evidence?


Google is your friend, Daniel-san:

Howdy Trai - "Mr. DVD"

I was incorrect in the following statement:

> Check out the tutorial in DVDSP. They use 3 angles each at 6.4 Mbps. That
> would put the total data rate at 19.2 Mbps + the audio data rate. No
> problems.

19.2 Mbps is NOT the actual bitrate being delivered per second, because the
the other video streams/angles cannot be added to the total data rate per
second as they aren't "playing". But rather, being skipped over as you
stated. Sorry to mislead anyone. It is a fine distinction but an important
one.

However, there is a small correction to your post as well :-)

The maximum bitrate for multi-angle video streams per the specification is 8
Mbps not 7.

I was only suggesting 7 because it is never a good idea to push the bitrate
limits to their specification max.

The maximum sustainable total bitrate for a combined video stream (single),
audio and subtitles is 9.8 Mbps. Some players may support a burst rate that
is slightly higher 10.08 Mbps, but I wouldn't recommend pushing that.

If you never knew the reason for the 9.8 Mbps limit:

1x DVD drives sustains 11.08 Mbps. 1 Mbps is taken up by navigation overhead
leaving 10.08. The DVD-Video peak data rate was/is constrained to 9.8 Mbps
to support buffering for seamless branching which has nothing to do with
multi-angle video FYI.

Happy New Year Gang!

-pete -- Courtsey of Apple's DVD List Archive.

I believe multi-angle is based upon interleaving the angles together, which is why there can sometimes be a pause before your player changes angles as it clears it's buffer as it were. Seamless branching is more complicated as it involves encoding and multiplexing the files in such a way that they 'ease in and out of each other' for want of a better term.

As it appears the seamless branching guide deals with pre-prepared streams, perhaps Dr Gonzo could help out with his copy of TFDVDEdit?

DVD-BOY

Save London’s Curzon Soho Cinema

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Well it's good news for Zion then. Thanks ApolloOne and welcome to the forums.
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Originally posted by: DanielB
Well it's good news for Zion then. Thanks ApolloOne and welcome to the forums.


You're welcome, and thank you. I've been a professional DVD author for about five years. Just thought I'd share some of what I know.
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Originally posted by: ApolloOne
You're welcome, and thank you. I've been a professional DVD author for about five years. Just thought I'd share some of what I know.
Good to hear, I wasn't doubting your information before - but you know how things are, things get communicated less accurately sometimes, so it's always good to have references available. Do you know how to do seamless branching, ApolloOne? LaserMan claims anyone can do it (who's opinion I do value), however if MGM's Robocop release is anything to go by it appears not just anyone can achieve it.
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Hey Zion,

No probs, afterall you're the one putting the effort in, the least we can do is offer advice!

DanielB, As far as I know MGM's Robocop offers 'intergrated branching' no seamless branching, because, well it's not seamless! Guess they were too stingy to go to the correct authoring house!

DVD-Boy

Save London’s Curzon Soho Cinema

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Ok, so let's say I want to have two versions of the film on the disc, just like a seamless branched disc would. I want to be able to select which version to watch from the menu, let's say angle 1 for the Pre-ANH version and angle 2 for the "tweaked" version. Basically the only difference between the two would be the opening crawl and various effects shots scattered throughout. It should be relatively easy to set this up in Scenarist shouldn't it?

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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Originally posted by: zion
Ok, so let's say I want to have two versions of the film on the disc, just like a seamless branched disc would. I want to be able to select which version to watch from the menu, let's say angle 1 for the Pre-ANH version and angle 2 for the "tweaked" version. Basically the only difference between the two would be the opening crawl and various effects shots scattered throughout. It should be relatively easy to set this up in Scenarist shouldn't it?


I don't know about Scenarist, but it is quite easy to accomplish with DVD Maestro (if you have multiangle ready sources).

Greetings
Grisan
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It should be relatively easy, although as Grisan says easier in Maestro.

The key points would be:

- Make sure your angles are the exact same length.
- Make sure they contain the same gop structure (Auto Scene Detect in Encoding is a big no-no)

I don't know in Scenarist whether you would 'break' the film down into pieces (which you can do with the 'start' and duration dialogues), and they join the pgc's together seamlessley, so that you have seperate chunks with the angles.

Obviously with Maestro you can have multiple bits of video on your timeline, whereas with Scenarist each 'track' comprises of one piece of audio, video etc.

ApolloOne may be of more use, depending what his 'weapon of choice' is.

DVD-BOY

Save London’s Curzon Soho Cinema

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Originally posted by: zion
Ok, so let's say I want to have two versions of the film on the disc, just like a seamless branched disc would. I want to be able to select which version to watch from the menu, let's say angle 1 for the Pre-ANH version and angle 2 for the "tweaked" version. Basically the only difference between the two would be the opening crawl and various effects shots scattered throughout. It should be relatively easy to set this up in Scenarist shouldn't it?
Yeah, the official 2004SE discs have the Angle selectable in the menus (to switch between opening crawls). Shouldn't you go with 4 angles though so you can view the tweaked and untweaked version with either crawl? Anyhow good luck working it out.
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Originally posted by: DanielB
Do you know how to do seamless branching, ApolloOne? LaserMan claims anyone can do it (who's opinion I do value), however if MGM's Robocop release is anything to go by it appears not just anyone can achieve it.

True seamless branching can only be done on the big, proprietary Hollywood systems made by Panasonic and Toshiba (and Sony, if memory serves). As I believe someone mentioned elsewhere here, TFDVDEdit claims to do seamless branching using DVDSP stories or VIDEO_TS folders. I've never seen the program, so I can't personally verify this claim. (To those who have opined on this matter: yes, Trai is a self-aggrandizing poo-head. "Mr. DVD" my a**!)

To sum up, I wouldn't say that "anyone" can do it, since most people don't have access to these tools or the training to use them.
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I've never used the Sony Authoring system, but I have played briefly with their encoding set-up. I do remember being told that if you use the Sony equipment in conjunction with each other, it was possible to author a seamless layer break as the encoder could be told / would calcualate where the layer break would go doing a feature, and would gradually bring the bitrate down either side of the layerbreak, allowing the DVD player to store more frames in it's buffer as it were. As I said, not having used the authoring system, who knows if this was true or not.

As I say, true Seamless branching via the proprietry authoring setups (I believe there is 1 in the UK!) involves one system doing the encoding and authoring (and multiplexing), because it involves some pretty tricky juggling of frames and bitrates and gop sizes.

DVD-BOY

Save London’s Curzon Soho Cinema

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There are a few things I don't like about it, like the way the SW logo flies in and the blockiness of the text as it gets farther away from the screen, but things like that can be fixed easily (it also looks much better in MPEG2).
Zion, since I still haven't seen it - what program are you using? Have you thought about actually using Electric Image? I mean sice LucasFilm used it for TPM's crawl, you really only need to find an anchient version....
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I dunno... the crawl I have seen (from the other thread) which I believe was made in after effects looks, well, poor compared to LEC's versions.
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Well you should do it Daniel, and post your results here.
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Originally posted by: Tikigod
Well you should do it Daniel, and post your results here.
I'm considering it.
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By all means do it DB, and post the results. It would be interesting to compare a 3D rendered version vs the 2D solutions. I would really like to see what you come up with.
It would take about 15 mins to do in EI.
Electric image is old and clunky though - if you want the 3D approach I would use Maya or 3DS MAX and the renderer of choice.
The problem with most of these solutions is that the crawl is far too smooth. Adding an expression to dirty up the movement ever so slightly gives a more natural looking result - but it is really personal preference