Rivergate Software Inc. - makers of DVDAfterEdit

Posted Jul 12,2005 1:57 PM LIBEO

We produce a big movie with MPEGAppend. Is it a software that can extract the different timecode of the different part of the movie. I think it is possible because if we import the movie in DVD SP, the software produce chapter corresponding of the different part.

Posted Jul 12,2005 3:44 PM Arky

MPEGAppend offers an option to place a DVD SP-compliant cell flag at the boundaries of each of the segments comprising an appended/concatenated stream. This doesn't necessarily mean that the timecode of each clip is being referenced, more that the segment joins are being acknowledged in the concatenated/appended stream. As I remarked in my tutorial on Seamless Multi-Story, I like the fact that MPEGAppend offers this 'flagging' feature to DVD SP users. It enables them to save time and improve accuracy, when dealing with multiple source clips in one Title Track, in instances where segment boundary markers are required.

If memory serves me correctly, MPEGAppend also offers the option of restriping the timecode of your clips so that they follow sequentially in the concatenated stream. DVD Authoring applications such as Scenarist will complain if there is more than one sequence header in an MPEG stream. I do not recall if Scenarist similarly complains if there is inconsistent timecode in an MPEG stream (which would, of course, be the case if one concatenated several MPEG clips and did not choose to stripe the timecode to be sequential in the final concatenated stream). I would personally always choose to stripe the timecode sequentially if I concatenate any clips, to avoid any possible complications further down the line.

Incidentally, on the PC platform, the freeware utility, 'ReStream' is also capable of such timecode restriping, although it does not cater for Spec-compliant clip concatenation.

Coming back to the title of your post, rather than the slightly more ambiguous body of the post, are you saying that you need to view the original timecode of each original clip for some purpose? If so, the first (and obvious) question I would ask is whether or not you still have the original clips...

Regards,

John.
('Arky')

Posted Jul 13,2005 4:36 AM LIBEO

In fact we have one movie that is combined with 165 elementary movie. Weuse MPEGAppend to produce one big movie. We do this because we need to have cell at some special place in the movie. I use DVD SP to multiplex the stream and i use TFDVDEdit to put some interactivity. So we are looking for a solution to extract the exact timecode of the final movie because we use TFDVDEdit, and there is no timeline in TFDVDEdit, but we have the time code. The problem is that if we import the movie with DVD SP, DVD SP show only the first 99 marker. So we only can have the first 99 timecode. I hope i'm not too confuse (It is hard to explain this process in english when you are french)

Posted Jul 13,2005 6:14 AM ianshepherd

The 99 limit is because DVDSP is adding chapters at the VOB boundaries, as I'm sure you realise, and you can only have 99 PTTs. I've been trying to think of a way of getting around this, and so far my best suggestion is to MPEGAppend in two sections, import them to separate tracks in DVDSP, and note down all the timecodes. Then just add the final ( end ) timecode of the first half to all the values for the second. Then re-append all the clips as 1 file, and the timecodes should add up. I'm curious why you need to know the timecodes, though...?

Posted Jul 13,2005 8:42 AM LIBEO

Your solution is good. We need the timecode because we use the DVD in a special way like a photo album but more complcated. And we need to know the exact time because of the different interactivity we have to put on the DVD

Posted Jul 13,2005 10:47 AM ianshepherd

Glad I could help. Because of the 99 PTT limit, DVDSP will not insert cell boundaries after the 99th clip either, I don't think, although you could add them by hand once you know the timecodes. Will this cause a problem in your project ? Perhaps you should consider dividing the clips between two VTS's anyway, to get around this limitation ?

Posted Jul 13,2005 11:04 AM LIBEO

For our project we use DVD SP to multiplex data and TFDVDAfterEdit to add interactivity and some great feature to our project.We don't need to import timecode in DVDSP, we use AfterEdit to build the final PTT and Cell.

Thank you for your help