discWelder Chrome 2 - "Gotchas". Be careful

This one is a sort of general warning to all who are attempting to create complex or active menu structures in Chrome 2.
I have run across some very nasty flaws and limitations that are not mentioned in any of the literature or the manuals.

Audio in Motion Menus and in Motion/Animated Intros.
This is detailed in the manual as possible, but the audio apparently needs to be in what is euphemistically termed "DVD-Pack" format. This is supposed to mean that it must be in 16/48 PCM to accompany the M2V video file.
It does not work - period. You simply cannot add audio to a motion menu, or to a motion or animated introduction. (Think "Deadwing" for an example of how it SHOULD work).
No matter how you try it, the audio will not play back. Turns out that despite it being both in the manual, and detailed at the website, it was not added. When I queried this with support, I was told "Specifications are subject to change without notice".

Active Menus with MLP Trackpoints & Gapless PCM
One of the "killer" features of Chrome is the ability to create an "active" menu system. This allows the use of onscreen menus, complete with navigation, whilst the album is playing. The general idea is so that the viewer can browse the disc contents without glitching or interrupting the music. It is often used on commercial releases for things like lyric sheets, or photo galleries that can be accessed whilst the disc is playing.
Another use is to have the tracklist down one side onscreen, and the title of the currently playing track on display elsewhere, allowing you to go directly to whatever track you choose.
The problem is, this only works properly with individual tracks. If you have an album made from a single MLP file using track points instead of individual clips, or one made from Gapless PCM tracks (These are individual PCM tracks, but without the irritating pause between tracks, set to play as one long stream without interruptions. Think "Live Album", or any album where the songs segue into each other).
What happens is that all the navigation will work as designed, but onscreen display will always be track 1, and never the right track.
There is no workaround.
If an active menu is required,then all the tracks must be separate, and must have a gap between them.
If you are making a live album, or something like "Dark Side of the Moon", then you MUST use a passive menu system.

There are a few other bugs, but these 2 for me are the real killers.
To fix the second problem will apparently require a major development effort, and it does not look like this is ever going to happen. So far, there has been no development at all on this app since a year ago, and whilst there may be a new version at one point there is no timetable at all for it to actually appear.

I am posting this not to have a moan (I already did that to support) but to try & warn anyone who may be attempting to create either of these effects in a disc and cannot get it to work. It is not your fault, it is a bug and an omission.

I concur at least on the first point - You simply cannot add audio to a motion menu.

I don't think I quite understand the second one. I've made a number of discs that use individual tracks and have the same problem. If you start looking around the DVD-Audio menu while a track is playing and the next song starts the menu changes to the next song, taking you away from where you just were. I haven't try using gapless mode or one single MLP track but will try it and see what happens.

Thanks for the info

With individual tracks, the problem just isn't there.
The issue youi are describing is standard - and if you think about it, you'll understand why.
Track Images - be they an embedded playlist, or a straightforward track slide with no navigation, or (in DiscWelder terms) an "Active Menu" with buttons on it that is track associated, any of these stills is called an ASV - Audio Still Video.
They are directly associated with a particular track, and are multiplexed into the AOB streams.
When a player changes the track, the ASV also changes.

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the information that explains what happens in Chrome.

Do you know how for instance on the Yes - Fragile DVD-A, it allows you to listen to a song and wander round the menus looking at the photos, disography etc... and even go back to the same song without restarting the song. When the next song starts you stay where you are at and don't jump to the next song's active menu or picture assigned to that song, if you know what I mean.

I would like to have it so the listener could move around the disc without the disc jumping to the next song when it, the next song, starts. Its the same behaviour found on the Fragile album.

Thanks again,
Stuart

neil wilkes said:

With individual tracks, the problem just isn't there.
The issue youi are describing is standard - and if you think about it, you'll understand why.
Track Images - be they an embedded playlist, or a straightforward track slide with no navigation, or (in DiscWelder terms) an "Active Menu" with buttons on it that is track associated, any of these stills is called an ASV - Audio Still Video.
They are directly associated with a particular track, and are multiplexed into the AOB streams.
When a player changes the track, the ASV also changes.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't know that disc.
Not at all sure how that has been done, unless every song has been imported as one long song - and the tracks by creating Audio Cells.
That would do it.
I'll try to find a copy of the disc & pull it apart to see.

neil wilkes said:

What happens is that all the navigation will work as designed, but onscreen display will always be track 1, and never the right track.
There is no workaround.

Click to expand...

I don't know if I understand you correctly. If you use track points on long MLP files the images can be made to change with each song by just setting them on the track point menu.