DVD like Format (with menu) for Flash Drive

CantKeepUp wrote on 9/22/2014, 5:17 AM

I’ve been out of the business for years now and I am hoping while I was gone someone came up with simple solutions to all the problems that use to plague me. Like this.

I have about 11 hours of video (comprised of several segments of training videos) that client would like to have all on 1 DVD with a menu.

They don’t want a Box-Set of DVDs and obviously 11 hours isn’t going to fit on 1 single DVD disc but is the DVD format limited to discs? (my apologizes for not testing this theory on my own before asking the question but I have yet to install my Vegas on my new computer)

What I mean, is can’t I author an 11 hour DVD in Architect then write it to a folder on my harddrive and from there transfer it (~10 gig file) to a flash drive (which are now pretty cheap) for distribution?

My client’s audience will be people watching from computers, not TVs so I would think this would work?

If for some reason there is a limit built into the DVD software/spec, what other options are there right now? Again, its for computer distribution. There are like 8 training videos so ideally, I produce a USB flash drive that client pops into their computer, a menu (like a DVD style menu) pops up and from there they can select which segment to watch. Since I don’t think auto-run is supported in any longer by Windows – having the client open up the contents of flash drive and clicking on 1 file to get things going would be an acceptable solution.

It’s 2014… please tell me there is a handy little app that can accomplish this.
Thanks!

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John_Cline wrote on 9/23/2014, 1:38 AM

"My client’s audience will be people watching from computers, not TVs so I would think this would work?"

Yes, one client, but apparently a larger audience all viewing on individual computers.

He could certainly go with your method (which I have done many times when it really is a single client) and either provide the link to the VLC player or include a copy on the thumb drive.

What a client wants and what's actually practical is often two different things.

ushere wrote on 9/23/2014, 3:09 AM

might just add that i included a simple, but comprehensive README1st file on the usb explain everything and how to navigate using the vlc portable interface i used as playback software...

this went out to 100's of volunteers (mostly elderly), with no problems.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/23/2014, 10:59 AM

OK, got this working with DVD (with menus) folder on a thumb drive, following Leslie's excellent groundwork on the "mp4 with chapters" question.
First of all, autorun and autoplay are severely crippled on usb in Win7 and Win8, so scrapped that idea.

1. Install vlcPortable on the thumb drive. Refuse the two notifications during install so you don't freak out your customers. The folder will be named VLCPortable.
2. Drag your DVD folder to the thumb drive. Mine is named simply, MOVIE.
3. Put your PlayMovie.bat (or whatever) file in the root of your thumb drive. it can be as simple as one line, or as complex as you like.

start \vlcPortable\vlcPortable -vvv \movie\video_ts\video_ts.ifo

Working on Vista and Windows 7, I presume XP as well.
Someone needs to test on Windows 8.

Going to try the same with an .iso later on.
[EDIT] Works with ISO too, adding another layer of simplicity.

riredale wrote on 9/23/2014, 11:20 AM

Really surprised by John Meyer's suggestion. I would have thought the authoring software would throw a fit and refuse to go any bigger than DVD-9.

So I tried a very simple project on the authoring software I use, DVD-LabPro. I brought in assets of about 9GB and, sure enough, the disk-capacity icon turned bright red. Nonetheless it compiled the project and it seems to play just fine with WinDVD. Didn't do any menus and haven't moved it to flash memory, but don't see why it wouldn't work there, too.

I guess a number of solutions are available for this particular project. I like the VIDEO_TS idea primarily because I'm already very familiar with DVD authoring and I have a pretty good toolset for menu creation.

johnmeyer wrote on 9/23/2014, 12:04 PM

client would like to have all on 1 DVD People keep wanting to ignore the OP's request for a menu. The links to that older thread add chapter stops to an MP4, but Drax only adds chapter stops, not menus.

The MP4 option still requires the user to run some sort of media playback software, insert the thumb drive, find the media file on the drive, and then figure out how to open it. Since playback of EXE files is turned off for security reasons on most modern Windows computers, you can't use any sort of autoplay technique.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/23/2014, 1:20 PM

John, ushere's approach works with DVDs and ISOs, too. Just finished testing.
I've never had a problem running an .exe on a thumb drive; I install software on student computers that way. It's the autorun and autoplay protocols that don't work right on USB.

ushere wrote on 9/23/2014, 8:44 PM

btw. i also customised the .exe icon with the dept's logo and named it 'play video'

i really think this is a case of the client needing to be educated as to what is available rather than his/her idea.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/23/2014, 8:59 PM

How do you change the icon?

ushere wrote on 9/23/2014, 9:15 PM

create desktop shortcut > right click on the icon > click properties > select the shortcut tab > see the buttons below > click change icon > all icons will display > choose one / or create your own*.

*http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-ico

iirc i compiled my .bat file to an .exe and was also given the choice to change icon

this was the layout of my usb drive:

musicvid10 wrote on 9/23/2014, 9:24 PM

Changing the icon on a shortcut is no mystery to me.
However, a shortcut pointing to an .exe in a portable drive does not accept a relative path, at least in Vista. I'll see if there is a freeware .exe maker that will change the icon, but it's not so important to me now, perhaps moreso in the future.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/24/2014, 10:21 AM

Windows 8 testers?

ushere wrote on 9/24/2014, 7:43 PM

i'm waiting for 9, and when its been out for a while (so all the main bugs are known / fixed) i'll then test it ;-)

john_dennis wrote on 9/24/2014, 8:14 PM

"[I]Windows 8 testers?[/I]"

I ran the release candidate so I wouldn't look quite so silly when I looked at computers in stores, removed it from the machine and forgot I ever touched it.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/24/2014, 8:47 PM

A portable drive formatted Fat32 will not accept an ISO bigger than 4 GB, so the traditional VIDEO_TS folder with 1 GB VOBs is the way to go for an 11 hour DVD.

dxdy wrote on 2/8/2015, 4:10 PM

Musicvid10's little batch file with VLC on the USB drive is a clever solution.

But now do we need to know whether the user is on a Mac or Win box?

musicvid10 wrote on 2/8/2015, 6:49 PM

Most likely.

Laurence wrote on 2/8/2015, 8:48 PM

Not just Macs and PCs: Both smart TVs and most new DVD/Blueray players have USB ports now. People are going to expect them to play in all these places.

How universal is MKV with menus these days?

musicvid10 wrote on 2/8/2015, 10:20 PM

Not at all, because no one is interested in developing it.
Plenty of hobbyist interest, though.

GeeBax wrote on 2/8/2015, 10:54 PM

You can put the same file on a USB stick with a couple of different versions and then cover 95% of smart TVs. Having a menu is not essential, just title the movie in the file name, most people who are smart enough to plug a USB stick into a TV are also smart enough to find the file and make it play.

JackW wrote on 2/9/2015, 1:08 AM

@ musicvid: you can use the "convert" command at the command prompt to change the FAT 32 on the drive to NTFS. Then there's no limit to file size. I deliver a great deal of work that way.

Jack

PeterDuke wrote on 2/9/2015, 1:57 AM

"Having a menu is not essential"

True, but for most of my videos (holiday excursions, overseas trips) I like them all the same so that I can find particular events quickly.

For ordinary movies I could certainly live without them.

So I think it depends on video content and the viewer's likes and dislikes.

videoITguy wrote on 2/9/2015, 11:38 AM

The whole bit of non-menu simplicity in presentation by the young uns is a bit of a crock. Generally longer length presentations that are self-controlled by the client viewer benefit hugely from menu organization. Those persons who choose to not menu their longer presentations are just lazy, don't care whether their video is watched by anybody, and certainly don't understand the attention span of the ordinary viewer.

Now given that, shorter presentations that have very narrow audience interest, say, a home movie of the family vacation - also benefit hugely from a menu organization. Anytime the author can make a better presentation and have more of the potential in content absorbed by the casual viewer, the better.

Again Utube falls into a really nasty category of if you don't make chapter stops with easy navigation, you are a video author shooting yourself in the foot. You spend huge amount of effort to just have a clik measure on your video - but in reality no one actually watches more than a few seconds.

GeeBax wrote on 2/9/2015, 7:24 PM

[I]Those persons who choose to not menu their longer presentations are just lazy, don't care whether their video is watched by anybody, and certainly don't understand the attention span of the ordinary viewer.[/I]

One of your characteristic wild generalisations?

A single program that runs a single video subject with no chapters has no need of a menu. And it does not mean I am lazy because I structure the program that way.