Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer Help

Table of Contents

Disclaimer
System Requirements
FAQ
Limitations/How It Works
Change Log
Contact

Disclaimer
First of all, I am not really a programmer, it’s just a hobby. I’m sure there are bugs in this and I apologize for any troubles you may have with it. If you would prefer still images are always available for menu approvals. I also take no responsibility for any harm done to your computer, though I can’t imagine anything bad happening beyond a browser crash. But use-at-your-own-risk. This program was created outside of Post Modern Group and is the property of reykroona.com and is used with Rey Kroona’s permission.
©2008 Rey Kroona, All Rights Reserved.
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System Requirements
Adobe Flash Player 9
Mac OS X or Windows
Slower computers may lag on video playback or menu animations. I’m not completely sure how slow of a computer you could use.
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FAQ
1. What is Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer?
2. Why doesn’t it work for me?
3. What’s the deal with the control panel?
4. Why do the menu items look so bad?
5. Is there a HD-DVD or BD-J version?
6. Is this project open source? Where can I download the source for it?
7. Why is the menu so small?

1. What is Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer?
This is a small flash application I created to easily display menus created with Sonic Designer on the web. The idea was for an easy way for clients to view menus and be able to get a full understanding of how the interactivity would work. To use it, just move your mouse around and click on whatever buttons you like.
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2. Why doesn’t it work for me?
The Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer only requires Adobe Flash 9. Some menus may use H.264 compression and may require a beta version of Flash called Flash Update 3 Beta so if you are getting the control panel, but no video make sure to update to the newest version of Flash. If you are still having problems, email your contact for support. It may be they provided a bad link or an incomplete upload.
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3. What’s the deal with the control panel?
Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer Title Bar:
Click and drag this to move the entire control panel wherever you want. Sometimes this will get in the way and you’ll want it someplace else.

Menu Text Box:
You may be wondering why there is a text box with the name of the menu loaded there. The idea was for multiple discs you could switch between menu sets without clicking new links from your email. For example, you may get a link that says: http://reykroona.com/BluRay/index.php?LoadMenu=Designer_Tutorial_Menu_D1&bgVid=Designer_Tutorial_Menu.mp4 and in the text box in the control panel it will say Designer_Tutorial_Menu_D1. You can simply change the last number to a 2 so it now reads Designer_Tutorial_Menu_D2, and click Load Menu and you’ll be on your way to viewing the next menu. Of course this only works if there actually is a D2 menu uploaded, so consult your contact if you are having problems.

“Select a Page to Load” Combo Box:
When the menu loads, each page is loaded into the combo box. If the designer designed their menu correctly, the buttons should take you to the appropriate page. But sometimes you may want to jump in between or go back. This is where you would do that.

Loading Bar:
This shows when your computer is accessing the server for the video only. It doesn’t apply to the graphics that are loading. They’ll just appear when they are finished. Most menus are between 1 – 10 mb and load only the files they need, so loading times for graphics should be pretty quick. However the videos will all depend on the compression and will vary.

Post Modern Digital:
This is the company I work for (obviously). Hopefully we are the ones in contact with you. If not, then this was probably “borrowed” for another studio. Our website is www.postmoderndigital.com

reykroona.com:
That’s me. I programmed this thing and there’s a good chance I designed your menus as well. Feel free to visit my site www.reykroona.com to see my demo reel and maybe other projects, though nothing too exciting is up there right now.
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4. Why do the menu items look so bad?
Unfortunately Blu-Ray HDMV only supports 256 colors, which includes transparency pixels. That means there has to be some dithering to help blend the colors. What you are seeing are actual images that will be authored in Scenarist. So as far as the graphics go, what you see is what you get. The video is a different story. It is most likely just compressed a little too much if it doesn’t look too great. Once it has been recompressed in HD, it will look much better.
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5. Is there a HD-DVD or BD-J version?
Not at this time.
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6. Is this project open source? Where can I download the source for it?
At this point, the project is not open source. I may open it up as a thank you to all the other open source software programs, but at this time I’m not ready to open it up. If you are interested please contact me so I know there is a desire for it.
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7. Why is the menu so small?
There seems to be a bug in Firefox and other Opera browsers that don’t scale the height of the flash to 100% like it’s supposed to. I’m looking into a workaround, but for now use Internet Explorer or Safari and you won’t have this issue. If you insist on using Firefox, you can also change the URL where it says index.php to DesignerAS.swf and this will load just the flash file. Make sure to keep the ?LoadMenu= and &bgVid= in the URL otherwise your menu won’t load.
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Limitations/How It Works
Blu-Ray HDMV Flash Viewer is not an authoring program. All it’s doing is taking an XML file, created by Sonic Designer PS, and displaying the images in the way that it thinks they should be played back. With that being said, many things will be missing that your final disc may have. Sounds for example. Your disc may have additional clicks from when selections are made. This is done in the Scenarist stage and so it is not shown here. Some links may not connect you to the correct page if the menu designer did not name the button the same name as the page. Animations may also act differently. In the Flash viewer, the Normal state and Active State animations continuously loop, while the Selected animation freezes on the last frame. Scenarist has several different options on how to handle these so they default this way. For now, only 1920×1080 menus work. This will probably be changed in the future, but I’m not sure how many 720P menus we’ll be doing so I haven’t added that yet.

If you are designing menus, make sure the button names have the same name as the page they are going to. This makes the interactive features work better. To create a menu, simply upload the new folder Sonic Designer created and the background movie to the same folder as where the SWF file is. Then email a link with to your client. The link should look like this:
http://reykroona.com/BluRay/index.php?LoadMenu=Designer_Tutorial_Menu&bgVid=Designer_Tutorial_Menu.mp4
The variable LoadMenu is the name of the folder you uploaded and the variable bgVid is the name of the video file. It looks complicated, but I promise you it’s not that bad.
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Change Log
Version .1 – Initial Release
Version .11 – Removed Post Modern Digital for public release
Version .12 – Made the menu center on the screen to create a “letterbox/pillarbox” effect
-Added variable named “f”. This is for framerate. Default is 24.
-Added variable named “s”. This is for Selected Loop. Default is True.
-Added variable named “n”. This is for Normal Loop. Default is True.
Version .15 – Added options into the control panel so you don’t have to mess around with parameters in the URL
- Added a close button and information button that opens/closes the control panel
- Added a show control panel option so you can have it start with it hidden if you want to
- Added a fullscreen button next to the information button
- Added a “Generate URL and Copy to Clipboard” button. What this does is once you get all your settings right you can click it, then paste a url into an email or back into a browser that will remember all your settings. 

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Contact
Rey Kroona
email: reykroona@gmail.com
website: www.reykroona.com

Post Modern Group, LLC – Irvine
2941 Alton Parkway
Irvine, CA 92606
+1 949 608-8700 TEL
+1 949 608-8729 FAX
General Information: info@postmoderngroup.com
Human Resources: humanresources@postmoderngroup.com
Accounting: accounting@postmoderngroup.com
Questions about this website: webmaster@postmoderngroup.com
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