think Different

Rich Reilly wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:31 PM

On a Macbook pro I'm seeing hotspots go opaque when selection is made.
I haven't seen this one anywhere else.
but hollywood titles behave normal.
Is there something different about DVDA at this level?

Comments

ScottW wrote on 10/24/2007, 7:16 AM

Buttons have 3 states: inactive, selected, activated

And you can apply a color set to each of those states on a per menu level.

It sounds like whatever your color set is for 'active' the Macbook is interpreting that as opaque. Whether or not the macbook is behaving correctly, I cannot say.

--Scott

Rich Reilly wrote on 10/24/2007, 7:55 AM

Yes, I understand the button highlighting states. It shows the button highlight mask fine. Just decides to display the hotspot during activate. Not consistent across macs..but such a base function I have to wonder how it could be botched.

MPM wrote on 10/24/2007, 8:32 AM

Not sure if this will help or not Rich...

One potential clue, if there is something different (I don't know that there is, or that the MAC's player software isn't broken)... If you look at the CLUT (Color Lookup Table) for DVDA DVDs comparred to those written in other software, DVDA uses a reduced color pallet. I don't know if this is a result of DVDA's design, that seems a bit more flexible and easier when it comes to setting the colors, or if DVDA just approaches setting the CLUT differently.

Another place I'd look (& I'm pretty MAC ignorant so take this with a grain of salt), is if the problem is related to how MACs interpret and display colors/graphics. Their gamma may still be different for example -- I think that there used to be more differences years back.

At any rate, before I'd say something was botched with the MAC or DVDA, I'd do a couple of very simple DVDs for a test, identical except one produced in DVDA and another in whatever other brand I could download a trial for. Play both on the MAC in question and see what happens.

AFAIK pretty much all DVD authoring software makes compromises for the sake of usability. Harder to use programs like Scenarist or even the free DVD author might come closer to What-you-see-is-what-you-get when it comes to the actual code or scripting, but the learning curve and difficulty (& with SCenarist high $) are the cost.