DreamInducer DivX Menu Tool

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 3:46 pm

In my quest to make it even easier to use DreamInducer's DivX capabilities, I have decided to release an easy-to use tool to create the Mainmenu.dxl. It is called MakeDXL and is available on my site.

To use it, extract the downloaded zip onto your hard drive. In the makedxl folder, you will find two other folders. One is called avis, and the other is called Images. Place your DivX encoded avi files in the avis folder, and your .png screenshots (if you wish to use them) in the Images folder.

Run makedxl.exe. Answer a few simple questions, and you will soon have a Mainmenu.dxl for use in DreamInducer.

What to do now? Simple. If you have Selfboot Inducer, you simply need to put the following in the Inducer directory:

Mainmenu.dxl
avis[folder]
Images[folder]

If you have Selfboot Inducer version 1, the default path for the Inducer directory is c:\Selfboot\Inducer
If you have Selfboot Inducer version 2, the default path for the Inducer directory is c:\sbinducr\Inducer

When you have the files where they need to be, you can use Selfboot Inducer to create your disc.

If you have Selfboot Inducer 2, (I haven't tested this part, but should work...)

Run sbinducr.exe.
Skip step 1... this is for using sbi packs, which we aren't using.

Go directly where it says "step 2, Image creation." This will do one of 4 things:
Create a DiscJuggler Image.
Create a Nero Disc-at-Once Image.
Create a Nero Track-at-Once Image.
Help you burn using CDRecord.

If you have the older version of Selfboot Inducer, (I've tested this and it does work.)

Run selfboot.exe
If it asks you to configure CDRecord, answer "yes" if you're going to burn using CDRecord or "no" if you're using DiscJuggler or Nero.

When it asks you which folder you would like to selfboot, select the c:\selfboot\Inducer folder

FOR DISCJUGGLER OR NERO, there will be a combo box on the top of the Selfboot.exe window. Select "DiscJuggler/Nero Burning Rom".
Click the button to create an image for whichever burning program you have.

FOR CDRecord, there will be a combo box on the top of the selfboot.exe window. Select CDRecord.

Burn First Session/Enter MsInfo:
There will be a button that says "Burn at" next to a text box. Enter the speed at which you wish to burn and click the "Burn" button. When that completes, click the Msinfo button, and enter the numbers returned in the console window, including the comma.

Build Image For Second Session:
Click the Make ISO button.

Burn Second Session:
When the image is created, enter your desired burn speed in the bottom text box and click "Burn"

Go toss a bag of popcorn in the microwave and set for 5 minutes. When the time between pops is less than 2 seconds, stop the microwave and carefully remove the bag. Open carefully to prevent burns from escaping steam, and pour into a large bowl. Now go back to the computer and see if your disc is ready.

When your CD tray pops open, pop the disc in your DC and watch some movies!

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 8:30 pm

Nice work OneThirty8!!

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 10:43 pm

Thanks!

You tried it? I'd like feedback on what people like/don't like about it...

bryan666999 · Post by **bryan666999** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 12:44 am

hey...one thing....where can i get DreamInducer

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 6:34 am

I'll give it a try tonight, make an anime disc with menus will be cool.

SonOfMog · Post by **SonOfMog** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 9:50 am

This is looking good

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 9:27 pm

If you download Selfboot Inducer, DreamInducer is included in that download. When you extract it onto your hard drive, the c:\selfboot\Inducer or c:\sbinducr\Inducer folder is DreamInducer.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 10:14 pm

the download dosent work for your tool 138

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 8:05 pm

Inu_Sess_ wrote: the download dosent work for your tool 138

Hmm... Don't know why that is. Freeservers might have been down for a bit. The downloads are working now, I just checked. Thanks for the heads up. BTW, if anyone wants to mirror any of my stuff, (all 2 programs I've written) please feel free.

Also, a bit 'o news... I've updated MakeDXL to include:

A new icon and some ASCII art in the console window that looks like my avatar. Just so none of you miss me too much when you're not online.

When your Mainmenu.dxl is getting written, you will see each line in the console window as it is written. I thought this was a good thing because you'll be able to notice if you made a typo before you burn a disc.

Buttons to click, message boxes to tell you what's going on.

I'd also like to thank burnerO for showing me how to do a few things with BCX the other day. Actually made me want to rewrite my program, and I like it better now.

And, as always, feedback is appreciated.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 6:59 pm

what size do the screenshots have to be?

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Mon Apr 21, 2003 11:49 pm

I don't think it's too terribly important, as the ones I have used for movies vary slightly in size. Something around 210x140 will work and look pretty good. That's what size the ones in most of the sbi packs I have are. I just noticed my Star Wars ones are all around 300x300, and work fine but they do distort a bit because of the aspect ratio. Don't use a really big one, because It'll just end up being a waste of disc space.

2k2lincolnls · Post by **2k2lincolnls** » Tue Apr 22, 2003 6:21 pm

138, i totally appreciate the effort you spent on this, but is there anyway you can break it down for those with lesser knowledge than yourself? I did everything, probably wrong, and then when i put the disc in my DC it doesn't work at all. It sounds like its trying to start, then is sounds like the drive is going back and trying again, over and over. I know i messed up somewhere, but im not sure where. Tutorial please for stupid people like me!

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 12:59 am

Did you burn with Nero? If so, dao or tao? If dao, try tao. That's what works for me. Did you burn with DiscJuggler? My burner and DiscJuggler disagree, but Alcohol 120% works for me when I need to burn a .cdi image, so maybe try that. If none of the above apply, then keep reading...

Does it get past the SEGA loading screen? If not, then the problem is probably with the way it was burned. If what I say below doesn't help, can you tell me what you did exactly? Specifically, with the burning process. Here is what I am assuming. Please tell me if anything doesn't sound like what you did.

1 - Your Mainmenu.dxl was made correctly.
2 - You have DreamInducer in c:\sbinducr\Inducer (or c:\selfboot\Inducer)
3 - You moved your Mainmenu.dxl to c:\sbinducr\Inducer (or c:\selfboot\Inducer)
4 - You moved your avis and Images folders to c:sbinducr\Inducer (or c:\selfboot\Inducer)
5 - Something went wrong from here when you burned.

Also, if you were using the newest version of MakeDXL, I've found that it doesn't always work right, so if it gives you any trouble try the first version I made which is still up on my site. I'll hopefully be fixing that program soon, but the next few weeks are going to be hell at school...

The best way to burn your disc is with selfboot.exe, which was part of the old version of selfboot Inducer. If you've tried doing this with the newer Selfboot Inducer 2 (or 2.1) and that didn't work for you, maybe try burning with selfboot.exe which is still available from http://www.dcemulation.org/neededtools.htm and http://www.consolevision.com and see if that works for you. Here's the breakdown of that.

Double-click on selfboot.exe to start it up. The first time you use the program you will get a dialog asking you if you want to configure cdrecord. If using nero or discjuggler, say no. If you want to use CDRecord (and you have the proper ASPI drivers) Click "Yes."

Now you will get a dialog asking you which directory you would like to build an image of. Navigate to the directory where you have DreamInducer, your Mainmenu.dxl file and your avis and Images folders. If you did what I assumed above, this will be your c:\selfboot\Inducer (or c:\sbinducr\Inducer) directory.

Now you will have a window with a bunch of buttons.

If you are using nero or discjuggler to burn, you should see buttons to make a DiscJuggler(.cdi) image and Nero(dao) and Nero(tao) Images. Select one of these buttons and wait until you have either a .cdi (if you selected DiscJuggler) or a .nrg(If you selected one of the Nero options). Double-click on the image and DJ/Nero will open up. From there, burn as normal for whichever program you are using.

If you opted to configure CDRecord, your buttons will be different. First, you will have one that says "Burn" at the top of the window, with an Edit Box next to it. Type your burner's speed into that box( Example, if you want to burn at 4x, type "4" in the box.) And click the "Burn" button.
Next to that is an MSInfo button. Click that and wait for 2 numbers to appear in the black console (DOS-like) window. They will likely be 0,11702 or something close. Next to that button is an Edit box that says x,xxxxx. Enter your MSInfo numbers in this box, replacing the x,xxxxx. (If your numbers were 0,11702, then enter 0,11702.)

Once that is done, Go to the row below that and you will find the Make ISO button. Click it. It will take a while.

When your ISO is ready, you will have one last "Burn" button with an edit box next to it. This is exactly like it was above... Enter your desired burn speed in the edit box, and click "Burn" and wait. Your CD tray will pop open when it is done.

I hope some of that helps. If not, I'll probably be around mostly late at night (Eastern time) for the next few weeks if you want to IM me on aol or aim and we'll try and figure it out.

2k2lincolnls · Post by **2k2lincolnls** » Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:08 am

i appreciate it a lot, and i will try this tommorow. thanks for the reply, i appreciate it

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 10:06 pm

OK, it seems to me that MakeDXL could have been better. One problem that I see is that I didn't leave the option for people to use DreamInducer's other important feature, which is launching your favorite 'Brews.

I've decided to address that problem and hopefully make it easier to get a working DreamInducer Disc with my new program, DivX-4-SBI. As the name implies, you will need to have burnerO's Selfboot Inducer (version 2 or 2.1) on your computer.

Here's the quick rundown:
Once you have Selfboot Inducer installed in C:\sbinducr or similar, and the contents of the DivX-4-SBI zip file extracted to just about anywhere on your hard drive, you will need to create a folder (assuming Selfboot Inducer is in C:\sbinducr) called C:\sbinducr\Inducer\avis and put the movies you wish to have on your disc in that folder.

Optionally, you can put your .png screenshots for you movies in C:\sbinducr\Inducer\Images.

If you want Homebrew games or whatever, make sure the sbi pack(s) have been placed in C:\sbinducr\Sbis

Now, go to wherever you extracted DivX-4-SBI and double-click to open the program. Now, double-click the red and white skull to start and answer a few easy questions. When it's done with the last movie in the avis folder, it will ask you if you would like to launch Selfboot Inducer. If you're sure you don't want to add another sbi pack or 2 to the Sbis folder, click "Yes". Now, run Selfboot Inducer just like you would normally. Your movies will be listed in the menu on your new disc!

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sun May 04, 2003 8:32 pm

I cant get either of your tools to work. I burn it and it loads past the Sega screen and then its just black. I have tried both tools you made but cant get them to work.

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Sun May 04, 2003 8:48 pm

Do me a favor... can you copy+paste your mainmenu.dxl here so I can see if I can troubleshoot from there? My guess is that's where the problem lies, although I tested my programs out before releasing them. And I recommend DivX-4-SBI over either version of MakeDXL.

Also, if you could quickly describe the steps you took, I can probably help you that way too.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sun May 04, 2003 8:54 pm

unfortunitly I deleted the DXL's. But i'll list my steps as best as I can.

I made a folder in the inducer menu called avis.
placed my movies in it.
then I ran Divx-4-SBI
followed the steps of naming the files, no screenshots, and a short description of them all.
Once i did that for all my files I ran inducer since I had no other sbis or anything on it.
I made a DJ image and burned it with Alcohol 120% and booted it up with no results after the liscensed by sega screen, with the consolevision logo. Got a black screen.

OneThirty8 · Post by **OneThirty8** » Sun May 04, 2003 9:05 pm

When you ran Selfboot Inducer, did you click the barcode icon? I wrote DivX-4-SBI so that it doesn't make the Mainmenu.dxl. Instead, it makes individual .dxl files for each movie. Clicking on the barcode icon in Sbinducr.exe assembles all of the individual .dxl files into a Mainmenu.dxl and if you skip that step, then DreamInducer won't work. The reason for this is so that you can use .sbi packs and put games and emulators in the same menu as your movies.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Sun May 04, 2003 9:54 pm

I prob didnt do that, ill try that next time