Jump to content

grampaw

Members
  • Posts

    33
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by grampaw

  1. What I'm referring to is, now when you update, and the setup routine asks if you want to use retain your old settings, it "remembers" the burn speed setting - 4X on all my computers. It used to revert back to "Max" when updating, even if you requested your old setting, and I wouldn't notice.

     

    So then in my advancing senility, I wouldn't notice till I'd burned a few discs at 8X or 16X, wondering why they were burning so fast. And then to further compound my confusion, more than a few times I'd mistakenly change the number of copies to 4 instead of the burn speed to 4 (the boxes are right next to each other) - then I'd sit there wondering why it burned so fast and was then asking me to insert another disc...

     

    Actually I'm not that computer illiterate - I just do stuff like updating in a hurry sometimes.

  2. MarQu1s,

     

    The symptoms you describe (random, increasing in frequency lately, etc) sound like you may be running some other program either concurrently or before you run ImgBurn that is somehow effecting ImgBurn.

     

    You could keep a log of what other apps are running either before or during ImgBurn, and deduce what the problem might be.

     

    Or you could do like I do - always restart the computer before initializing an ImgBurn session.

     

    Lots of Luck...

  3. Just happened to be vacationing in this little Western Cambodian jungle town last week, and lo and behold, the internet cafe I went to to check e-mail had ImgBurn software on the computers. The internet cafes in Cambodia are big on burning CDs and DVDs.

  4. lol I've never even seen an internet cafe!

     

    And I can't count how many internet cafes I've seen - major cities in Europe, Asia, South America, and about 20 places in Mexico. But then I'm not in them to use ImgBurn, rather to check/make travel reservations and keep up with e-mail. Strangest place - Cairo, Egypt where water pipes are next to the computers. Can't remember how we traveled before the internet...

  5. Here's a better idea - use them for backup up huge amounts of data from your hard drive. You can do this with any recording program (RecordNow, Nero, etc.) and burn in file mode as a data DVD! Computer drives don't seem to have a problem with layer switching when handling data files, at least for me. That's what I did with some Ritek Ridata discs...

     

    Thanks Fordman - I do have a data backup application in mind I could use the Ritek's for. I use NTI's DVDcreator as my recording program. I'll give it a try with data backed up elsewhere...

     

    Actually, I never said I couldn't play movie DVD's using the Ritek DL media. One of my stand alone players, the $27 USD WalMart special CyberHome hooked up to small TV in the guest room, plays anything perfectly including Ritek DL movies. It's the other two players, hooked up to entertainment systems, that stumble a bit at the boundary change - usually requiring a remote FF action to continue. The Ritek DLs also seem to have occasional pixellations I seem to remember.

  6. I bought these Riteks a while ago, on sale, and don't want to do the hassle of trying to return them. Gee, now I know why they were on sale...

     

    I'll try burning a DVD-5 on one of them tonight. Movie Junkie probably has a valid point about the order of layer burning - so I'll put ImgBurn to the test let you know how it goes.

     

    And ImgBurn works just fine.

     

    I used Shrink to strip the menu and trailer from an un-encrypted title (not all DVDs have CSS). Using Shrink meant there was no MDS file. ImgBurn first verified I really wanted to burn this ISO on a DL since it would fit on a SL, then gave me some strange message about the ISO not conforming to some sort of standard (I should have copied it - it's not in the log), then assigned a layer break point, and finally burned the DVD. Result was a DVD that plays fine on the stand-alone player in my entertainment system.

  7. I bought these Riteks a while ago, on sale, and don't want to do the hassle of trying to return them. Gee, now I know why they were on sale...

     

    I'll try burning a DVD-5 on one of them tonight. Movie Junkie probably has a valid point about the order of layer burning - so I'll put ImgBurn to the test let you know how it goes.

  8. I've read enough stuff in this forum to convince me that Ritek DL +R media are potential coasters. I've burned maybe 3 DVDs out of my spindle of 20, all I suppose classified as "successful", however with funky stuff going on at the layer break (stutter, stopping, pixellation).

     

    I switched to Verbatim DL +R media a while ago, and they seem to work perfectly. So now I have this spindle of blank Riteks I don't know what to do with.

     

    So, it just occurred to me, why not burn them as DVD-5's, i.e. only use layer 0. Anybody have any experience at this? Should I do anything special using ImgBurn? Hate to just dump this spindle...

  9. Polopony's memory is right on - the rings, actually different colored concentric parts of the disk, is where the writer changes does a step speed change, eventually ramping up in 2X steps to whatever burn speed you selected in the ImgBurn options.

     

    Early on in the great speed race, when 8X blank media first appeared, I found that the change between 4X and 8X on the burned disk would frequently freeze a movie playback on various of my stand-alone players. I'm sure media has improved since that time, and it's probably not still a problem.

     

    However I still continue to only Burn DVDs, either SL or DL, only at 4X - I figure it's one less chance for a playback glitch....

  10. Dell didn't give me the WinXP MCE disk with the "Scratch and Dent" package. It did, however, come with a 3 year onsite warranty (Dell classified it as a business computer) which I will use if things get too screwed up. First time I contact Dell support I'll try to get a CD, however. They only charge $10 more with an original order.

     

    So I do a lot of restore points when loading up new software. I also generally don't uninstall unless it's necessary. I don't really care if it's a clean system, I only care if the system works. Roxio software is a real problem since it generally neither uninstalls nor updates correctly - so the plan there is to just ignore it.

  11. The two "E" and "W" messages disappeared and the log looks normal now. ImgBurn now finds the DVD writer instantly.

     

    I was going to do the recommeded diagnostic to find out why the DVD writer had a delayed recognition, however, I wanted to first setup the computer with my preferred software. The computer came with Sonic MyDVD LE loaded, which includes a Roxio stuff - DLA packet-writing app could be the problem.

     

    Anyway, I figured I'd leave the Sonic stuff on for now. I'm not a Roxio fan - buggy and intrusive software, nor do I care for Nero - bloated and incredibly bizarre interface. I like NTI CD/DVD Maker verion 7, - nice interface for music, photos, video, and even shrinks DVD files. And their packet writer, FileCD, is not intrusive.

     

    So I loaded that software, and LOL, some setting must have gotten changed somewhere, since now ImgBurn finds the DVD writer immediately.

  12. New (actually Scratch and Dent) Computer from Dell - loaded with tons of software, most of which I have no clue what is, so I'm methodically uninstalling. And of course adding the software I'm familar with, such as ImgBurn.

     

    Anyway, when I run ImgBurn, I get the following message. I just ignore it since the burns are normal and verify. I'm just curious why I get the message. Dosn't matter if I first start ImgBurn, then put DVD blank in, or do it in the reverse order, I always get this same message.

     

    I 16:53:05 ImgBurn Version 1.2.0.0 started!

    I 16:53:05 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 2)

    I 16:53:05 Initialising SPTI...

    I 16:53:05 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

    E 16:53:10 CreateFile Failed! - Device: '\\.\CdRom0'

    E 16:53:10 Reason: The device is not ready.

    W 16:53:10 Errors were encountered when trying to access a drive.

    W 16:53:10 This drive will not be visible in the program.

    I 16:53:10 Found 1 DVD?RW!

  13. I'm just curious - does the ImgBurn finalise polling logic have a counter that eventually says "Ok this finalising isn't going to happen, so time to bail" ?

     

    Reason I ask is I had one old 1GHz P3 machine with Win98 (now out of commission with a dead MoBo battery) that once in a great while would decide not to use the software buffer, using instead only the device buffer when writing. These disks were not real playable, so I learned to just abort when I saw this happening. When you abort, it finalises, and I noticed this would take usually about a half hour or so. I had to finalise because if I stopped ImgBurn, the computer would lock up, requiring a reboot. Anyway, I've always been curious as to whether ImgBurn (and it's predecessor) really did finalise or just aborted the finalise.

  14. I'd like to share my experience using Shrink to reauthor, then ImgBurn to burn a DL disk where the resulting ISO doesn't have an associated MDS (i.e. - no LB is specified). ImgBurn never gives me any dialog box for choosing - it just sets the LB point, says it did that, and then burns the disk. BTW, neither DL burner I use is bookmarked DVD-ROM - and I use DVD+R media (either RIDATA or Verbatim) burning at 2.4x.

     

    What are the results? Well based on the five or so I've burned this way, they are all playable on stand-alone DVD players (haven't tried a computer DVD-ROM). How well they play seems to depend on the player. On the Pioneer player, I usually either get a hesitation of maybe 2 or 3 seconds at the LB, or sometimes it will just freeze. A quick hit on the remote FF button gets you past the freeze. On the Toshiba player, I get a maybe 1 second hesitation in all cases and that's all.

     

    I assume the player FW sees the LB, then sees an error, and then does whatever error-correction it's supposed to do. This is all acceptable to me - I'm not looking for perfection I guess.

     

    I'll have to experiment with the PgcEdit technique - I wasn't quite sure what the purpose of that app was.

  15. I ran a few more scans with that same Pioneer DVR 108 Writer using other burned DVD video disks that I recently viewed and remember how played. I only use backups in players, never the master, my procedure for audio CDs during past ten years or so. Anyway, almost all of these scanned DVDs looked perfectly normal at the ~4X scan speed. Quality ratings were between 90% to 97% with most around 95%. Now I do remember a few of these had maybe one or two minor pixellation artifacts and/or minor stop action or stuttering motion defects. However, none of these defects are really significant, or detract from viewing DVD, but still do indicate the backup is not perfect. I suppose I could go back and compare the original to the backup, and I don't want to get that involved. I'm ready to just drop the issue.

     

    My conclusions are:

     

    1. The particular backup disk referenced in my original post is some anomaly - something's going on, and who cares if it plays okay in my entertainment system.

     

    2. DVDInfoPro yeilds a lot of useful information and is really a good tool. And the PI/PO test results may or may not be indicative of that scanned disk's playability in a particular DVD standalone player, DVD-ROM, or DVD writer - best to just play the disk and see.

  16. Attached are a couple of PI/PO scans of the burned DVD video referenced above. They all follow the same general pattern with quality ratings of 59%, 39%, and 27% as I kept repeating the scans.

     

    I haven't tried playing the DVD on the computer - I always play DVD videos on a DVD Player.

     

    post-1203-1136675251_thumb.png

    post-1203-1136675498_thumb.png

    post-1203-1136675566_thumb.png

  17. Curious to know if running the PI/PO and CRC DVDInfoPro tests have significance if the burned DVD passes the ImgBurn 1.1.0.0 verify test. I'm not any expert on PI and PO tests, however, it appears the these tests do yield additional info even if all the DVD sectors do verify, I just don't know what the significance may be. Also is the DVDInfoPro CRC test is just the simple read test that ImgBurn 1.0.0.0 used to do? And, most importantly, are any of these tests relevant to the actual success of playing a burned DVD video on your DVD player?

     

    Reason I'm asking is that I burned a DVD video ISO, it didn't verify (sector error), so I ran the DVDInfoPro PI/PO and CRC tests to see what would result. The CRC test came up all green on the graph. The PI/PO test graph was really strange on the PI part - red and yellow in addition to green (never saw that before!), and the quality rating was 49%. I figured this DVD must be a coaster, but since I hadn't seen this video title, I decided to throw it in my DVD player and see what happened. Well you can see where I'm going - it played perfectly, and I had my eyes glued to the tube to look for any artifacts, stop motion, audio/video out of sync, anything at all abnormal, and I couldn't find anything.

     

    edit - Forgot to mention, the media was YUDEN 000-T02-00, the burner was LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-812S with FW USOS burning at 4X. Should have saved the DVDInfoPro graphs - guess I could reconstruct them if necessary.

  18. Just a follow-up on my Post #32 above.

     

    Problem was that the Pioneer DVR-108 wtiter in my P4 desktop running WinXP SP1 seems to burn disks that play fine but won't verify with ImgBurn 1.1.0.0. My conclusion was it was the writer FW. Now I don't think so.

     

    I updated the FW to the latest for both the DVR-108 writer and a Creative (rebadged BTC) writer also in that computer. Both writers put out disks that play fine, but won't verify. Thus, by simple deduction, the problem is not ImgBurn.

     

    Latest theory is that it's either the MoBo FW, the RAID level 0 array with HDs that have parallel to serial converters, or maybe even WinXP SP1. This machine is not real stable - occasional BSODs irrespective of the running application that seem temperature. I plan to "renovate" this computer when I get inspired - "cooler" case, better CPU fan (not sure thermal compound was even used), update BIOS FW, skip the RAID bit and put all drives on normal IDE ports, reload OS with update to SP2, etc...

  19. The reason I thought my question was dumb was that I didn't do my homework - LIGHTNING UK!, I'm sure, would expect a little more research before asking. All I had to do was do a simple Google search to find out what these flash files were.

     

    IDEFLASH.EXE in this case is a generic windows ide device flasher. It relies on the IDSTRING.TXT file to first identify the ide device (the DVD writer ID, "CREATIVEDVDRW DR8420E" in this case), next the actual data to be flashed (the BIN file, "RPC1V059.BIN" file in this case), and finally if verification is requested (the "Y"). The FIDE.SYS and FIDEVXD.VXD files are Mediatek drivers that actually interface with the first 4 ide ports - apparently you're out of luck if your device is on a second ide, orRAID controller.

     

    As a follow-up, I'm all excited now that I updated the writer FW on my Dell Latitude X1, the subcompact 2.5 lb notebook. This computer has the Dell D-Bay external USB NEC ND-6500A DVD writer that came with FW 202C that only wrote SL media. Now with the latest FW 203D, it writes DL media that even verifies with ImgBurn Verify mode when using RIDATA DL media (not reputed to be the best media available).

  20. Polopony

     

    Thanks - worked perfectly! The IDEFLASH.EXE flashed the firmware from 054 to 059, the drive name stayed the same. I now understand how various flash files work together. In retrospect my initial post, besides rambling on and on, was pretty dumb... :'(

  21. I finally got around to updating all the FW on the five different DVD writers - ImgBurn Drive FW update feature really helps. Anyway, four of the writer FW updates went smoothly, all updated to the latest FW. A few glitches, but I figured them out.

     

    The last one I'm not sure exactly how to do. The writer is a Creative DR8420E which is really a rebadged BTC 1008IM. The last FW update the Creative people put out was 0054, which I flashed way back when I got the writer out of the box with the 0053 FW. The Creative FW flasher was a Windows flasher, just double click the exe file.

     

    Using ImgBurn's FW search, RPC1 has a "0059-Synthesized" FW for the Creative DR8420E. I downloaded and unzipped the zip file - the unzipped files are: FIDE.SYS, FIDEVXD.VXD, IDEFLASH.EXE, IDSTRING.TXT (the text is "CREATIVEDVDRW DR8420E ""RPC1V059.BIN""Y"), and RPC1V059.BIN.

     

    Now I show my ignorance - I have no idea how to do the flash update. Is this a DOS flasher?, a Windows flasher?, or what? I looked around on the RPC1 site, and couldn't find any cookbook type script to do the flash. Do I just double click on the EXE and it does it's thing, opening a DOS window if necessary? Or do I have to open my own DOS window (which I don't know how to do in WinXP)? Or, heaven forbid, do I have to do some sort of DOS Boot disk like years ago?

     

    I figure someone on this Support Forum can point me in the right direction.

     

    I assume updating the FW means changeing the DVD Writer ID, which in turn means other applications (NERO comes to mind) looking for something in its approved list will now be a no go. Should I even update the FW? - the RPC1 site doesn't tell me what added features the update gives me.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.