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Please make Imgburn *TOTALLY* leave my files alone!


bitterroot

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I greatly appreciate Imgburn's option to uncheck "filter folder content" so I can add text and photos to my vacation video DVDs. But even with "Filter Folder Content" and "IFO/BUP 32K Padding" both unchecked, it still changes my .bup and .ifo files. I know this because I burn with a full disk checksum, and after the burn the checksum fails on all .bup and .ifo files.

 

I'm sure the author had his reasons for modifying these files, adherance to a certain standard or whatever, and it's true that the disks do play fine, but nevertheless I have my own reasons for wanting an option to make the program leave my files totally unchanged, and burn them absolutely as I sent them to the build. I'm sure it's making a decision that the author feels must be made on my behalf, but I disagree. I simply want it to do precisely what I tell it to do, not what the author thinks is better for me than my own wishes.

 

For this reason I usually burn with an ancient version of TmpgEnc DVD author. I have never used it as a DVD author; I author and build my DVDs using several different clients and when they're ready, I go straight to the Burn option in TmpgEnc. Like ImgBurn, it too burns all of my files, text, photos, checksums, everything. The difference is that it burns every file perfectly and I get a 100% good report from my checksums. I have not found a way to get this satisfaction from Imgburn.

 

Imgburn is a superior and vastly more flexible program, but until it gives me the option to force it to burn my files completely unchanged, it can never be my first string burn program. Please give me the most fundamental option every program should feature: to do as I say!

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@LUK

 

First off, I have no problem with the changes that are made. The burned DVD's pass my tests by working :)

 

Nonetheless, just because I'm interested in all the aspects of DVD-Video, what is changed in the .IFO and .BUP files? Are the changes always made?

 

Cheers

 

Guzeppi

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They're made if they're wrong!

 

I have no idea what's being changed for any given project, the program just checks a whole bunch of things and corrects whatever is wrong.

 

If you're really interested, compare the two IFO files (hex compare) using something like Hex Workshop/Beyond Compare, see which addresses are different.

 

Then look up those addresses having loaded said IFO into IfoEdit or whatever.

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Hi LightningUK, thanks for the direct reply.

 

I won't be changing how ImgBurn works in this respect.

They're made if they're wrong!

 

Please reconsider: When I'm doing a forensic backup for dissemination in a court case (the *real* reason for my original post), it has to be a perfect copy. Period. There is no "right" or "wrong". Nobody involved cares if the structure of the DVD meets certain standards. They care that it is *precisely* what the originating office disseminated; that it is precisely what the other lawyer across town, and the lab, and the client all got. If it's a disk of jpeg photos of a crime scene I wouldn't dream of going through and 'correcting' several pictures and telling everyone involved that "Those jpegs didn't meet the defined Jpeg standard. But don't worry, I only made invisible changes in the mathematical structure of the jpeg compression. The pictures still look the same as they did before I started tampering with the evidence. Honest." Have you ever had to tangle with lawyers? I might as well make grammatical corrections to a witness' statement before burning a copy. It's simply and absolutely unacceptable, no matter how right my grammar is or how wrong his grammar is. No matter how incorrect the original DVD's structure was or how much more compliant my copies are.

 

A second point: Before I burn a DVD, I create about 1% of 384k Par2 blocks right inside the VIDEO_TS directory. This usually results in about 100 recovery blocks. If that burn drops some sectors at some point in the future, I can go back and fix it by using Iso/Read mode, then using WinRar to unpack the .iso archive, and then running the Par2 files. I've had to do it several times in the past and it works beautifully! But when the disk has 18 .bup and .ifo files that were changed during the burn, the first thing I see after the burn is all kinds of checksum failures. I have to manually scroll through and make sure none of them are in the vobs. At the very least, 18 of my Par2 blocks are already wasted and in the case of a future recovery I will have 82 blocks of protection rather than the planned 100.

 

I'm not asking you to make Imgburn default to what I'm requesting. I'm asking you to make it an option. If you feel like prefacing it with a disclaimer about how I'm about to deviate from the standard and don't come crying to you if the disk won't play afterwards, fine. But there are valid reasons for making software do what the user asks rather than always and arbitrarily overriding his wishes 'for his own good'.

 

All I'm asking is that you make Imgburn capable of a perfect backup. Please consider that point: The mighty Imgburn is currently *not capable* of making a perfect backup! How can that situation go unanswered? In a world of software that tries do all of my thinking for me, and force certain things down my throat no matter what my reasons for objecting, shouldn't your most excellent and powerful program stand above them and offer me an option do get a perfect backup? Preface it with a "Use at your own risk" disclaimer if you must but please, make it capable of a perfect backup; what the legal types call a forensic backup. I need that as my first concern. I can already see one more simple tickbox in the options: "Forensic Backup" ... Excellent!

 

I repeat, please reconsider: In the digital age, is asking for a perfect digital copy *really* asking too much?!

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So basically, you want it as a data disc?

 

Can't you just put all the folders inside another one, then the whole 'DVD Video' thing won't kick in.

 

Digital copy is made when you already have the files on a disc, you don't.

 

btw, you should have mentioned 'forensic backup' in the first place, you might have gotten a different answer in my original reply if you had.

 

EDIT: Added a 'Fix VTS Sectors' option in the settings.

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= So basically, you want it as a data disc?

 

Yes. I'd greatly appreciate it if I had the option to tell Imgburn to burn precisely what I tell it to burn, with no changes, regardless of whether it is a video or data disk.

 

= Can't you just put all the folders inside another one,

= then the whole 'DVD Video' thing won't kick in.

 

No, because I still need it to function as a DVD in a run of the mill standalone DVD player.

 

= Digital copy is made when you already have the

= files on a disc, you don't.

 

Sometimes they are my own authors, but usually the files are on DVD when I receive them. They are never retail purchased or encrypted DVDs. I do a simple drag and drop copy to the hard drive, then create an SFV checksum file for the whole disk and burn, then run the checksum against the burn. I must destroy the disk and try again if the checksum reports anything other than than perfect. The Par2 process that I mentioned is for my own personal disks.

 

= btw, you should have mentioned 'forensic backup' in the first place, you

= might have gotten a different answer in my original reply if you had.

 

I agree, I should have. Sorry 'bout that. I was trying to keep my request simple. I know you're busy and I appreciate the time you're devoting to discussing and considering it.

 

= EDIT: Added a 'Fix VTS Sectors' option in the settings.

 

Does this mean that if I uncheck that option, it will do as I've requested? If so, thank you kindly :)

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Does this mean that if I uncheck that option, it will do as I've requested? If so, thank you kindly :)

 

Yes it does but it doesn't mean the discs will play... that's the whole reason for ImgBurn running the 'Fix VTS Sectors' function in the first place.

 

It's comments like this that make/made me hesitate in the first place...

 

Can't you just put all the folders inside another one, then the whole 'DVD Video' thing won't kick in.

No, because I still need it to function as a DVD in a run of the mill standalone DVD player.

 

Simply put, you can't have your cake and eat it.

 

ImgBurn doesn't build the disc based on the IFO layout, it builds it how I've told it to (and that's too much to change / wouldn't work with the other features of ImgBurn). If you don't then update the various pointers in the IFO's, the disc could refuse to play - depending on the player and what's wrong in the IFO's.

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== Does this mean that if I uncheck that option,

== it will do as I've requested?

 

= Yes it does but it doesn't mean the discs will play

 

That's OK! Let that be my problem. If the source disk plays, the perfect copies will play. If the source disk doesn't play, it's not my fault that the copies don't play either; at least I did my part and produced forensic copies. That's absolutely all that matters to me.

 

= that's the whole reason for ImgBurn running

= the 'Fix VTS Sectors' function in the first place.

 

I can appreciate that. Many people like to point and click and have the program defaults do their thing.

 

=== It's comments like this that make/made me hesitate in the first place...

 

== Can't you just put all the folders inside another one, then the whole 'DVD Video' thing won't kick in.

 

= No, because I still need it to function as a DVD in a run of the mill standalone DVD player.

 

OK... I misspoke. Let me rephrase my answer: No, because I need it to function as a DVD *as well as the original does, even if the original doesn't*. There. If the original has issues, that's not my problem or Imgburn's. I'm simply required to make perfect copies without *any* regard to the contents of what I'm copying, or how well it might play in a run of the mill DVD player. I almost never play test a client's DVD. I haven't play tested a single one in the past six months, I'm sure. I don't care if they play or not. All I test is the checksum, and I test that for every burn. But adding a new directory level at the root and putting the VIDEO_TS folder inside it means not only do I no longer have a forensic burn, but I have also *assured* that it won't play as a DVD.

 

= ImgBurn doesn't build the disc based on the IFO layout,

= it builds it how I've told it to (and that's too much to change /

= wouldn't work with the other features of ImgBurn).

 

I see, and I wouldn't ask you to start over from the ground up. All I'm asking for is a way to tell Imgburn to ignore what type of data I'm telling it to burn, and just plain burn it as-is. No "building", no analyzing, no correcting and fixing. WYSIWYG. Period.

 

I do not presume to tell you how to program, but it seems there must be a choke point, a simple way to ignore the fact that it's a directory of DVD files. At first they're all just generic 'files' and detecting that they happen to be DVD files is an extra step, right? Wouldn't it be simple to completely skip that step of detection and just go ahead and burn the contents of the specified directory?

 

I hope I'm not completely wasting your time; I'm just trying to clarify my position. Now if I read correctly, the very first thing you said was that unchecking the "Fix VTS Sectors" option would indeed result in a forensic burn, and if that's the case, I'll be a very happy camper when that option is implemented. I just downloaded and installed 2.4.4.0 and set it to check for updates daily. Anticipation...

 

Thanks again for your time in discussing this, not to mention in writing, maintaining, and supporting Imgburn. Colossal.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but the second you use windows explorer to copy the files from the disc it can no longer be "forensic copy", because the 32kb padding(if any to begin with) goes out the window. On another note you can't tell what order the files were in to begin with, so how can you be sure they are going back in that same order. Doing it that way can only assure each individual "file" is bit accurate, not the disc as a whole. If you don't let Imgburn do it's thing you may very well "break" a disc that would normally be playable for the sake of your checksums working out. Why not just create, burn, verify an image?

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moondogger, thanks for trying to help.

 

= Correct me if I'm wrong but the second you use windows

= explorer to copy the files from the disc it can no longer

= be "forensic copy", because the 32kb padding(if any to

= begin with) goes out the window.

 

How can I say politely: You're wrong :)

 

Really, dragging them to the hard drive using Windows Explorer does not change them any more than it changes any other files. It simply doesn't, just as if they were jpegs or text or anything else; you wouldn't expect Explorer to alter any of your files in a simple drag and drop copy operation. The 32k padding is introduced during the burn. Garbage bytes are added to the end of a smaller file to make it 32k, and then it is burned. When it is dragged back to the hard drive later, it's still just one file with some garbage bytes at the end, and it's still 32k. You seem to be under the impression that a 15k file is burned but 32k is allocated on the optical disk but when it's copied back to the hard drive, it will still be 15k. This isn't so.

 

= On another note you can't tell what order the files were

= in to begin with

 

True, and neither can anybody else involved on my end, so far as I know.

 

= so how can you be sure they are going back in that same order.

 

I can't, but that doesn't concern me, nor anybody else I'm involved with.

 

= Doing it that way can only assure each individual "file" is

= bit accurate

 

Precisely. That's all I need. I'm curious; why do you put "file" in quotes? DVD files are all just plain files, same as text or images or anything else.

 

= not the disc as a whole.

 

Perhaps my use of the word "forensic" is not considered accurate by some. Nevertheless, as long as I get bit perfect copies of all of the data on the disk I'm happy, and everyone downstream from me is happy, and nobody has ever complained.

 

= If you don't let Imgburn do it's thing you may very

= well "break" a disc that would normally be playable

= for the sake of your checksums working out.

 

Please don't take this wrong moondogger; I'm just trying to have an honest and open exchange of information: What you just said is a contradiction. I believe this betrays a lack of knowledge on your part about how a DVD works. If the checksum is good, nothing is broken! The playability of the disk has not changed. It's all just files. If the checksum is good, how can you possibly think anything would be broken? It doesn't matter where the files physically reside on the surface of the disk, nor the order in which they were burned, none of that. Same as when you drag and drop copy a DVD to your hard drive. You're scattering those files all over a huge fragmented disk, but none of that matters. You can still open it with a software DVD player and navigate through it and play it as if the files were still on the optical media. There is no difference.

 

To look at it another way: You can add a ton of unrelated files inside a good working VIDEO_TS directory on your hard drive, named to assure that they will fall in between the video files, before them, after them, a hundred garbage files, a hundred meg's worth, whatever, and burn that entire mess to DVD, and the burned disk will still play fine. The DVD player looks for the VIDEO_TS.IFO file and goes from there, and ignores the rest of the files. It really is as simple as that.

 

A third way to look at it: Put a DVD in your PC's DVD drive and open it and play it with a common software DVD player, such as Cyberlink PowerDVD. Now go into Windows Explorer and drag and drop copy the files inside the VIDEO_TS directory to an empty VIDEO_TS directory on your hard drive, but copy them in several separate operations, out of order. Copy the last file first, then some files in the middle, then the first few files, do it any way you want, and when you have all of the files on your hard drive you know very well that they're scattered all over the physical surface of your hard drive, fragmented and out of order, yet when you open that VIDEO_TS directory with that same software DVD player, they will navigate and play identically to the way they played a few minutes ago while reading from the optical media. If you create an .sfv checksum of those fragmented files and run it against the source DVD, it will check out 100% perfect. That's all that matters.

 

Perhaps it will help if you consider: When we talk about "structure" we're talking about information that is contained in the files, not anything at all to do with the way those files are laid out on the disk, be it optical or magnetic or RAM. There is no difference as far as the files are concerned, as long as the DVD files are inside a VIDEO_TS directory at the root.

 

= Why not just create, burn, verify an image?

 

That's fine, as long as the software handling the task doesn't alter any of the files, but it still doesn't address the issue of DVDs that I author myself and which therefore originate on the hard drive, and which I want to be able to burn unaltered.

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That's OK! Let that be my problem. If the source disk plays, the perfect copies will play. If the source disk doesn't play, it's not my fault that the copies don't play either; at least I did my part and produced forensic copies. That's absolutely all that matters to me.

 

It doesn't work like that for DVD Video.

 

The players don't read the discs as a bunch of files, they find the start LBA of the VIDEO_TS.IFO via the file system and that's it.

 

The pointers in the VIDE_TS.IFO (and all the other IFO files it then points to) then tell the player exactly how many sectors it is to everywhere it needs to go.

 

If the physical layout of the files on the 'digital copy' isn't 100% identical to the original disc then it might not play - where the original disc would play just fine. If you look at the DVD Video data as files, yes they'll still be 100% correct if you SFV/MD5 them, but that kind of calculation doesn't take their physical position on the disc into account and that's what really matters when it comes to playing back your 'digital copy' files.

 

I do not presume to tell you how to program, but it seems there must be a choke point, a simple way to ignore the fact that it's a directory of DVD files. At first they're all just generic 'files' and detecting that they happen to be DVD files is an extra step, right? Wouldn't it be simple to completely skip that step of detection and just go ahead and burn the contents of the specified directory?

 

Of coure there is and that's what I did. The function that makes the changes in the IFO/BUP files is called 'FixVTSSectors'. That function is simply skipped if the 'Fix VTS Sectors' checkbox I added lastnight gets unchecked.

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= If the physical layout of the files on the 'digital copy' isn't 100%

= identical to the original disc then it might not play

 

WOW. I stand corrected. My apologies, moondogger.

 

= that kind of calculation doesn't take their physical position

= on the disc into account and that's what really matters when

= it comes to playing back your 'digital copy' files.

 

Ok, now please just ignore this is you're tired of trying to explain things to me, I'm not trying to tax your patience, but how can the physical position matter if everything I said to moondogger above is true? And it is all true; I've done it a hundred different ways, burned all kinds of extra files inside the VIDEO_TS directory, with filenames that fell before, between, and after the video files, and have never had a single problem. If the physical position matters, why do they all play perfectly when they're simply drag and drop coppied to the hard drive, hundreds and hundreds that I've done in the past several years, as I mentioned to moondogger above?

 

Of course it's a given that the DVD player needs to find the first block of the VIDEO_TS.IFO file, and that information is contained in the DVD equivalent of the FAT. But that first block can be anywhere on the disk, yes? I can burn a hundred files that start with "A" before I get to that first file that starts with "V" and yet every DVD player I've ever used will play it fine, simply ignoring the "A" files and going straight to the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. Please be assured that I'm not trying to argue with someone who knows a hundred times more than I will ever know on the topic, I'm just finding it impossible to see how the physical position could ever possibly matter. When I drag VIDEO_TS.IFO to the hard drive, naturally it is assigned a starting block in the hard drive's FAT that pertains to its position on the hard drive, but this information is not part of the VIDEO_TS.IFO file itself. When I burn that file, same story: Again it gets a new starting block address in the file allocation table of the new DVD, but again, this information is not part of the file itself. It never is, with any kind if file. With all due respect, and that is indeed a great deal, could you possibly be mistaken?

 

== Wouldn't it be simple to completely skip that step of

== detection and just go ahead and burn the contents of the

== specified directory?

 

= Of coure there is and that's what I did. The function

= that makes the changes in the IFO/BUP files is called

= 'FixVTSSectors'. That function is simply skipped if the

= 'Fix VTS Sectors' checkbox I added lastnight gets unchecked.

 

Excellent! That's all I came here to ask for, and I thank you most sincerely.

 

Deep breath. Wow. Results in less than 24 hours. Again, thank you for your kindness, for your time and patience, and for so freely sharing your powerful program, LightningUK. I'm going to sleep on the sidewalk outside the ticket window so I can be first in line when the new version is released :)

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With all due respect, and that is indeed a great deal, could you possibly be mistaken?

 

lol, no.

 

I never said there couldn't be other files in there (before/after the real DVD Video files), just a player that goes exactly by the book will find the LBA of the VIDEO_TS.IFO file and then expect to find all the other IFO/BUP/VOB files (which don't really exist as files to a player because it's only parsed the file system to find the VIDEO_TS.IFO file) exactly where the pointers inside the VIDEO_TS.IFO file says they are (these are the bits my 'Fix VTS Sectors' function corrects). Their location (as per the pointers in the VIDEO_TS.IFO file) is relative to the start of the VIDEO_TS.IFO file, and that of course can be anywhere on the disc.

 

So where you might see the files VTS_01_1.VOB, VTS_01_2.VOB, VTS_01_3.VOB (all 1GB in size), a player just sees 3gb of data starting at LBA X on the disc. If you stick a random file between those 3, you ruin everything.

 

ImgBurn knows to group all the IFO/BUP/VOB files together in the correct order (as per the DVD Video specs) and any other file will be moved to the end (LBA wise) of that folder.

 

A program that doesn't group them like that would produce a non working disc (on specs compliant players) if say you had added a file called video_us.tmp (which would then come between the VIDEO_TS and VTS_XX sets) in the VIDEO_TS folder and no special attempt to 'jump' it was made (by manipulating the pointers in the VIDEO_TS.IFO file).

 

Playing from the hdd is a totally different ball game and software players would look at file names as there's no other way to do it. It's only when they're on a disc (and assuming they don't still use the file names) that the location and layout of all the IFO/BUP/VOB files actually matters.

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= a player just sees 3gb of data starting at LBA X on

= the disc. If you stick a random file between those 3,

= you ruin everything.

 

Astonishing. Well, I learned something new today. I won't ask for any more of your time on the subject but I do plan to do some experimenting if only to understand better. Again, many thanks.

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  • 4 months later...

Excuse me for sticking into the middle of the discussion, but I have the same problem as the original poster. Accepting that ImgBurn changes *.IFO and *.BUP files for a correct Video DVD, I need at least a method to control if ImgBurn changes those files. So I invented this algorithm:

- "build" mode, create an image file, say MY.ISO;

- extract files from MY.ISO as from an archive;

- check hashes of files;

- if hashes are correct, burn MY.ISO.

So I want to know, can ImgBurn while burning send to an optical drive contents which is different from that in MY.ISO; so files in MY.ISO and files on the optical disk will not match?

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If you have an ISO where you move the layer break, yeah it could modify the IFO files - but that's your decision and the layer break window has a checkbox to tell it not to modify anything.

 

It makes the changes the original poster had an issue with for a very good reason though (which you can read about in the thread). Why would you not want it to correct stuff so your disc actually works properly?

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