Playstation 3 and edited IFO's

[dbminter]

I came across an interesting self published DVD from a comic book artist. It was a DVD Video of original animation. But, here's the weird thing: there were 2 layer breaks positioned in the video. The DVD is a DVD-5, so, these layer breaks shouldn't be there. Only a third one at the end of the stream should be there. As a result, there is a noticeable layer break pause in the video (e.g. you hear it in the audio when the playing temporarily stops). So, I tried using IFOEdit to remove the extra layer breaks, but, my Playstation 3 apparently doesn't like it.

 

 

The resultant edited DVD plays fine on my PC using WinDVD 2011 and plays fine on a Panasonic standalone DVD recorder/player. The PS3, though, goes all wonky when it hits the edited out layer breaks. Playing just stops, yet, the timer keeps clicking on. Eventually, it reaches a point where it starts playing again, but this pause lasts from 0:05:16 at the start to about 0:12:00.

 

 

I used the following method I found online:

 

 

Removing Layer Break Guide

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1. Find what cell your break is at in your VTS_0?_0.IFO / VTS Overview / PGC_1 (program chain). Remember that cell number for the next step.

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2. Now go to your /VTS_PGCITI / VTS_PGC_1 / Cell Playback section.

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3. Scroll down to the cell that contained your layer break. Double left click on line and input a new value of 8 as example below.

 

OLD > Cell_?: Cell type (Angle) 0 [00]

NEW > Cell_?: Cell type (Angle) 8 [08]

 

 

This has worked for me many times before, but, this is my first attempt at doing such edits to play back on a PS3. I know the PS2 was a pretty lousy DVD player, but, it never had problems with edited IFO's before. So, is this just something lousy with the PS3 as a DVD player?

 

 

Anyone with any bright ideas?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You shouldn't be editing anything if it was only DVD-5 in the first place.

 

Setting the 'SPLIP' flag (what ifoedit may call the 'layer break') to 1 on a cell that isn't actually seamless could mess things up.

[dbminter]

You're right. I SHOULDN'T be editing anything for a DVD-5, but, they put 2 layer breaks in the streams.

 

 

Usually, my edits for layer breaks caused no problems on the PS2. It must be that the PS3 is a lousy DVD player.

[dbminter]

Turns out the layer breaks cannot be edited out without causing playback problems. On my Panasonic, where it got past the layer break pauses, a little bit after that, the video pauses, then loops back to the start of the chapter and starts replaying it. This only happens, though, if a certain amount of video has already been played. Meaning, if I move to just before where the layer break was, the looping does not occur. If I reverse back to the start of the DVD and then forward to just where the layer break is, it happens. So, the bottom line is, the layer breaks cannot be edited out of this DVD without causing playback errors. Must be something specific to the authoring of this particular DVD.

[dbminter]

I think I've thought of a way around this. I've used ConvertXToDVD to put on the DVD's contents onto one of its built DVD's. IFOEdit shows no layer break in the largest stream, which would be the main feature. I was actually expecting one at the end of the stream, like I've seen before. But, I guess there doesn't need to be one.

 

 

This reminds me of how Nero's Recode started randomly adding layer breaks to random positions in DVD-5's it created. One of the reason I stopped using it.

[dbminter]

Turns out that the edited IFO DVD plays fine in WinDVD 2011. Only standalone players fuck up on it. Why is that standalone DVD players have ALWAYS been more picky than PC's when it comes to playing back DVD's?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I still don't understand why you're touching anything on a DVD-5 disc.

 

If it has cells set with SPLIP = 0 (what Ifoedit calls a 'layer break') then it will have them set like that for a reason... and it's nothing to do with a physical layer break.

 

You changing them to 1 could be what's causing the problem.

[dbminter]

You changing them to 1 could be what's causing the problem.

 

 

I couldn't find anything labeled SPLIP, but, then again, I didn't know where to look.

 

 

Oh, crap. I just accidentally deleted my whole post when I meant to just add a reply. Oh, well. Just my usual rants and raves over fuckers doing fucker things.

[dbminter]

There's another thing wrong with this DVD. The audio commentary track is messed up at the end. It sounds like the speaker is underwater. This is present on the source DVD on any player, so, it's definitely a fault in the original disc itself.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

SPLIP is a flag, it's 1 bit in a byte. You set *it* to 0 or 1, not the whole byte - which shouldn't ever be changed to a fixed value. You take the original value, modify the bit and then write back the new value.

 

http://dvd.sourceforge.net/dvdinfo/pgc.html#play

 

Just forget about cells on a DVD5 disc being marked as non seamless (or 'layer break').

 

You marking a non seamless cell as seamless is probably what's making the PS3 mess up.

 

The flag is there for technical reasons - none of which are anything to do with a physical layer break on the media - which obviously never existed in the first place.

 

Anyway, I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall with this one so I'll leave it at that.

 

You wanted to know why the PS3 is failing to play your modified files and I've said it's probably because you've modified them! Leave them alone

[dbminter]

You wanted to know why the PS3 is failing to play your modified files and I've said it's probably because you've modified them! Leave them alone

 

 

It's never failed me before when a DVD-9 had left over layer breaks. The Simpsons Movie DVD had 2 of them I successfully removed those.

 

 

To solve the problem, I simply imported the files into ConvertXToDVD. All I lost were the menus, which were fine to sacrifice.

[dbminter]

Actually, I just discovered a simple way that doesn't cause navigation errors.  Take the VIDEO_TS with the .IFO you want to remove the layer breaks from and open it in DVDShrink.  Shrink's output will remove the layer breaks.

[dbminter]

Actually, discovered that didn't work with the DVD in question from this original post!    It DID fix an errant left over layer break on a DVD-5, though, from a different disc.

 

 

Yeah, whoever authored that disc for Antarctic Press that I had trouble with before added THREE layer breaks into a VTS on a disc that was a DVD-5!    Well, technically only 2.  The 3rd layer break is the layer break that appears at the end of all VTS's.