dr_ml422 Posted April 3, 2019 Author Posted April 3, 2019 I see. It also actually makes for a smoother transition. I would have to test seamless and see what happens. I imagine it just makes it even more unnoticeable? All day playing with AVStoDVD and finally sought what may be a fix for their preview window not displaying video. Anyway I'm seriously thinking about calling Dell and arranging for a pay schedule on a new PC. I always say that, though after building it's very difficult to go back to buying. Now the question is Intel or AMD CPUs? Intel supposedly for gaming has some edge, though for multitasking etc... AMD is said to be the player. I need a CPU, RAM, and a Mobo. Also a SSD drive for the system and apps. I like that setup you have. It's just right. Not exaggerated and not a lacky either. I started with Intel. Maybe it was just that Windows was still a baby and I got really frustrated with all the errors, closing up of windows, and of course ie that was never anything to brag about. Supposedly the new Edge with Chromium is coming and supporting 4K streaming natively. Hmmm! Well I've burned over half my spindle of Verbatim DL, and half of a newer DVD-5 +R. My series collection are almost finished. Debating on some titles. I'm watching Full Metal Jacket. Hilarious! I needed a break. Did I mention I burned Once Upon a Time in America after 10 hours of encoding with DVD Flick? It takes forever though it produced. If I was a software guru I'd change the encoder and really have something to talk about! Sometimes we get caught up with these apps trying to make them do something they're not meant to. The only thing I would do now is embed the subtitle into a converted MP4 etc... then take that same file and make a DVD out of it. Or soon a Blu-ray or AVC playable DVD. That's a good strategy for discs already in our possession. Otherwise in about 5 minutes you could have a download. Thing is downloads don't come with embedded subs. They should.
dbminter Posted April 3, 2019 Posted April 3, 2019 Depending on where they layer break is and if it's not seamless, you may never notice it. If they place it where there's no audio or moving video, you probably won't notice the pause. I always use seamless because I find the pause annoying. Now, sometimes, there are stray layer breaks that ImgBurn misses. Those can generally be removed manually by either DVDShrink (Doesn't always work. For instance, on the 2002 Battlestar Galactica series DVD's.) or manually editing the IFO's with IFOEdit.
dr_ml422 Posted April 13, 2019 Author Posted April 13, 2019 Ok. Excuse the delay. Getting things ready for the new build. Bought the AMD Ryzen 5 2600, and the Asrock B450M Pro 4 Mobo. Next is the SSD drive and Ram. I noticed many of these apps don't make use of the GPU card, and instead use the CPU. Well 6 cores will take care of this. Lol! I noticed burning an Audio .cue with Imgburn that the cue file always has to stay with the original files to point to them. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of making one in the first place? Or it's just for burning purposes? It won't burn either if the files are not in the same folder.
dbminter Posted April 13, 2019 Posted April 13, 2019 The CUE files do not have to be in the same folder as the source files to burn an Audio CD with; I always save my CUE files to the Desktop for sake of easy finding and my source files are always all over the place, usually. The only thing I can think of that may be doing that for you is if you have Preserve Full Pathnames checked. Go into Create CUE File and see if that box is checked. If it is, try unchecking it and see if that helps.
ianymaty Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 @ dbminter. No. He sure has the "Preserve Full Pathnames" unchecked and uses the "Quick OK" button to get to the burn point in the "Create cue file..." window. @ dr_ml422 If you are using "Quick OK" button you need to tick (enable) "Preserve Full Pathnames" box, than you can move the cue wherever you want if you want to save it for further uses. Otherwise you need to use "OK" button that will bring up a "Save as..." window to select a location and that will automatically enable Preserve Full Pathnames in the cue file even if it is unticked (disabled) in the "Create cue file..." window.
dbminter Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 I always wondered what the Quick OK button did in that context. I never used it, always using OK.
ianymaty Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 The "Quick OK" button is described in the Guides - The ImgBurn Functions - Section [*]4.4 Create CUE File... Also the "Preserve Full Pathnames" is described there.
dr_ml422 Posted April 14, 2019 Author Posted April 14, 2019 Thanks! I haven't used the quick ok in a while as I really didn't know what it did. I just use the Ok button. If I don't tick (enable) "preserve full path name" I have to leave it in the same folder with the source files. So when the queue is opened and you load a saved queue, it will not load it in if you moved the .cue file without ticking (enabling) "preserve full path name". I have a question regarding the edit function regarding tracks, titles,... After you make changes to say one track and you have to change more, do you simply go to the next tracks and ImgBurn automatically saves the changes? It must be that way because there is no save changes button other than Ok, and if you hit that it takes you directly to the next phase of creating the .cue. I was messing around with that yesterday for a long while because of one track having some character that couldn't be processed/parsed. It would create the .cue file without that track unless you edited it correctly. I couldn't for the life of me see how to save the changes until by accident I guess I proceeded with Ok and it finally took. Is there a reason other than anticipating the changes were made why a confirmation wasn't implemented? You could be in there for a really long time not knowing changes are made on the fly. The guide mentions the refresh button after editing. Is that the save button? Maybe I hit that by accident and finally was able to include that file? Has anyone suggested a save function after editing? Wouldn't be a bad implementation. Please let me know the correct method for editing and saving. Thanks as always.
dbminter Posted April 14, 2019 Posted April 14, 2019 You shouldn't have to manually check Preserve Full Pathname each time. I would think it should be checked once you check it once and remain checked until you uncheck it. And according to ianmaty, using the OK button automatically enables that option for you. And it must because I always clicked OK and never used Quick OK and I never had to put my CUE files in the same folder as my input files. As you make changes to metadata, it's "saved" when you make the changes. There was a CUE file editing software someone once mentioned, but my tests with it utterly failed to load in the CUE file I created with ImgBurn. On an unrelated note, but related to past discussions in this thread on maximum media write speeds, had to order some more Verbatim BD-R. Verbatim has apparently stopped production of the 6x rated speed BD-R and has replaced it with 16x BD-R. I was always using 6x but getting like 12x speeds max on that media because most drives overclock the max rated speed for 6x BD-R. I'm just hoping these 16x BD-R write okay. Had to fall back to a few years old Pioneer BDR-2209 because the replacement LG WH16NS60 I got February 23rd died already. I didn't get the extended warranty so once the 30 days return window passed, I'm out of luck. First time in years I never needed the extended warranty and, from now on, will always get it. So, now, of course, it will be wasted money, but better to appease the universe than be out $115 for a drive that can't write BD-R anymore. The LG WH16NS60 has a peculiarity. When its BD laser dies (BD drives have 2 different lasers. One for CD/DVD and one for BD.) it scratches the recording surface of BD-R, rendering them unwritable. My first LG WH16NS60 did the same thing after 9 months and this latest one after less than 2.
dr_ml422 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Posted April 15, 2019 Wow! You buying from Newegg? They fell off and I wouldn't really bother with them much anymore. A drive dying only after some months is defective somehow. These things are built to last. External though you might have to do really specific research see which ones are better than most. I didn't say I had to enable the"preserve full path name" every time. It's that way already. According to Cynthia's guide if it isn't enabled and you try to either move the cue file or open it up in the queue it will not. When I moved the cue file and tried burning it I couldn't and I never did anything with the default settings. Preserve full path name is default. When creating a cue file if you hit Ok it will pop up in the same directory as the files and you just name it w/e and save it there. I'm not sure if you don't have preserve full path name checked that it'll do it for you, though it might because the same directory pops up to save your cue file .
dbminter Posted April 15, 2019 Posted April 15, 2019 Built to last? Ha! I've been in the optical burner gig for 17 years and the best result I ever got out of an optical drive was a Pioneer BDR-2209 that lasted 2 years before dying. That is definitely beyond the norm. The average is about 7 to 9 months.
dr_ml422 Posted April 15, 2019 Author Posted April 15, 2019 Are you serious? Even the internal drives? I don't know though I burn my drives through the ground and they have lasted way more than 6 months. Matter of fact this thread opened up because Windows 10 wants updated hardware, otherwise my pioneer 112D and Samsung as posted here in the beginning would still be burning. Where do you get your burners from usually, Amazon? Just for the sake of added confirmation, I'd like some other frequent burning experienced users to post their findings. You scaring me into taking out warranty on my new Mobo and CPU now. If these things are blowing up before 6 months either you're blowing it up constantly or there's a defect somewhere, or that's the norm. It's like a PSU, if after a week it doesn't die you're good for years. I have the same Cooler Master PSU from my first build over 13 years now, and all I did as of late was swap fans and leave the grill off. My PC for the most part is always on.
dbminter Posted April 15, 2019 Posted April 15, 2019 Most of my drives have been internals. Even my external ones now are internal ones put into enclosures. My experience with external drives is they last about as long as the internal drives. The half height drives are the only ones you can really trust. Slim models are typically junk. So, because my Dell doesn't have half height bays anymore, I've had to get enclosures for half height drives. I wouldn't be too worried about your experience. Life hates me and has proven it. So, I'm probably just targeted. But, I also do put my drives through a lot of use. I usually burn something of some kind about once a day. I pretty much now have to take out the warranties or suffer for it. If I don't, I'll pay for it. If I do, I'll have no need for the warranty. So, best to just chip in the cash and go with the flow. On a related note, I've burned my first of the 16x BD-R. They have the same DID as the 6x Verbatim BD-R so they probably would be more compatible with older drives, which are overclocking the maximum rated burn speed. Got near 16x speed, too, on a nearly full image. Burned and Verified without error. Now to perform a manual verification of the contents on the disc against their sources to make sure.
dbminter Posted April 20, 2019 Posted April 20, 2019 About my buying from NewEgg. I usually buy from Amazon.com, but sometimes there's no choice. For instance, Amazon.com rarely has the LG WH16NS60 available, but NewEgg does. Or it will be a case where the same reseller offers the same drive on Amazon.com and NewEgg, but sells it cheaper on NewEgg. It's not that NewEgg sells junk. The drive will be whatever it is when it arrives from the manufacturer. For instance, I want to get a WD 512 GB SDD HDD from Amazon.com, but they currently don't have it. Only resellers on Amazon.com do. So, I'll probably have to get it from NewEgg. NewEgg was the only seller who had the WD My Passport 4 TB portable mechanical USB HDD. Amazon.com didn't have it. And, of course, after I got mine from NewEgg, my local Target store had them on sale! But, the price was on par with what I paid for it on sale from NewEgg. I could have saved on the shipping, though.
dr_ml422 Posted April 25, 2019 Author Posted April 25, 2019 I'm back. So many things to study and learn it's impossible to have time for anything unless you make it. Yeah that's my experience with Newegg. Matter of fact my LITEON is from them. They took a hit on their servers a while back so they put out notices. There was a small stint there where several things I purchased all were defective. They have a program where people will point to their site and get paid. Now whether the stuff is refurbished or not I don't know. So you're saying the new BD-R 16x are probably old stock that are better with older firmware/hardware? On that "preserve full path name" I don't know if it's whether you move the file before you save it, or if it was the MDS file that can't be moved from the dual layer .iso. Most likely that was the case. I have to build the new PC soon because if I wait then the warranty will expire and I'll be totally screwed. It happened to me before with something else. So now this month coming I have to get the Ram, SSD, and a PSU. I'll just switch my OS to the SSD on the new Mobo. I'm not going to get a stronger GPU. As I see they're only good for serious gaming as not even the media players make use of them really. The new update with ConvertXtoVideo should straighten that out, but it seems not too much software wants to make use of GPU cards. So you're good and I'm good as we both have the same cards except for your extra RAM. We live and learn!
dbminter Posted April 25, 2019 Posted April 25, 2019 No, I think the 16x BD-R are newer stock. They have newer labels on the surface that say 16x instead of 6, but I believe to BD drives, they're still recognized as 6x media. Although the BDR-2209, which has been around for at least 5 years, writes at 16x so they acknowledge the 16x write descriptor.
dbminter Posted April 25, 2019 Posted April 25, 2019 VSO released another new update to VSO Downloader. Interesting how they keep updating that minor app yet don't seem too keen on doing anything to flagship progs like ConvertXToDVD or ConvertXToVideo. It's been over a year since the last gold release of ConvertXToVideo.
dr_ml422 Posted April 26, 2019 Author Posted April 26, 2019 I've been in contact with them and soon whatever needs upgrading will be. I suggested they concentrate on newer OSs and not waste time trying to please die hard XP, 7, etc...users. ConvertXToDVD needs minor changes like their hibernate which shuts down the PC instead of sleep. Unless they think brushing up on their FFMPEG encoding needs fixing, there's not much there to do. Now ConvertXtoVideo is a totally different beast! That needs h.264 support and Hardware Optimization support with h.264, and not only Mpeg-4. Personally I think they're not keen on paying the royalties for h.264. Why else does every other codec work except that one? Hmmm that's very observant on your part regarding the burners not reading newer media. They've come a long way with burning. Who would of thought back in the days that slower burning with discs reported to burn at 16x etc... would produce bad burns? Now the blanks finally caught up with the hardware. Try unchecking the automatic bitsetting on imgBurn. That way you can see the difference in start up and lead in when opening up your disc. It is faster than DVD-R.
dbminter Posted April 26, 2019 Posted April 26, 2019 As for DVD burning coming a long way, I got in on it in 2002, back when there was mostly just 1x DVD-R. DVD+R had just come out but even then it was either only 1x or 2.4x. And this was before buffer underrun protection was common, so you'd spend 59 minutes of an hour burn (A full DVD-R takes 60 minutes to burn at 1x.) and then have it fail at 99% completion! My first DVD-R burner was an old Panasonic with a tray designed to hold cartridges for those kinds of DVD-RAM discs. Yeah, I made the switch over to DVD+R after I used up my last inkjet printable DVD-R blanks. I still have branded DVD-R blanks for other burns I won't be keeping/temporary storage. So, now I use DVD+RW, DVD+R, and DVD+R DL for my DVD needs. I still have some older 4x DVD-RW for compatibility reasons and that there's only one company making 8x DVD+RW anymore. So, the next RW discs I will get will probably be 4x DVD+RW since Verbatim still makes DataLife Plus DVD+RW, but only at 4x.
dr_ml422 Posted April 27, 2019 Author Posted April 27, 2019 That must have been a helluva journey up to now! My most frustrating memories was with Windows explorer doing w/e it's lil heart pleased along with IE and it's schizophrenic behavior! There just isn't anything else even today that can really replace Windows for many of the tasks we do. For some reason I ended up installing the HEVC codec for video playback with Windows, and the Movies and TV app opened up with my collection nicely organized! It's playing lovely and I noticed the Audio is better than MPC. They really are making some great strides. I can't wait for the new MS Edge with Chromium build. I already like the regular Edge, although for downloads I use Firefox. Have you noticed any darker than usual areas with ConvertXToDVD outputs? I'm thinking maybe it was the original MP4 file, though after opening that up the scenes I mentioned were pretty well lit.
dbminter Posted April 27, 2019 Posted April 27, 2019 I remember the dark days of the late 1990's when programmers got lazy and thought they'd hit the jackpot. They started coding their menu interfaces as HTML and letting IE 4 serve as the main interface. Then, IE 5 came out and broke like half of everyone's applications! I remember buying one program in a brick and mortar store that didn't work out of the box because IE 5 kept the HTML from loading. After that fiasco, no one ever did what was such a stupid idea to begin with ever again. And I still remember the days before there was DL DVD recordable media and you were forced to do everything on DVD-5's. Of course, I can also remember getting into CD burning in 2000 before that. Yeah, it's all been a pretty wild ride over the past nearly 2 decades. I mean, now we've got 125 GB discs to work with if we desire! Even with just DL BD media, you can (Usually. Unless you're a gamer, where games take up a LARGE amount of storage space.) backup your entire Windows partition of installed applications and Windows itself onto one disc now! (One should keep their data separate from Windows to make backing up easier/shorter. I never use Documents.) My general experience has been whenever you see some kind of odd output from ConvertXToDVD, it's the fault of the source file. The program has, of course, had problems in the past with conversions, but those are generally limited to when X.0 versions are released and the software is pretty much "brand new." I never understood the concept of rewriting something from the bottom up IF it already works!
dr_ml422 Posted April 28, 2019 Author Posted April 28, 2019 When I went to the source file it was not that dark, though nothing like when I saw the same movie with Spectrum. When converting sometimes non-action clips don't get paid that much attention, and so they'll suffer. Now I think it was AVStoDVD that I used. There is a thread about outputs being darker than usual. I'm not going to start fussing with it. Very seldom you'll get a remarkable freeware app like imgBurn. So far only DVD-RB Pro lives up to a sound freeware through donation app. Funny, as Edge is supposedly one of the HTML 5 browsers actually in practice. Still I think YouTube uses different codes as well as HTML 5. This is why I firmly support a standard across the board for certain situations. Why should progress be held back because of support for say XP, 7, etc ...? They cried about security and now that Windows 10 provides it they still cry. VidCoder is going down that route! Every new update has been some personal preference that doesn't come into play with respect to making it perform better. Helluva an app! If he keeps catering to the personal quims out there he'll surely mess it up.
dr_ml422 Posted April 29, 2019 Author Posted April 29, 2019 I hope you're watching Game of Thrones! This has to be the best film series of all time!
dbminter Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 Okay. No, I've never seen a single episode. Don't get HBO. Can't afford it. My local library at one time had all seasons on DVD, but I don't know if they do anymore. And, after these years, such a popular release is either scratched all to holy Hell and unplayable or simply someone stole it claiming to "lose" it. Anyway, it's just something that never interested me. Dragons and showing boobs seem boring to me. Funny that I'm watching Family Guy right now which had a joke in its new episode tonight about a TV show called Dragon Boobs as a parody of Game Of Thrones. Dragonheart is more along my lines of a dragon story that I liked.
dbminter Posted April 29, 2019 Posted April 29, 2019 Just got a call back (Finally.) from LG about my drive. They keep saying, because they did it twice, that they tried to reach me by phone but failed. I thought it was maybe boilerplate e-mail text, but I actually DID get a call from LG today! Funny thing is I was also getting e-mails saying they were contacting me about repairs for my TV instead! They initially wrote me back the first time saying I didn't supply the serial # from the device. Which is fine... except the LG idiots say RIGHT on their support submission form that sending the serial # is OPTIONAL! They told me to resend the request, so I did and this time it looks like I'm getting somewhere! They're sending me return shipping labels for me to send in the defective unit. They tell me the replacement will be a refurbished drive, but it will be "like new." As long as it works, it beats having lost $115 for only less than 2 months of use!
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