Not burning files in the correct order

[withnail]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help and apologies for any neewbie mistakes,

 

The problem I seem to be having since switching to imgburn (which I have been generally impressed with) is that sometimes when I burn a DVD including multiple files they don't appear to stay in the order I have arranged them when I burned them.

 

Say for example I burn a movie which is in 2 parts e.g. moviename.cd1.avi and moviename.cd2.avi I would add the files in this order to imgburn but there have been occasions when I have put the DVD in my player to watch them and part 2 has come on first.

 

I'm not sure if my player has anything to do with this but I certainly don't remember this happening before using imgburn, any ideas?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The order wouldn't be anything to do with me, surely that's down to your player.... or rather *you* pressing play on the right file?!

 

They're stored in alphabetical order within the file system (as is required by the specs).

[withnail]

I thought it might be my player, but I've definitely noticed it once or twice more often since using imgburn. Is it possible that the way imgburn labels the files might have an effect?

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Wouldn't it be easier just to join the two files together before burning to disk? There's a million programs out there that do just this and many are free. That way you remove the problem altogether.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

How does your player display the file names?

 

Are they truncated or still the same as when they're on your hdd?

[withnail]

Truncated. Again I'm aware that this is my player reacting to the files rather than something imgburn is doing directly, but it seems that files burned with imgburn are dealt with slightly differently to ones I had burned previously. Unfortunately I threw away the DVD that I mentioned earlier so I can't check it but I will keep an eye out for files that this happens to.

 

Perhaps I am mistaken and nothing new is happening and/or it's just a coincidence that files I have burned recently with imgburn have particular file names that don't work well with my player. I will continue to use the software and appreciate the time you have taken to help me (particularly yours LIGHTNING UK!).

 

withnail

[spinningwheel]

If this happens again please post a log of the burn.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

How truncated exactly?

 

Your player would probably support ISO9660 and Joliet file systems.

 

Maybe you've switched it to ISO9660 + UDF within ImgBurn, hence your player is stuck using ISO9660 which is limited to file names of 8.3 characters long (i.e. xxxxxxxx.yyy).

 

Make sure the 'file system' option is set to ISO9660 + Joliet + UDF (or just ISO9660 + Joliet) and try again.

[withnail]

Thanks for your help, I'll let you know if I have any more problems.

[weisborg]

They're stored in alphabetical order within the file system (as is required by the specs).

 

 

I'm not seeing this...especially if they are burning in the order that shows in the Information area while burning. I have some files I burn to DVD which are pretty large, so the current file burning goes slow enough that I see it burning out of order. Many times it will burn some in one folder, then some in another, then back to the first folder again. Are you sure you aren't looking at the current code for the next version when you say this? I know there was the Samsung DVD Player thing I just read about and the reason ended up being ISO related...since DVDs read like a stream, having ISO files out of order would cause problems. The Optimise Files feature I had reported also ended up being an order issue.

 

The Dir Entries and LBA stuff may be wrote in order, but from what I'm seeing, the actual file data isn't...

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You can't see the file system stuff, all you see is actual file data and that's not what I was talking about.

 

The LBA of the file data is not important at all for the type of data the OP is burning.

 

The (current version of the) program burns the actual files in alphabetical order within their respective folders. It does this one level at a time.

 

i.e.

 

root\1

root\2

root\3

root\1\1

root\1\2

root\2\1

root\3\1

root\3\2

root\1\1\1

[weisborg]

You can't see the file system stuff, all you see is actual file data and that's not what I was talking about.

 

The LBA of the file data is not important at all for the type of data the OP is burning.

 

The (current version of the) program burns the actual files in alphabetical order within their respective folders. It does this one level at a time.

 

i.e.

 

root\1

root\2

root\3

root\1\1

root\1\2

root\2\1

root\3\1

root\3\2

root\1\1\1

 

I'm still confused, by "actual files" are you meaning the data or the Dir information? Are you saying I was wrong, or right, but it wasn't important? I guess to rephrase, is the file data burned in the same order as the Dir Information/Alphabetical?

 

I was always under the impression that DVD Players read in a Block/Sector format, so the file data needed to be in the proper order. Some early discs even used this as a mild copy protection...I think my Steve Martin SNL did this where it would do something like:

 

' Example, not actual filenames

\VTS1.VOB

\VTS2.VOB

\VTS3.VOB

\A.VOB

 

Say where A wasn't a part of any IFO files, etc and not used by the disc, but since the Dir info and File data were stored in this order it never saw the file reading by block/sector. But, copying the files would sort it and put it in front of the other files and make the disc unplayable or perhaps play a video saying it was copied, etc.

 

I'd think it would be important that the files are listed in the same order that they are wrote to disc. In watching it burn though it is showing the files go on like:

 

Folder1\File1

Folder1\File2

Folder1\File3

Folder2\File1

Folder2\File2

Folder2\File3

Folder1\File4

Folder1\File5

Folder3\File1

etc...

 

 

So, is that the order that data is wrote then? That wouldn't agree with the dir info then you said was Alpha sorted by level.

 

Wouldn't data order be import in his case and with other DVD players, etc?

Edited January 7, 2008 by weisborg

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You realise the OP was talking about AVI files etc yeah?

 

Why are you then talking about DVD Video stuff? The ordering of those files is handled differently to the rest.

 

I already specified the order in which the file data is burnt in my previous post, I don't think you're actually seeing what you think you're seeing.

[weisborg]

I know he was talking about AVI. He also mentioned playing them in a player though.

 

Clarifying your previous post was what I was trying to do...so, is the data burned in alpha order just like the dir info?

 

I know I've seen it happen at least 3-5 times like I mentioned too, while burning it shows the current files being burned in the Information section. I have a slipstreamed Windows DVD with $OEM$ folder containing both my versions of Office I can select which to install during setup, etc and see it jumping all over the place from one of the office folders back to the root folders then back to the office folder. I have another DVD containing Drivers and software that I recently put my Xara files on too that gave issues with the Optimise Files problem. It seems to work ok until it gets to the Xara Xone files which are a bunch of HTML and HLP type files and their images, etc. (So lots of files) Then it goes nuts again and Jumps to various folders then back to the Xara folders again. The way you described it the files should burn with increasing levels, but it jumps all over the place and to previous levels. I guess I could make a video of it...although I'm not sure how clear it would be. I'd do better to make an app that grabs the text of the label/edit box showing the files on a timer and when different logs it to file, so it would catch it more accurate than video. I'll see what I could throw together.

 

You mentioned DVD Video being burned different too. Is there an FAQ or something that describes how all the different burns/filesystems/disc types write files and how they write file dir info vs. file data?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Playing them on a player means nothing. If the player supports playing AVI files then the order of actual file data doesn't matter. It looks in the file system to find start LBA of the file and then jumps to that location. It doesn't matter where on the disc that LBA is. To a DVD player, DVD Video VTS files aren't files at all, they're all just one long chunk of data - that's why the order is important with those files (and only those files).

 

VIDEO_TS goes first, then the VTS sets. IFO goes before the VOB files, then the BUP comes after those (and then onto the next VTS).

 

Now back to the program...

 

Ok well basically what happens is that the program sorts the folders into alphabetical order, a level at a time (as shown above). It starts from the root dir in the internal tree structure and asks it for a list of it's folders (sorted alphabetically). That list is then worked though, repeating the same basic thing each time.

 

i.e.

 

Initial processing list..

 

-> Root

 

Query Root's folders...

 

List then looks like this...

 

-> Root

Folder 1

Folder 2

 

Finished with Root so we move onto next folder in list.

 

Root

-> Folder 1

Folder 2

 

This time we query Folder 1 for a list of folders...

 

List then looks like..

 

Root

-> Folder 1

Folder 2

Folder 1a

Folder 1b

 

Finished with Folder 1, move onto next folder in list...

 

Root

Folder 1

-> Folder 2

Folder 1a

Folder 1b

 

This time we query Folder 2 for a list of folders...

 

List then looks like..

 

Root

Folder 1

-> Folder 2

Folder 1a

Folder 1b

Folder 2a

Folder 2b

 

etc etc..

 

Once it's got that list of folders it goes through each one and assigns the appropriate LBA to files (also sorted alphabetically).

 

Then when writing the files to the ISO they're sorted by LBA (as that's clearly how they need to be processed / written!).

 

So normally, they'd all be in that same alphabetical order - but if you've got the optimisation option enabled, the fake LBA for duplicate files will of course mean the order can change from being alphabetical.

[weisborg]

Nope, no Optimise option is on. Since it has a bug I've been waiting for "Christmas" as the other thread called it...for the version to come out with it fixed to use it.

 

Thanks for the explanation. I guess I'll run through a bunch of Test Modes and see in more detail what is happening. Some type of video looks like my only option to grab what the file order is while burning, unless you can add some type of verbose flag to make the log show every file burning? I looked at the application with Winspector to see if I can grab the handle of the label/edit box to grab the text where the file names show and the application doesn't use a standard layout. Is that made with a Delphi compiler or something? Usually those and .NET apps are the only ones that give me issues. The forms are all Top Level tfrm... classes and for some reason don't appear to be children of the main ImgBurn window like they are all their own parent window. TfrmMain which is the window that has the file information section is just a bunch of panels and the only real controls are the 3 progress bars. Everything else is just drawn graphically, so no control to pull the filename text from. I guess that makes it more secure, and all the forms being preloaded make them work quicker...at the expense of a longer load time. Why they appear as their own window is confusing though. At least they all start with Tfrm so they are all together.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I did think you'd have disabled it seeing as you knew there was an issue with it, but thought I'd mention it anyway for anyone else reading this at a later date.

 

That's just how Borland (Codegear) applications work. ImgBurn is written in C++ Builder.

 

The panels within frmMain are the different screens you see when you click between modes and the controls should be children of them - I've never looked at it via winspector so you're on your own with that.

[weisborg]

Still couldn't get access to the file text like I wanted...a verbose option like I mentioned logging files to the log would be a nice feature and help in debugging burn issues. I did do a 2X test burn of the one I thought was going in wrong and it does go on like post #15 above. Sorry for the false alarm. The DVD is huge. There is a folder for just about every letter of the alphabet...some more than one, and each folder has 1-7 levels, so it flys all over the place, but does do it in the by level somewhat recursive fashion like you showed. I guess for some reason I was thinking it would do it one branch at a time in alpha when I was watching it before kind of like a full recursive, but from your example it looks like it is recursive by level instead of by branch. Thanks for the explanation above.

Edited January 8, 2008 by weisborg

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Glad you're happy it's working how I said it did

 

FYI and in case I hadn't mentioned it before, the new version does it by branch (or by level, the choice is yours).

[LOCOENG]

Well there was a lesson that made my brain explode....

 

As for joining avi's I use AVI-Mux GUI ~ http://www.alexander-noe.com/video/amg/