Auto Reauthoring Beta Test

[Tyris]

Okay, well, I've been hard at work on a program that I hope will help lots of people reauthor DVDs without spending all the time it usually requires. There's still a lot of work left. Here's a list of what isn't currently implemented, but is planned:
[list=1]
Scenarist support (right now you'll end up with video and audio files to put in Scenarist)
Seamless branching support
Subtitle automation
Pause/Resume Capability
Many other things...
[/list=1]
Currently I'm not looking for feature suggestions. I just need to put together a group of beta testers so I can figure out just how stable this program really is. This is not currently an open beta. If you'd like to help, just post and I'll considering adding you to the list. Comments and suggestions are certainly welcome, but as I said I'm not looking to implement new features at the moment.

And, oh yes... This program does need the .NET Framework. Don't worry about downloading it just yet if you don't have it... My installer should take care of it if needed.

[Tyris]

Hmm... No replies. Should I just make it an open beta?

[Doom9]

give people some time. I'll gladly help but I can't be a very dedicated beta tester right now.. I'm responsible for the whole IT department of a startup company.. and if the software we're having programmed doesn't work I'm being killed.. so I spend all my days (and nights) betatesting already.

[Tyris]

Alrighty, well, I'll wait for some posts then. I think I just check the thread too often... ;)

[SurfDrifter]

To tell you the truth, i would prefer to make it an open beta... :)
I personally bought a DVD-R in August, so my knowledge is limited...
I have read though many of the guides here and i have re-authored about 7-8 DVD by now... Mostly i do 2-sided DVD's with friends episodes in one single-sided DVD, so i re-encoded with CCE and author with DVDMaestro...Plus i did Perfect Storm retaining the original menus and extras...Generally i'm experimenting with various things

So, i'm thinking, what was said at the previous post...At first it's time and second of all, maybe ppl are afraid of the responsibility that they will have, if they are in a close-group of beta testers.
Personally, I would like to help, but i'm afraid that my knowledge won't be of any help. On the other hand it may. And also i could be dedicated from 5th October and forth!

I hope you'll find good beta-testers...Your project seem very good!!

[fletch]

Hi Tyris,

Yeah I agree - Open beta would be good. I can beta test PAL Region 4 discs for you no problems.

Cheers

Fletcher

[Pauly]

I'd be happy to beta test the program

[oddyseus]

u can count me in. Pal reg 2.

[cap4000]

I'd be glad to help if i can. My A03 sits dorment most of the time
as i use the pioneer DVR-7000 because of the real time encoding. Any thing that would speed up the process on the computer would be great.
NTSC 1

[p3distxii]

Count me in.

[Tyris]

Alrighty, well there's certainly enough interest. By popular demand, I'll make it an open beta, just so it doesn't feel like there's any "commitment". Hopefully by this weekend I'll get it all packaged together, but I always think I'll get things done faster than I really do. I'll start up a new thread with the address by then. I'm sort of NTSC biased over here, so I'm not sure how any of the PAL stuff will go...

[wakebrder]

Tyris, I'm sure EVERYONE has been waiting for this. I'd be willing to help out any way I can.:D

[tumbar]

I'm in. Anything to further "the cause"!

NTSC 1 ;)

[MickeyNBK]

Count me in as well

[oddyseus]

I really can't wait for this Monday. I am sure I am expressing the anticipation of the whole community here.

[Tyris]

Alrighty, well, as the days go by, I'm rethinking things... I would still like to try to start with a closed beta. I'm pretty sure there will be some major issues in the beginning, just because of the way this program is written. So, hopefully this won't scare anyone away. You certainly wouldn't need to devote a huge amount of time to this. Basically, I just need some people that are willing to do some work to help make this program better. Probably the most important qualification would be the ability to write good bug reports. Doesn't have to be anything long, but it would need to be descriptive. I don't want 50 reports that say "It doesn't work when I click the thing" or "it no worko, you sucko!" So, please post and let me know if you'll be able to commit to this so I can judge if this is going to work. Thanks! Also, I apoligize for my indecisiveness.

[cap4000]

I will try and help and report, using 800 cpu, XP

[tumbar]

A "tactless bastard", the wife has used this one on me a few times, this refers to me being too candid or not painting flowery discriptive word pictures.

I do feel confident, however, that I can rise above the
"it no worko, you sucko!" standard. :)

[MickeyNBK]

I'll give you as much feedback as possible. I have a spare pc that I use for testing so I'm not worried about anything being "blown up". In my spare time I write detailed help guides so if anything I will give you too much information rather than not enough.

The test machine is a 1.8ghz P4, 384mb ram, 40gb hd running WinXP

[dvman]

I'll be happy to assist you in testing your software. Just let me know when your beta is going to start.

[ulfschack]

Put me on that list too :)

cheers

[lrosado]

Hey, I'm here for ya! I'd like to beta test you program. I'll keep the BUG reports plain and simple but to the point.

[Tyris]

Alright, I've emailed or PMed the people who expressed interest in the closed beta. If you think you can help test, but did not get an email or PM, please post here.

[p3distxii]

I didn't receive jack and I was one of the first to say I was in. Ouch that hurts :)

[Tyris]

Sorry about that, I only sent messages to those who posted after I said I was going back to a closed beta. I'm sending you a message now.

[SurfDrifter]

I will help too...
I own PAL DVD's only, but i can borrow some NTSC ones if you want...
Just PM or send me e-mail
surfdrifter@hotmail.com

[JwS]

I would be willing to beta test this program as well.

[Forko]

This is what i have been looking for!!!!!!!

pls let me be a beta tester!!! pls!!!

thanks, Forko

[CiRc2001]

Sounds great, i am willing to try it out when you release it :)

[Tyris]

Well, I've released the first version to the current testing group... I'm sure there'll be some problems at the beginning. After we get that stuff sorted out (hopefully), the beta testers will have lots of happy comments about it! ;)

[ricflairandy]

im up for it aswell, pal and have about 50-60 orignal dvds to test with it.

r2

[wakebrder]

I'm still in. NTSC region 1.

[fourtyfour]

servus...

I´ll test too ;)

[chilliman]

Tyris! count me in, i´ll test too:)

[Tyris]

Well, I'm glad to see that so many people are interested. I think I've got enough testers at the moment, but I'll let everybody know if I need some more. Overall, it appears to working well for most testers, but I only say that because I've only gotten replies from two people after they downloaded it... Hopefully that means it's working for everyone else! ;)

[fletch]

Hi Tyris,

Just interested to see what sort of feedback you've been getting so far ?

Cheers

Fletch

[Tyris]

Well, at the moment, many people are getting stuck in one part or another of the process. Soon I'll be adding some more features which should simplify testing, so I can hopefully get a better grip on what the problem is. I'm confident that we can get it all sorted out eventually. I'm guessing that many of the problems stem simply from my inability to test variations of DVDs. I have no PAL DVDs, for example. Also, the few DVDs I do have aren't as complex as some that people are testing with. So, I think I'm going to get some more this weekend. Any suggestions for complicated DVDs that also have good movies? (Besides the Matrix, which I already have) :) ...and what might be a good source for PAL in the US?

[SurfDrifter]

I want to ask Tyris if it's ok with him, if we beta testers share our problems that occured here...It might help to share knoledge here...

If it's ok with you I'll post my "discoverings" so far...

Tip: For faster testing, install Nero Imagedrive. It's included in 5.5.9.9, you just have to install it from start menu>Ahead Nero>Instal Nero Imagedrive...
Then create a ISO image of the DVD you want to test and then load it with Nero Imagedrive...Now chose the drive from ReDVD and ripping will be a lot faster!!!

[Orthosis]

Sorry to be late. I am a candidate to be beta tester

[Tyris]

@SurfDrifter

Feel free to talk about the test releases. Hopefully you don't have too many bad things to say! ;)

@Orthosis

I'm glad that you're interested in the program, but I've currently got enough testers for the limited amount of time I have. Your help will certainly be needed once a public beta is released.

[alex50]

Tyris

Thank you for taking up this challenge. I know I am late to the party but I would appreciate it if you can give some details about your program. What exactly does it do?

I had created a little VB application to help me with this process. It simply allows me to launch the appropriate applications, and walks you through each step. It does use send keys to control some applications to semi-automate the process, but I found that full control of every step was not achievable by me.

Also, perhaps this may be an appropriate point in time to make a request to the authors of the many great utilities we use. If some of these applications fully supported command line options or hotkeys, this process would be much easier.

Good luck with your program. Let us know if we can be of assistance. Thanks.

[Tyris]

Well, it sounds like my program is like yours, but it goes to the next step: full control. I'm sending messages to the various controls in the programs to fake everything the user usually does. As far as command line versions, while that would certainly simplify this process, it's unrealistic to think that all programs would soon be that way, so direct window contact would probably still be needed.

[caprioles9000]

Hey Tyris ...I can be a Beta tester for ya for the PAL R2 movies ..since you did not have PAL in mind while you wrote the program ..I have access to many PAL movies ..so we could try out ID4 or some other difficult DVDs besides Matrix :).....anyways if it is still possible to be a beta tester please let me know ...PM me or send me the url or you could always e-mail it to me:)( greettzzzz...we are all eagerly atticipating this program of yours ..

greeeettzzzz...
caprioles9000

[lrosado]

Hey Tyris Sent you an email to get the program, you sent me an email on the 21st or so but I just got the email now. Sorry I took so long. Let me know if I can still be a beta tester

[chilliman]

Tyris: do you have any ide when your program its gonig public

[Tyris]

Not sure... As much as I'd like to release it, there are definitely still problems to be worked out. Also, I'm in school right now, so I don't always have lots of time to work on it. The one thing that won't help is lots of people saying it sucks because it doesn't work on their machine. Since I'm doing this in a pseudo-low-level way, there are lots of things that are machine dependent. For example, I need to add support for non-English OSes one by one. So, anyway, I know lots of people are waiting for this program, but I don't want to release bad software that will just make everyone mad (especially since you have to download the 28Mb .NET Framework to run it).

[Chatwalker]

Hi Tyris

A few days ago i released the latest version of my program DVD2DVD-R.
My program is only tested with PAL RC2 Movies and there are still a few problems on untypically authored DVD's. At the moment Multi-Angle is not supported. I wrote this Tool in VB 6.02.
Perhaps it is possible to share important informations.

It would be great if you let test me your program too.

Greetz
Chatwalker

P.S.:Download at www.chatwalker.de.vu

[Tyris]

Well, this sure is interesting... I wasn't anticipating this. Not sure what to do now...

[Orthosis]

Hi, Chatwalker

I just tried DVD2DVDR with GLADIATOR PAL2. It seems cool. I have been getting hard time with scenarist before I use DVD2DVDR. But when I work with chapter, new encoding and, bitrate selection was disabled. And there was nothing for subtitle. Any comment?

Thank you for your good job.

[Tyris]

In case anyone is wondering, testing is still underway for my program, ReDVD. If anyone has questions about it, by all means, go ahead and post! As far as DVD2DVDR, I'm glad that more people have taken up the challenge of automating this process. By having two programs, hopefully the DVD reauthoring needs of more people will be satisfied! ;)