DVDShrink unable to analyze my home-made DVD

[Dr.Khron]

Ok, so I made a DVD out of AVI files that I converted, and stitched together using the PgcEdit. Then I shrunk it down to SL size with DVD shrink. Worked Perfectly.

Now, I've made a similar DVD in the same fashion, but for some reason, DVD Shrink can't open it. It will either hang at 60 - 90%, or it will crash with a non-descript error.

Anyone got any ideas as to what is making DVDShirnk crash?
I ran the DVD files through VobBlanker and FixVTS, but it didn't help.

[setarip_old]

Hi!Now, I've made a similar DVD in the same fashion, but for some reason, DVD Shrink can't open it.Are you able to PLAY (As DVD, NOT just individual .VOBs) this "similar" DVD package from your hard drive, using a software DVD player such as VLC, WinDVD, PowerDVD, etc.?it will crash with a non-descript error.What is the exact wording?

[Dr.Khron]

Yep, works just fine in both PowerDVD and Media Player Classic.


The error pop-up says:
"DVD Shrink encountered an error and cannot continue.

Programming error - exception occured"

And then it has a standard "this program has to shut down" window, and it closes.

[dialysis1]

Try running it through FixVTS.
Exception occured can be a few things. You can read about it here. (http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=222625#post222625)

[Dr.Khron]

Try running it through FixVTS.

Yeah, that was the first thing I tried, then Vob Blanker.


Thanks for the link. Unfortunatly, none of those pages describes anything close to what problem I'm having... Also, the second DVD has the SAME titlesets on it as the first DVD, just one less title. (I had to shrink the first DVD twice, so I made the second one with less titles)

That would suggest something majorly screwed up in the PGC commands, but as I said, it works fine in software players. I guess I'll try rebuilding it.

[Dr.Khron]

Holy crap! It was Vob Blanker that screwed it up!

I recreated the DVD I built this morning, testing it with DVD Shrink after every step. Once I was done building it, I ran it through Vob Blanker, and thats when it stopped loading into DVD Shrink! I was able to reproduce the exact same error.

I wonder what Vob Blanker changed...

[jsoto]

Which version of VobBlanker?
Need IFOs, and VobBlanker Log file and project file

jsoto

[Dr.Khron]

Ok, it was version 2.1.2.0

I havn't been saving my log files, so what I'll do is restore the backup, and then re-run Vob Blanker to reproduce the fault again.

Then I'll send you the whole package.

[jsoto]

@Dr.Khron

Many thanks. I've received the package

Unfortunately, I cannot see nothing wrong, so I have to ask you to do some additional tests, to isolate the problem...

A) if I unde4rstood well, the created DVD (DVDauthor) opens in shrink, and after VobBlanekr process (everything in keep mode!) it does not open. Is it right?

B) Please confirm the total sizes (Initial and Final) in VobBlanker when loading the DVD. Are they 9060MB?

C) Try to isolate the wrong VTS. Load again in VobBlanker the corrupted DVD, and:
- blank the VTS #4 (using process in input folder, you can bypass the other VTSs, so it will take one second to process)
- Try to open in shrink.
- Recover the DVD, move the backuped_files to the input folder
- If it still did not load in shrink (before recovering), repeat blanking VTS #4 & #3
- If it still did not load in shrink repeat blanking VTS #4 , #3 and #2
- If it still did not load in shrink repeat blanking the four VTSs
- If it still did not load in shrink repeat blanking the four VTSs and the menus.

Once you have located the wrong VTS, blank all the DVD except this VTS, creating a new smaller VTS.
Now, try to isolate the Cell. This will take a few more time...
- Blank the first half of the PGC (in cell-based mode) and process the DVD.
- Try to open in shrink. If it opens, recover the DVD and blank the other half, so the new DVD will not open
- Repeat again blanking the half of the non-blanked cells...

Finally, you should be able to isolate the Cell.

If the final size (everything blanked, except one cell) is still too high to be sent to me (you can use www.rapidshare.com), you can try to cut the half of the cell with VobBlanker, and try to open in shrink

I know this is a lot of work, but seems to me the problem is inside the VOB files.

Note there could be an error related with the DVD size. That means, you'll have no problems blanking one or two cells, whichever they are....

Thanks in advance.
jsoto

EDIT: If you were able to isolate the Cell, please extract also the original one (using VobBlanker), try to create IFOs with IFOedit and see if the resulting DVD also fails...

[Dr.Khron]

Ok, I'll give it a shot.

A) This was the process:
-used AVI2DVD to turn make DVDs out AVI files. The DVDs are simple, with no menus.
-I opened the first DVD in PgcEdit, imported title sets from the other DVDs, added menus, and then added blank cells to the main menu.
-I used Vob Blanker to replace the blank cells with menu cells I previously muxed with muxman.
-Used PgcEdit to define menu buttons and edit PGC commands to make everything flow correctly.
-DVD complete, at this point it plays in all software players and loads into DVD Shrink.
-For some reason, I decided to run it through Vob Blanker. From this point on, it wouldn't load into DVD Shrink, no matter what I did to it.


B) Confirmed, before and after processing, Vob Blanker lists size at 9060 MB.


C)I'll give it a shot.


-Dr.Khron

[Dr.Khron]

Ok, as far as I can tell, its every single cell in Titles 2-4.
I haven't tested every one, but I've checked a bunch, and pretty much any cell will crash DVD Shrink.

I'll upload the single cell DVD to Rapidshare so you can take a look at it.

-Dr.K

[jsoto]

Ok, got the cell and I've spent a couple of hours playing with it...

I'm almost sure (95%) the problem is in your MPEG-2 capture or encoder. Video stream is corrupted in many points. I've isolated one of them in a small DVD (1 MB) and I'll send it to you. This small DVD has been de-muxed and muxed again with MuxMan, so I'm pretty sure there are no muxing errors.

The thing that was confusing you is why one DVD loads in shrink and other not. Well, shrink does some kind of smart VOBU selection to do a very quick analysis when open the DVD. It selects a very few number of VOBUs, so the possibility to take one corrupted is rare and random.
Only with a full analysis all VOBUs are really inspected, so, if you want to be sure your DVD has no problems in shrink, you need to do a full analysis.

Sorry, but I do not have enough knowledge in MPEG-2 coding to analyze the video in more detail, but I've passed the small VOB I've isolated (two GOPs) to Phillips verifier and it reports three MPEG errors:


>>> [MPEG] ERROR 1776 (ref. MPEG Video 2.4.1 | 6.3.17) :
Inter-slice gap between macroblocks 563 and 585
for video sequence (0) at byte 30462 bit 6;
PES (0xE0) byte 30619 (byte 109 of packet 15);
byte 123 of pack 16 (PS stream byte 32891).
>>> MPEG ERROR 1776 will no longer be reported !

>>> [MPEG] SYNTAX ERROR 1782 (ref. MPEG Video 2-B.4 | B.4) :
Macroblock illegal motion_code[0][0][0]
for video sequence (0) at byte 509514 bit 5;
PES (0xE0) byte 511795 (byte 1261 of packet 251);
byte 1275 of pack 257 (PS stream byte 527611).
[Look Ahead : 0x00 0xC8 0x01 0xE0 (len : 32 bit)]
>>> MPEG SYNTAX ERROR 1782 will no longer be reported !

>>> [MPEG] ERROR 1784 (ref. MPEG Video 2.4.4.2 | 7.6.3.8) :
Horizontal component 212 of first backward vector for macroblock 353
out of picture boundaries
for video sequence (0) at byte 639627 bit 3;
PES (0xE0) byte 642503 (byte 1396 of packet 316);
byte 1410 of pack 325 (PS stream byte 667010).
>>> MPEG ERROR 1784 will no longer be reported !


EDIT
Forgot to mention other oddities I've seen (but seems these are not crashing shink..):
38 pictures in a GOP. Maximum is 36. Reported by Muxman and Phillips.
MPEG end sequence not found in some GOPs (reported by Phillips).
/EDIT

jsoto

[Dr.Khron]

Damn it. Up until now I was thinking that I was getting good results from AVI2DVD...

I was using HCEnc, maybe I'll switch to one of the other encoders.

Thank you for all of your help. I'm still not sure why running the DVD through Vob Blanker would expose the underlying encoding errors, but there is a lot about how VB works that I don't understand.

[jsoto]

As I said, I'm almost sure, but I could be wrong...

There is still the possibility that VobBlanker would corrupted the VOB.. I cannot imagine how, because VobBlanker does not modify the video packs at all (except in motion to still, but this is not the case).
However, if you load the DVD (before processing it in VobBlanker) in shrink and are able to do a full analysis w/o any problem it could be the case..

Could you check it?

jsoto

[Dr.Khron]

Arrg, sorry, I deleted the multiple copies I had while cleaning up my HDs....

However, I'm still making homemade DVDs with the same method, so if I can replicate the problem I will check it for you.

[jsoto]

OK, next time, then.

jsoto