BD Rebuilder Beta - Bug Reports Only

[jdobbs]

Seems odd that calling a video from within MPC exhibits no problems, but calling the same clip from within BD-Rebuilder THRU MPC has the halting issue...

I just switched to a 250GB IDE drive last night for testing, same issue. That would seem to rule out drivers, as it's IDE at this point, not SATA like the 1TB drive. I'll try upgrading the main chipset drivers, see if that makes a diff.

Is there a way to call something else within BD-Rebuilder, like VLC? Then I could test further.

I'm using ImgBurn 2.5.4.0, so a bit newer than what you're using. I'll see if I can snag the 2.5.1.0 version and downgrade. Funny, though, yesterday I tried to burn two ISOs I had prepared in BD-Rebuilder; one burned fine, the other did the same thing (shows as Data Disc on my PS3). It seems completely random.

Thanks again for your help. How are you set for memory? That's the only thing I can think of that would be different between a direct open and doing the same thing from within BD-RB.

Another possibility is that the priority would be "Idle" (the default) when it is called from BD-RB, so if you have other things going MPC would be getting only the leftover CPU time -- especially if there is an Antivirus scan occuring. On that note -- try disabling your antivirus and see if it is doing checks that are causing the delay... now that I think of it, that's probably a good place to start, antivirus software just loves to interfere when one program calls another.

[RichardB]

Hi J Dobbs and friends,

Recently, I noticed that I neglected to set "Uncompressed" to "All Supported" in the Audio Decoder Configuration of FFDSHOW.

How exactly will this affect all the backup copies I have already made?

Does this mean that all my BD-25 re-encoded discs will not really contain the "HD" Audio, even if that box was checked in the Setup Menu of BDR?

Thanks, and Happy New Year,

Richard

[jdobbs]

Hi J Dobbs and friends,

Recently, I noticed that I neglected to set "Uncompressed" to "All Supported" in the Audio Decoder Configuration of FFDSHOW.

How exactly will this affect all the backup copies I have already made?

Does this mean that all my BD-25 re-encoded discs will not really contain the "HD" Audio, even if that box was checked in the Setup Menu of BDR?

Thanks, and Happy New Year,

Richard No affect at all. It's mainly there for playback in MPC. If you couldn't decode properly at the time of encode, BD-RB would have failed and exited.

[colinhunt]

jdobbs, have you by any chance tested the US version of Grindhouse? It contains two movies, 00004.M2TS and 00009.M2TS. Doing a movie-only backup of the first one goes through without problems, but the latter one throws a wobble:

[19:24:26] BD Rebuilder v0.36.09 (beta)
- Source: (BD42)_GRINDHOUSE
- Input BD size: 21,59 GB
- Approximate total content: [01:40:04.915]
- Target BD size: 23,49 GB
- Windows Version: 6.1 [7600]
- MOVIE-ONLY mode enabled
- Quality: Highest (Very Slow), Two Pass
- X264 Tweak(s) enabled
- Audio Settings: AC3=0 DTS=0 HD=1 Kbs=640
- Subtitle [1] is defaulted ON.
- Audio [1] set to default.
[19:24:28] PHASE ONE, Encoding
- [19:24:28] Extracting A/V streams [VID_00009]
- Extracting video streams [VID_00009]
- Extracting audio streams [VID_00009]
- Error in attempt to extract audio/subs.
- Reading buffer overflow. Possible container streams are not syncronized. Please, verify stream fps.
File name: Z:\VIDEOS\HD\(BD42) GRINDHOUSE\BDMV\STREAM\00009.M2TS
- Error in attempt to extract audio/subs.
- Reading buffer overflow. Possible container streams are not syncronized. Please, verify stream fps.
File name: Z:\VIDEOS\HD\(BD42) GRINDHOUSE\BDMV\STREAM\00009.M2TS
[19:39:31] - Failed to retrieve audio, aborted

[jdobbs]

I haven't tested that one. I'll see if I can find it. But that kind of error is typically an indicator of a bad rip.

[Capsbackup]

@colinhunt;
since the input size is less than the desired output size, thus no reencoding is necessary, have you tried just burning this original to a BD-R/RE?
Perhaps try deleting the BD-RB ini and start with a fresh one, just in case some settings are incompatible.
- Subtitle [1] is defaulted ON.
- Audio [1] set to default.
I have not seen this setting before. :confused: Looks like it could be a tsMuxeR demux issue.

[jdobbs]

- Subtitle [1] is defaulted ON.
- Audio [1] set to default.
Those just mean that they were selected (with a right-click) in the streams list.

[Capsbackup]

Those just mean that they were selected (with a right-click) in the streams list.

Learn something new! Thanks :p

[DarWun]

I haven't tested that one. I'll see if I can find it. But that kind of error is typically an indicator of a bad rip.

I don't think it is a bad rip. I had the same issue. For some reason this error occurs if the english commentary track for the second movie is included in the backup. Somebody else posted about it a while back in this forum. This is the post:

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1454385&postcount=9988

[omegaman7]

Just did "Knight and Day" Jdobbs, you might reconsider automatic quality settings. Knight and Day's original disc was only 28.7Gb. Not a whole lot of compression needed here for BD-25, and yet the program decided 'Good' - very fast setting. The dark scenery (e.g. Black suits) looked a little rough. Depending on the display used no doubt. A plasma would probably not notice this. I'll now be running it through on better settings.

And two other things I noticed is that there are 5 seconds missing from the original rip. Not sure where it went yet. And the output is 21.7Gb, where it usually averages 22.8Gb. That's 1.1Gb! Isn't that kind of extreme? I hate to seem like I'm nitpicking, but this seems like relevant information you like to hear ;)

[torque2k]

How are you set for memory? That's the only thing I can think of that would be different between a direct open and doing the same thing from within BD-RB.
8GB of ECC RAM (using an HP xw6200 with dual 3.8GHz Xeon CPUs)

Another possibility is that the priority would be "Idle" (the default) when it is called from BD-RB, so if you have other things going MPC would be getting only the leftover CPU time -- especially if there is an Antivirus scan occuring. On that note -- try disabling your antivirus and see if it is doing checks that are causing the delay... now that I think of it, that's probably a good place to start, antivirus software just loves to interfere when one program calls another.
Will try that tonight; sounds VERY plausible. I'm using MSE (not the latest 2.0 version yet).

[IVaN_000]

8GB of ECC RAM (using an HP xw6200 with dual 3.8GHz Xeon CPUs)

I'd consider upgrading to 16GB :D

[jdobbs]

I'd consider upgrading to 16GB :D BD-RB works fine with 4GB. I'm running on 8GB as well.

[Capsbackup]

BD-RB works fine with 4GB. I'm running on 8GB as well.

I have only 3 GB of triple channel memory only running at 1066Ghz with my I7 920 at the stock 2.67Ghz, with no problems here. :cool:

[omegaman7]

I've had both 4gb and 8Gb in my secondary system(which is where I run BD rebuilder), Ram really isn't that crucial for BD rebuilder. I imagine 1 - 2Gb is ample(Depending on the O.S.).
My second encode of Knight And Day is complete. Output size unchanged at 21.7Gb. However, the video quality has been drastically improved. I will probably stick with Default High Quality settings in the future, unless a lot of compression is needed. "Good: very fast" setting should not be done/used lightly. In my opinion anyway. Blacks are simply to greatly effected, if care is not taken. I am rather critical though... :p

[colinhunt]

@colinhunt;
since the input size is less than the desired output size, thus no reencoding is necessary, have you tried just burning this original to a BD-R/RE?
The original is 42GB and contains two movies, Death Proof and Planet Terror. But yeah, I guess I could drop the problematic M2TS into tsremux and let it do a remux with output to Blu-ray.

update: tsmuxer 1.10.6 reports that the file contains unrecognized streams and removes the English 2-channel audio (commentary) from the mux. Mediainfo has no problem reporting specs of the file.

update2: TsRemux 0.0.21.2 opens the file without problems and lets me do a remux to Blu-ray. I also opened the disc into BDInfo v0.5.6 and noticed that the 00035.MPLS playlist containing 00009.m2ts shows the English 2-channel commentary audio as a hidden track.

[jdobbs]

I've had both 4gb and 8Gb in my secondary system(which is where I run BD rebuilder), Ram really isn't that crucial for BD rebuilder. I imagine 1 - 2Gb is ample(Depending on the O.S.).
My second encode of Knight And Day is complete. Output size unchanged at 21.7Gb. However, the video quality has been drastically improved. I will probably stick with Default High Quality settings in the future, unless a lot of compression is needed. "Good: very fast" setting should not be done/used lightly. In my opinion anyway. Blacks are simply to greatly effected, if care is not taken. I am rather critical though... :pI've done hundreds of discs using that setting and never had an issue. I believe there is something peculiar about "Knight and Day" -- I'll pick it up and see how it looks. What scene should I look at closely? Can you post your INF file so I can see the bitrates?

[Capsbackup]

I did Knight and Day to BD5, even kept some extras, so the total reencode time was approx. 2:25:00. Though unusually much for a BD5, I did do a two pass at default quality. I believe the main feature received about 3300kbps. The quality looked excellent on my 50" Samsung plasma, no apparent differences from the original, even in the high action scenes! :)

[jdobbs]

The original is 42GB and contains two movies, Death Proof and Planet Terror. But yeah, I guess I could drop the problematic M2TS into tsremux and let it do a remux with output to Blu-ray.

update: tsmuxer 1.10.6 reports that the file contains unrecognized streams and removes the English 2-channel audio (commentary) from the mux. Mediainfo has no problem reporting specs of the file.

update2: TsRemux 0.0.21.2 opens the file without problems and lets me do a remux to Blu-ray. I also opened the disc into BDInfo v0.5.6 and noticed that the 00035.MPLS playlist containing 00009.m2ts shows the English 2-channel commentary audio as a hidden track.
You could also set FORCE_NOENCODE=1 in the BD-RB INI and let it do the rebuild with no reecoding. So what is a "hidden track"? Something that isn't reported in the MPLS? Or is it a track that is muxed into the M2TS but isn't listed in the Program Stream Map?

Be careful when using old versions of TSMUXER -- earlier ones will create a corrupted CLPI file with a bad EP_MAP.

[Capsbackup]

Be careful when using old versions of TSMUXER -- earlier ones will create a corrupted CLPI file with a bad EP_MAP.

I think the reference is to "TsRemux 0.0.21.2".
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125447
An alternative but not nearly as useful as tsMuxeR. ;)

[jdobbs]

I think the reference is to "TsRemux 0.0.21.2".
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125447
An alternative but not nearly as useful as tsMuxeR. ;) Ahh... I guess sometimes you read what you are expecting instead of what is actually there -- it said TSREMUX and I saw TSMUXER.

[Capsbackup]

Ahh... I guess sometimes you read what you are expecting instead of what is actually there -- it said TSREMUX and I saw TSMUXER.

Happens with me too! :p
Interesting that TSREMUX can demux IGS streams, but does not allow for remux. :(
Also displays secondary PiP audio, but does not allow demux.

[colinhunt]

You could also set FORCE_NOENCODE=1 in the BD-RB INI and let it do the rebuild with no reecoding. So what is a "hidden track"? Something that isn't reported in the MPLS? Or is it a track that is muxed into the M2TS but isn't listed in the Program Stream Map?
Seems to be a case of peculiar authoring. Planet Terror has a "commentary" track (an audience reaction track, to be more precise) but there's no commentary listed anywhere in the menus for Death Proof (00009.m2ts). I guess that's why the track has been marked as hidden. Weird stuff.

[laserfan]

I tried BDRB last night and this morning found a blue screen on my PC having to do with a Power driver. It appears that the PC tried to enter Sleep mode while BDRB was running and suffered a crash--I know how to avoid this for the future, but am surprised that BDRB does not tell the PC it's working? Running W7 OS 64bit here, and I usually run x264 "by hand" whereby I have to issue "powercfg -change -standby-timeout-ac 0" to keep it from going to sleep while encoding.

BTW it appears jdobbs that you addressed/fixed this way-back in May? Hmmm, I tried latest 36.09 here of course. I had manually selected Highest Quality and 1 Pass ABR encoding options, and the PC appears to have tried to Sleep while it was Reencoding:

[jdobbs]

Seems to be a case of peculiar authoring. Planet Terror has a "commentary" track (an audience reaction track, to be more precise) but there's no commentary listed anywhere in the menus for Death Proof (00009.m2ts). I guess that's why the track has been marked as hidden. Weird stuff.

Probably an easter egg of some sort.

[jdobbs]

I tried BDRB last night and this morning found a blue screen on my PC having to do with a Power driver. It appears that the PC tried to enter Sleep mode while BDRB was running and suffered a crash--I know how to avoid this for the future, but am surprised that BDRB does not tell the PC it's working? Running W7 OS 64bit here, and I usually run x264 "by hand" whereby I have to issue "powercfg -change -standby-timeout-ac 0" to keep it from going to sleep while encoding.

BTW it appears jdobbs that you addressed/fixed this way-back in May? Hmmm, I tried latest 36.09 here of course. I had manually selected Highest Quality and 1 Pass ABR encoding options, and the PC appears to have tried to Sleep while it was Reencoding: That's an issue with the PC, not BD-RB. A program shouldn't have to say "I'm running" to the O/S that is running it.

[omegaman7]

I did Knight and Day to BD5, even kept some extras, so the total reencode time was approx. 2:25:00. Though unusually much for a BD5, I did do a two pass at default quality. I believe the main feature received about 3300kbps. The quality looked excellent on my 50" Samsung plasma, no apparent differences from the original, even in the high action scenes! :)

Ahhh, but you went for default quality, which is what I now like. Plus Plasma screens have excellent blacks ;)

I'll be posting the inf soon Jdobbs. I have to rerun the job. I didn't think to save the original inf file. Shouldn't take more than 1.5 - 2hrs.

[colinhunt]

Probably an easter egg of some sort.
Deffo something wonky with this disc. "Scanning directory" phase takes at least 10x longer than other discs with same amount of content and playlists. I inserted FORCE_NOENCODE=1 into ini file and chose the problematic playlist. Extraction of video streams halted at 4.4%, BD-RB went non-responsive and Task Manager showed tsmuxer hogging memory at a rate of 1MB per second until it got to ~300MB, at which stage BD-RB came back to life and Current Progress bar started updating again. At the same time tsmuxer memory use dropped to 8MB. Extraction phase is at 70% now. ... OK, video stream extraction is done. Audio stream extraction halted at 6.2%, BD-RB is frozen and tsmuxer memory use has gone from 4MB to 180MB in moments. Now at 215MB... 240MB... and BD-RB stopped in the same error message as before, "Reading buffer overflow". I think I'll take a closer look at the 2nd English audio track.

Well, mystery solved. When you start Death Proof, the movie is preceded by three fake trailers. The commentary track is 155 seconds long and can be activated for the third trailer only. Why it messes up tsmuxer I have no idea.

[setarip_old]

@jdobbs

Hi! I believe there is something peculiar about "Knight and Day"The only exceptional things that I'm aware of regarding "Knight and Day" are that:

1) It is a Fox BD+ release

2) There's a 3 disc version as well as a single disc version

3) The additional extras on the 3 disc version are actually also on the single disc version, but are "hidden". (I believe Fox is doing this with virtually all of its recent/current releases that have single and multiple disc versions)

[jdobbs]

@jdobbs

Hi! The only exceptional things that I'm aware of regarding "Knight and Day" are that:

1) It is a Fox BD+ release

2) There's a 3 disc version as well as a single disc version

3) The additional extras on the 3 disc version are actually also on the single disc version, but are "hidden". (I believe Fox is doing this with virtually all of its recent/current releases that have single and multiple disc versions) I guess I'd better head out and pick it up. We've got a huge snowstorm coming in from the North -- and I may be locked-in for a couple days.

[IVaN_000]

I made a backup of Robin Hood with v0.36.09. To achieve the best picture quality I disabled "Automatic quality settings", and set "Highest (very slow)". Indeed, it took about 18 hours to complete in a quad core Athlon. Now the movie looks amazing, can't tell the difference from the original disc (it's about 46 GB). But some of the extras don't look fine, the trailers look like they got bad interlaced (you know, when you can see the horizontal lines, especially on moving scenes), and the 720x480 extras look very compressed. I won't process it again, but I would like to know what should I change in the settings to avoid that problem in the future. This is my .INI:

[Options]
VERSION=0.36.0.9
MODE=0
ENCODE_QUALITY=3
ONEPASS_ENCODING=0
AUTO_QUALITY=0
TARGET_SIZE=23500
AUDIO_TO_KEEP=eng;spa;
SUBS_TO_KEEP=eng;spa;
SD_CONVERT=0
OPEN_GOP=0
RESIZE_1080=0
DEINTERLACE=0
SD_TO_1080=0
CONVERT_WIDE=0
DTS_REENCODE=1
AC3_REENCODE=0
AC3_640=1
AC3_192=0
KEEP_HD_AUDIO=0
AVCHD=0
REMOVE_WORKFILES=0
MOVIE_ONLY_LOOP=1
REMOVE_OUTPUT=0
USE_FILTERS=0
BDMV_CERT_ONLY=1
USE_LAVF=0
IVTC_PULLDOWN=1
ASSUME_DVD_PAL=0
AUDIO_TRACK_LIMIT=0
SUBTITLE_TRACK_LIMIT=0
CUSTOM_TARGET_SIZE=23450
QUICK_EXTRAS=0

[omegaman7]

Jdobbs, here is the INF. It is very difficult to still image a comparison, so you're just gonna have to take my word for it. It's a shame Virtual dub doesn't like the M2TS files. At least my version...
There is definitely a substantial difference between original and encoded backup, in the dark scenes. A kind of red/blue/green glow effect. Not sure how else to explain this. From 53:23 - 53:40 is where I first noticed the visual problem.

And now I've ran yet another test LOL! I streamed the compressed version to my primary computer, and it looks fine(DVI). My secondary employs a VGA port(Same resolution of 1920 x 1200). But the original uncompressed plays just fine through VGA. My guess is, that the compressed color/dark values don't play nice with the VGA port, where as through DVI they do. Does this make sense? But my longer encode of Knight And Day plays fine over VGA. Because the color values are different? Well... here is the INF anyway(Fastest Settings). I think I've made an interesting discovery anyhow. And I'll no longer test my results on the secondary, until I have it running off a proper DVI port LOL!

[colinhunt]

A quick question: a BD has a movie in 1080i and at 29.97fps. I know it's originally shot on film at 23.976fps. How do I set BD-RB up to output 1080p23.976 from this source?

[jdobbs]

I made a backup of Robin Hood with v0.36.09. To achieve the best picture quality I disabled "Automatic quality settings", and set "Highest (very slow)". Indeed, it took about 18 hours to complete in a quad core Athlon. Now the movie looks amazing, can't tell the difference from the original disc (it's about 46 GB). But some of the extras don't look fine, the trailers look like they got bad interlaced (you know, when you can see the horizontal lines, especially on moving scenes), and the 720x480 extras look very compressed. I won't process it again, but I would like to know what should I change in the settings to avoid that problem in the future. This is my .INI:

[Options]
VERSION=0.36.0.9
MODE=0
ENCODE_QUALITY=3
ONEPASS_ENCODING=0
AUTO_QUALITY=0
TARGET_SIZE=23500
AUDIO_TO_KEEP=eng;spa;
SUBS_TO_KEEP=eng;spa;
SD_CONVERT=0
OPEN_GOP=0
RESIZE_1080=0
DEINTERLACE=0
SD_TO_1080=0
CONVERT_WIDE=0
DTS_REENCODE=1
AC3_REENCODE=0
AC3_640=1
AC3_192=0
KEEP_HD_AUDIO=0
AVCHD=0
REMOVE_WORKFILES=0
MOVIE_ONLY_LOOP=1
REMOVE_OUTPUT=0
USE_FILTERS=0
BDMV_CERT_ONLY=1
USE_LAVF=0
IVTC_PULLDOWN=1
ASSUME_DVD_PAL=0
AUDIO_TRACK_LIMIT=0
SUBTITLE_TRACK_LIMIT=0
CUSTOM_TARGET_SIZE=23450
QUICK_EXTRAS=0 If you're seeing that, you're probably playing it back on a PC. Most PCs suck at playing back interlaced material. The chances are that those weren't even processed and look the same on the original... most small extras (like previews/trailers) are kept intact.

Next type you may want to try selecting "Use DECOMB on Interlaced Sources" -- it will smooth those jagged edges before encoding.

[jdobbs]

A quick question: a BD has a movie in 1080i and at 29.97fps. I know it's originally shot on film at 23.976fps. How do I set BD-RB up to output 1080p23.976 from this source? If it is telecined in a normal way, select "IVTC Sources with 3:2 pulldown" from the SETUP dialog and it will do it for you automatically.

If it is hard-telecined, then add IVTC_SELECTION=1 to your INI, and close/reopen BD-RB. Now you should be able to select "Inverse Telecine this item" by right clicking on it.

Be careful though. If it isn't truly telecined or hard-telecined it will really look terrible when you force IVTC on it. That's the reason I've made it so it is only available as a hidden option. I've run into only one movie that was 1080i at 29.97fps hard telecined -- that was "Time Bandits".

[IVaN_000]

If you're seeing that, you're probably playing it back on a PC. Most PCs suck at playing back interlaced material.

You're right, I'm playing it with TMT 3. But I still have the original ripped in my HD, and if I play it with the same software, the untouched source looks correct.

[jdobbs]

You're right, I'm playing it with TMT 3. But I still have the original ripped in my HD, and if I play it with the same software, the untouched source looks correct. That's probably because you are using a different codec when playing back the reencoded video. After the encode it is AVC -- before it was likely VC-1 or MPEG-2.

[IVaN_000]

That's probably because you are using a different codec when playing back the reencoded video. After the encode it is AVC -- before it was likely VC-1 or MPEG-2.

That's probably it. As I'm no expert, I couldn't figure that out by myself. Thanks.

[colinhunt]

If it is telecined in a normal way, select "IVTC Sources with 3:2 pulldown" from the SETUP dialog and it will do it for you automatically.
I did a High Speed test run while waiting for someone to reply. I ticked "Use Decomb" and "IVTC Sources with 3:2 Pulldown" to see what happens, and the output was 1080p29.97. Was that caused by "Use Decomb" or did BD-RB decide that the source is not suitable for inverse telecine? Oh, and I might have ticked "Use LAVF" as well.

If it is hard-telecined, then add IVTC_SELECTION=1 to your INI, and close/reopen BD-RB. Now you should be able to select "Inverse Telecine this item" by right clicking on it.
I'll give it a shot. It only takes an hour or so to run a test in High Speed Mode :)

[laserfan]

That's an issue with the PC, not BD-RB. A program shouldn't have to say "I'm running" to the O/S that is running it.
Hmmm so yours doesn't Sleep if just a cmd.exe (like x264) is running. My Windows 7 wants apps to set the SetThreadExecutionState Function, otherwise it doesn't care if all 4 cores are cranking 100%--it will go to sleep:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373208%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Guess I'm the only one who cares about this so "never mind then".

[jdobbs]

Hmmm so yours doesn't Sleep if just a cmd.exe (like x264) is running. My Windows 7 wants apps to set the SetThreadExecutionState Function, otherwise it doesn't care if all 4 cores are cranking 100%--it will go to sleep:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373208%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Guess I'm the only one who cares about this so "never mind then". Hmmm... interesting. I've never had to worry about it so didn't give it any thought. I guess it could be different between systems depending upon how the power modes are set. It would be easy enough to set it. I'll see about putting it in the next release.

[jdobbs]

Hmmm so yours doesn't Sleep if just a cmd.exe (like x264) is running. My Windows 7 wants apps to set the SetThreadExecutionState Function, otherwise it doesn't care if all 4 cores are cranking 100%--it will go to sleep:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa373208%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Guess I'm the only one who cares about this so "never mind then".Done. I set it so that both display and system are needed as each encode begins. It is reset to CONTINUOUS at the end of the encode (restarting the SLEEP timer). This should keep the system from sleeping (until BD-RB is complete) no matter how you have your power options set.

[Capsbackup]

Hmmm so yours doesn't Sleep if just a cmd.exe (like x264) is running. My Windows 7 wants apps to set the SetThreadExecutionState Function, otherwise it doesn't care if all 4 cores are cranking 100%--it will go to sleep



I had this happen to me before with Windows 7 when I first installed it, and I don't remember it ever happening with XP. I changed my power preference for hard drive to never sleep to avoid this, even though I did not like to have it set that way, just in case I forgot to set BD-RB to shut down on completion it would not continue running. :(

[omegaman7]

Double post....

[omegaman7]

I never let any of my computer components idle. And I never shut my system down. I've calculated that my electric usage is in the ballpark of 35-50$ a month. It's my belief that electrical components would prefer run around the clock. Much like a light bulb. Hot cold, hot cold, hot cold, Pop!
That's my belief on it. I have a 9 year old system that still runs perfectly :p

[jdobbs]

I never let any of my computer components idle. And I never shut my system down. I've calculated that my electric usage is in the ballpark of 35-50$ a month. It's my belief that electrical components would prefer run around the clock. Much like a light bulb. Hot cold, hot cold, hot cold, Pop!
That's my belief on it. I have a 9 year old system that still runs perfectly :p I leave two computers running 24x7 (one of them does encodes pretty much 90% of each day as I test discs, versions, and X264 releases). I put a kW meter on them and it costs me about $15 a month. Not bad, I think.

[Priapismic]

I never let any of my computer components idle. And I never shut my system down. I've calculated that my electric usage is in the ballpark of 35-50$ a month. It's my belief that electrical components would prefer run around the clock. Much like a light bulb. Hot cold, hot cold, hot cold, Pop!
That's my belief on it. I have a 9 year old system that still runs perfectly :pYou have, without a doubt, and without the necessary quantification if mathematics, spent more money, by many factors, on electricity, than would ever have been expended upon replacement components - assuming your premise were true which it is not, even remotely!
Using sleep cycle instead of shutdown, is far easier on modern components. Then using a cleaner, I like Ccleaner but there are many others, every few weeks or so followed by a reboot, will keep your system in good shape, at a low stress level, and (certainly in your case) at immense savings.
Your method, dubiously, might have extended the longevity of poorly made components a decade ago.
Also, the analogy to a light bulb is false; no filament exists anywhere in a PC

[omegaman7]

Well, I was calculating my power strip as a whole LOL! I have one of those testers as well. Beautiful devices ;)

@Priapismic, we all have our own ways. As do you apparently. I have one of the cheapest rates in the U.S. too... 7.1Cents kW/hr if memory serves. Metal in general breaks down eventually from being hot then cold. This is fact. I'll stop now :p

[jdobbs]

Well, I was calculating my power strip as a whole LOL! I have one of those testers as well. Beautiful devices ;)

@Priapismic, we all have our own ways. As do you apparently. I have one of the cheapest rates in the U.S. too... 7.1Cents kW/hr if memory serves. Metal in general breaks down eventually from being hot then cold. This is fact. I'll stop now :p Wow, definitely cheap. I'm satisfied with paying 10.67 cents/KwH (although it was 8.5 cents last year) -- on the east coast they are paying 15 cents.

[omegaman7]

Yes, it is very cheap. I don't actually pay the bill myself, and I'm finding it difficult to get a hold of the actual bill. The rate that I discovered is found on the meter itself on the house.
Jdobbs, your software never ceases to amaze me. I've now backed up the new Resident Evil. It looks like all went well. I'll be watching it tomorrow with my bro at the turn of the year :D My payday (Auto deposit) is friday/tomorrow). All of my bills are paid. Do you know what that means? It means that payday has come for you too. Keep up the good work. I know i've said similar in the past, but the time has finally arrived!
I wish you and yours a Happy new year :)