Can an older hard drive cause encoding errors?

[delanejenkins]

Hey guys, I have been back and forth trying to figure out why I continue to get errors when backing up my video library to x264. I have had many recommendations which seemed promising but I am still getting encoding errors. One possibility I have not considered is whether the problem could be with my harddrive. I built an entirely new system with a quad core processor. The only thing I didn't replace was the hard drive from my previous system. It is a 7200 rpm Ide drive with an 748 Mbit/s internal write speed. Is there any possibility this could be the culprit behind my problems?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Sure, HDD's can fail and cause errors. But you didn't tell us what "encoding errors" you get in detail. So it's impossible to say whether HDD failure is likely to be the cause of the problem or not...

[delanejenkins]

Here is a couple of stills of what i'm talking about:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d135/delanejenkins/example1.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d135/delanejenkins/example2.jpg

Here is a short video clip:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=74467dda7778b8d324a64199ac7f73e5e04e75f6e8ebb871

[Underground78]

I think you should probably post your script.

[Ghitulescu]

It's most probably due to lack of video data. Are you sure your Quad processor is correctly configured (could be that only one core really works - first half of the image looks ok)? Did you performed a memory test? And a scan disk (I don't think the disk is the problem, but to be sure)?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

It's most probably due to lack of video data. Are you sure your Quad processor is correctly configured (could be that only one core really works - first half of the image looks ok)?

This is extremely unlikely ;)


Here is a couple of stills of what i'm talking about:
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d135/delanejenkins/example1.jpg
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d135/delanejenkins/example2.jpg

Here is a short video clip:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=74467dda7778b8d324a64199ac7f73e5e04e75f6e8ebb871

Now the very first thing to find out is:
Are these artifacts really introduced in the encoding step or are the already present in source ???

This may actually turn out to be a decoding error in the source script.
So please open your input Avisynth script (the identical one you used for encoding) in VirtualDub and check for artifacts!
If they are visible in the source, you know for sure that this is not an encoding problem...

[delanejenkins]

Thanks for attempting to help me solve this ongoing problem guys. It is really starting to become aggrivating. I know for sure the original DVD and bluray sources used in these examples had no errors. Are you saying my processor is somehow having trouble decoding the script and causing the errors? These errors have occurred with many different film sources and different encoding settings

[kemuri-_9]

no, he's saying more stating that it's likely that
A. the files sitting on your hard drive have become corrupted
B. you might have some other bad hardware (like the RAM) which could be causing errors

[DeeGee]

I'd run some CPU stressing app, like Orthos (http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/385/) to test it out. It also tests at least some memory.

[Ghitulescu]

These artifacts usually occur when there is not enough video data to display. Since the sources are Ok, it follows that somewhere in the system a part of these data get somehow lost.

Either the system is not optimised for quad, the memory does not stand well in the socket (or it's a bad one, highly improbable but possible), or simply the internal data busses are overloaded (maybe DMA is not activated or in a strange modus). An overheated memory and/or CPU may also vbe the cause.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Before suspecting a hardware failure, you really should open your input Avisynth script in a tool like VirtualDub and check carefully whether there are any errors.

If you only look at the encoded file, you can't decide whether the artifacts occurred when decoding the source -or- when encoding the decoded data.

Also inspecting the origianl BluRay itself doesn't help, because Avisynth most likely uses a different decoder than your BD player. You must look at the Avisynth output!

Anyway, check your RAM with Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/) and check your CPU with Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/), just to be sure...

[delanejenkins]

Ok I will start by checking the avisynth script. I have run a memtest and prime but I will run them again. Are there any other things I can test or settings I can check? I wanna start from scratch and check everything one step at a time until I find the problem

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Ok I will start by checking the avisynth script. I have run a memtest and prime but I will run them again. Are there any other things I can test or settings I can check? I wanna start from scratch and check everything one step at a time until I find the problem

If both, Prime95 and Memtest86+, run without errors for several hours, you can be pretty sure that RAM or CPU failure is not the problem here.

To check your HDD you could: Take a HUGE file and move it from one drive (or partition) to another one. Then move it back to the first drive/partition. And so on.
Compare the hash (e.g. MD5 or SHA1) before and after each copy process to check the file integrity. And reset the system each time to flush the read buffer.

You could also use an external USB HDD (if you don't have one, you can maybe borrow one) and then see if you still get these kind of artifacts.
Two HDD's, one connected via internal IDE/SATA controller and one connected via USB, failing at the same time is VERY unlikely ;)

[delanejenkins]

Running prime95 torture test set to "blend" while I'm writing this. It has been running now for a couple hours and so far no problems.
I tried to open my script with vdub and this is the error I get:

[!] Couldn't locate decompressor for format 'YV12' (unknown).
VirtualDub requires a Video for Windows (VFW) compatible codec to
decompress video. DirectShow codecs, such as those used by Windows Media
Player, are not suitable. Only 'Direct stream copy' is available for this
video.

I do not have any codec packs installed. I only have ffdshow and haali installed

[RunningSkittle]

post your script :)

[LoRd_MuldeR]

YV12 is uncompressed "raw" video data. Since when does VDub require a Codec for that? What version of VDub do you use ???

[Ghitulescu]

I'm just curious what kind of script can correctly decode the first half of a frame and "scrambble" the rest of it ... it never happen to me that way. If I had media errors then I would have also errors in the upper part, you know you can't pick your error :)

[m3mbran3]

You could try changing your encoding settings and see if that makes a difference, I assume you are doing a 2-pass vbr to a specific final size limit? Maybe do a test encode using crf.

[delanejenkins]

I am using vdubmod.

Last night I watched a video I transferred to my external hdd unconverted. It was still in vob format. I was surprised when I saw it had spots of artifacts also. Could my problem be my external hdd? I never really considered the fact I don't usually watch the encoded files before I transfer them to my external hdd because I usually watch my videos from my external hooked to a networked media tank. So due to that fact I usually don't catch any of the errors until I watch them from my external and it could be errors from the transfer to the drive instead of encoding errors. Does this sound logical? I hope this may be the case because that's an easy fix!

[roozhou]

If you are using .avs scripts, open it in any media player. You don't have to open it in VDub.

I don't think there's something wrong with your RAM. If your RAM or CPU is broken, it's more likely x264 will crash than giving your corrupt results.

[iko417]

To rule out your hard drive, then run the compression again, after it's finished check the output if it's still got those video errors, then go to 'Event Viewer -> Windows Logs -> System' and look there for Level graph if it contain error, if the error source is hdd drive then that is your problem - bad sector.