Stange things happening with DVD2SVCD in Batch mode

[rbergero]

I ripped 2 movies into two different folders, Unforgiven then Life is Beautiful. I kicked off the batch processing and initially noticed that 2 DVD2SVCD programs opened up followed by 2 sessions of DVD2AVI.

At first I thought this was kinda cool - 2 movies at 1 time! But then I thought about it: since DVD2SVCD is pretty dependent on keystrokes, the second session (Life is Beautiful) will finish before the first (Unforgiven) because it is a shorter movie and may cause problems.

Both sessions ran without error last night (encode for Life is Beautiful was due to finish in the middle of the night, followed by Unforgiven early in the morning).

When I checked it this morning, I was expecting both to be complete but Unforgiven was still encoding (CinemaCraft) and there was an error with DVD2SVCD because it could not find a specified file for the pulldown procedure! Weird. I canceled the encode and looked in the Unforgiven folder and it appeared that the encode was already complete. I opened DVD2SVCD and ran the Recovery step and it was also past the encode and on the Pulldown part (which is where it failed before). I also checked out Life is Beautiful and it appears ok - bin/cue files created fine.

From all this rambling I would make the following observations:

- Why was it encoding for a 3rd time?
- When running in batch mode, the movies may need to be run in the bat file in order of length - shortest to longest.
- Should the batch mode process each movie one-by-one or all at the same time (as in my case)?

I'm running Win98 by the way and an Athlon 1.1GHz processor with 256MB pc133RAM.

I can post the log files if needed and the batch file as well.

Has anyone else tried this yet?

[rbergero]

Probably also should mention that I'm using the newest DVD2SVCD release, DVD2SVCD 1.0.8 build 1.

[ShinerSpoon]

It might be helpful if you were to do another batch setup using just a chapter or two from both movies by using the chapter dropdown in the conversion tab(Just use cbr in cce to save time). *Make sure* you delete the old batchfile first and *do not* have dvd2svcd running when you launch the new batchfile.

[rbergero]

I'll try it and post the results in a bit. BTW - DVD2SVCD was not open at the time and I did not have anything else running when I kicked it off (use the menu command to kick it off).

[dvd2svcd]

Hmm, it shouldn't have started dvd2svcd twice, only one at the time. Probably it is because you're using w98 and I never did get around to test it on w98.

[rbergero]

Just tried it again and did the following:
- Ripped first 2 chapters of Unforgiven (to simulate longer movie)
- Ripped first chapter of Life is beautiful
- Using CBR, CinemaCraft 2.5, Win98SE

When I ran the batch file, it immediatly opened 2 DVD2SVCD sessions followed by 2 DVD2AVI sessions.

Life finished first because it was the shorter movie, then Unforgiven finished without error this time.

Is DVD2SVCD supposed to open up sessions for each movie in the bat file? I think it's great that it will do multiple moves at the same time but I fear that if it works this way and I have 4 movies in my bat file (I have 140GB so space is not an issue), processing 4 movies at the same time would bring my PC to its knees.

I will have to try 2 whole movies again to see what happens as I got a different result from just ripping a few chapters.

[dvd2svcd]

Did you even read my post?

[rbergero]

sorry, I was working on my post at the same time you posted yours so I didn't see your original post until I had already posted mine.

Even though it shouldn't launch DVD2SVCD twice - it would be awesome if you can do 2 movies at the same time!

BTW - I ran the recover on Unforgiven at the Pulldown point and it finished with the proper bin/cue files. It initially appears that both movies finished fine after the recovery intervention.

[dvd2svcd]

Sorry, that will be troublesome to do because of CCE interaction, however, if you'd use TMPGEnc I think it could be done as it is today.

[ShinerSpoon]

Using XP, I did what I suggested above. It worked perfectly doing first one set, then the other in proper sequence. I was careful to make sure each set was in its own directory and each had the proper files in it after the process was finished. They both played fine.

For the sake of completeness, the batchfile created was:

@ECHO OFF
@REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
"C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\mandolin\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
"C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\sleepy\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit

[rbergero]

Looks like it is possibly a Win98SE only issue. Do you have a Win98SE PC to try it on.

I burned all of CD-Rs (2 for Life and 3 for Unforgiven) and all are fine except for the 3rd CD on Unforgiven. The movie was cut short (most likely because I closed CinemaCraft this morning before it was finished).

There may be a workaround for all of this and I will experiment with it some more. What will most likely occur is that when 2 movies are done at the same time, they both will encode fine but one will finish correctly and the other will need to be manually completed via the Recovery process in DVD2SVCD.

Looking at the log files for the 2 movies I can make the following observations:
- Unforgiven encode: Start - 12:17:53PM End - 1:36:29 AM
- Life encode: Start - 1:15:41PM End - 1:36:29 AM

When I checked my PC this morning about 8:00AM, CinemaCraft was still running and was pointing to the Unforgiven folder. At the same time, DVD2SVCD had an error because it could not find a file to complete the Pulldown procedure for Unforgiven.

What appears to happen on Win98 is:
- Multiple instances of DVD2SVCD will open (depends on number of entries in bat file)
- Execution seems fine up to completion of encode. When the first encode completed from the shortest movie, it marked the completion of the second encode as well even though it had more to do. CinemaCraft continued to encode the longer movie but DVD2SVCD remained in sync with the first movie.
- When the encode of the first movie completed, it appears that both instances of DVD2SVCD began the pulldown procedure but the second one failed because the CinemaCraft encoder was in the foreground for the second movie.

A conceived workaround for this is:
- Perhaps only do 2 movies at a time
- If one movie completes and the other fails, wait until CinemaCraft completes its encoding process then use the Recovery procedure in DVD2SVCD to restart from the Pulldown step.

I will try again tomorrow night with 2 different movies of different lengths to see if the workaround works. This may be a blessing in disguise if the total time to encode both at the same time + manual restart is less than the total time to do them separately, back to back.

BTW - I was using 4pass VBR, 224 audio and the picture quality is perfect on my CD-Rs and audio is in sync.

[ShinerSpoon]

Do you have a Win98SE PC to try it on?
Sorry, no.

It occurs to me if multiple instances of dvd2svcd are running then the batchfile must be dropping through. What happens if you put a pause statement between the batch lines? Like this:

@ECHO OFF
@REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
"C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\mandolin\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
ECHO Press return to activate next line
pause
"C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\sleepy\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
ECHO Press return to activate next line
pause
Rem Next batch line

I would be very interested if the second instance is launched without you pressing a key. Either result will tell the author a useful bit of information.

@DVD2SVCD use call command??

[rbergero]

I'll have to try it tomorrow afternoon or evening. I'm not at home anymore and won't be until late tonight.

Thanks for the input!

[dvd2svcd]

Maybe in the Batch file add a start /wait in front, like this:

@ECHO OFF
@REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
Start /wait "C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\mandolin\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit

[mrbass]

I've done it (batch processing) three times sucessfully with 3 dvds each time and numerous times batching it with 2 dvds. Only one is executed at once on winxp.

[rbergero]

"Only one is executed at once on winxp."

- It appears to be a Win98SE only issue. If it is ok on WinXP, it is probably ok on Win2000/NT as well. Maybe will happen on WinMe too?

Anyone else out there try the batch job on Win98? Hopefully an edit to the batch file will do it.

[DVDHack]

@DVD2SVCD

I guess this brings up another question. For people with dual processors (or more I suppose) it has been regularly mentioned that there is little benefit of these processors with DVD2SVCD (when using cce), this could well change if it were possible to kick of multiple instances of DVD2SVCD. I guess you can do it manually or use 98SE (though I don't think it supports dual CPU).

By the way - great new release, it has addressed every area that I thought could be improved. I think its just about perfect now - the only thing that I can think of is an ability to trim the from=nt and end off of movies (eg credits, leaders) through some selection process.

[dvd2svcd]

Ahh yes, framerange, the beast that still hunts me at nights.

[mrbass]

@rbergero
You double check your batch file each and everytime before you execute it I hope. It's your responsibility to edit it to take out any reduntant entries or old entries as dvd2svcd stated in the readme.txt.

[rbergero]

mrbass,

Yes, the bat file was clean when I ran it (was the first time I tried it). Here are the contents:

@ECHO OFF
@REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
"C:\PROGRAM FILES\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.EXE" -d2s:"C:\unforgiven\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
"C:\PROGRAM FILES\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.EXE" -d2s:"C:\life\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit

btw - been using DVD2SVCD for quite awhile now (since version 1.0.2 or 1.0.3 I believe) and just wanted to say thanks! I've donated before (was rbergero5 until all the userids got wiped out) and will do so again soon.

I'll try the bat file edits "Start /wait " tonight.

[rbergero]

The "Start /wait" at the beginning of each line in the bat file worked like a champ on Win98SE.

Thanks DVD2SVCD!!!!

Gave a "donation" earlier today - hope it helps and keep up the great work!!!!

[fjmf]

Just to add the info...

I have winME, it pulls up 2 times also, I will try this fix this weekend....

I know me sucks, but all the rest suck resources, and for me crash more...

[rbergero]

The Start /wait fix should work on Me as well. My edited bat file looked like this:

@ECHO OFF
@REM DVD2SVCD Batch Control
Start /wait "C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\mandolin\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit
Start /wait "C:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\DVD2SVCD.exe" -d2s:"D:\sleepy\dvd2svcd project file.d2s" -run -exit

I successfully backed these 2 movies up with this bat file and have also tried 3 at a time successfully (also kicked off 5 last night and it should be done by the end of the weekend!)

This was the best new feature added in the last few releases!!!!

[rbergero]

oops, used the wrong movies in the example but you get the idea....

[ux-3]

at least the "start /wait " starter stops multiple instances of the progs running. So far, it works as it should. So if you read this, you might as well give it a try...