XCD problems

[MyC sPiTTa]

Hi,

My problem is that although the DivX plays ok on the CDRW that the XCD disk was written with, it won't play on my DVD drive, or the CD/DVDROM drives of a few other people I've tried them on.
I make the cds like this:
- DivX movie with Ogg sound approx 790Mb.
- Use mode2cdmakerGUI 1.4 (I think that's what it's called) to make the image. I add the movie as mode2form2 and have the filters added as unhighlighted. Long filenames box checked. If I choose .ogm extention, the movie wont even play on the CDRW - WMP just tries to play a sound file (and fails). If I choose .avi the movie plays ok as I mentioned above.
- Wrote the .bin image in Nero as "Burn image" -> mode2.

If I try to open the cd in my DVDROM it will show the contents (movie and filters). However if I click on any of the files it spins up and locks for short intervals. If I try to play the movie file, WMP takes a long time to start then I get a "incorrect function" error box. I've included debugview log files from both my drives if they are of any use.

I've also tried CDRWin to burn the image with similar results. As far as I know the Ogg and XCD filters are installed correctly also.
I've heard that the XCD is still not compatible with some drives yet but, mine don't work on anyone's except my writer, so I'm sure something else is wrong.

Thanks for any help.

Oh, PS these are my specs:

Athlon XP 1600+
256Mb DDR
DVDROM LG 8160b
CDRW AOpen 32*10*48

[avih]

did u try to use dat2file to convert the file to 'normal' file and then play it?

regardless, you should use .DAT extension, since it's NOT an avi file, nor ogg/ogm.

let me know if you had any success with dat2file.

[MyC sPiTTa]

I can't find anywhere to download DAT2FILE (or how to use it when I get it).

[avih]

http://webs.ono.com/usr016/de_xt/mcf.html

[MyC sPiTTa]

Ok, I've tried a couple of things:

I made the image again with mode2cdmaker using either .dat or no extention. I then tried dat2file. I'm not sure of the usage exactly - the readme says "dat2file d:\avseq01.dat myfile.ext" but the dat2file program itself says "cdxa2mpeg infile [outfile]". Anyway, I couldn't get the first command to work, but the 2nd one did, sort of. As the outfile I put entension of either .dat or .ogm.

It has an error straight away saying " Unknown chunk [] encountered".
But I do end up with a file of 0kb in the output where it was supposed to be, so I think the usage was right.

The .dat burnt images still work on my CDRW but not my DVDROM. Same symptoms as before. I've attached the debug logs I got from these new tests too.
I've installed the registry patch which associates .dat files with WMP. It does load up WMP but not to play the file, it just opens the WMP program.

Hope someone can make sense of this. Thanks for the help.

[avih]

thx for the info.

it's probbaly a cdrom compatibility issue. we'll try to have a look at it.

avi

[MyC sPiTTa]

Thanks,

But if that's the case, why do I get the same symptoms on 2 other cdroms I've tried it on, and why did dat2file have the error when trying to convert the unburnt file from my hard drive (possibly coz I don't know if I used it correctly?).

(Oh doh, maybe it's coz the image on me HDD is a .bin file not a .dat.....
I guess I'd actually better try converting the file I wrote to the cd this time - lucky at least one of my drives can read it or this would be very hard to test. I'll let you know again later today.)

[avih]

i still think it's a drive cmpatibility issue, however, to make things clearer, pls specify exactly what u did, what went wrong and what went right.

some explenation about dat2file usage

dat2file would work only on the file from the cd-rom or file from the cd-rom that was copied (using standard windows tools) to hd. the extension does not matter. i.e:

your file on the cd (i.e. drive f:) is "f:\muki.dat" that was created from a file called "muki.ogm". so you should do "dat2file f:\muki.dat c:\muki.ogm" (or .ogg or .avi, whatever the original extension was). now the file on c: should play normally, and doesn't need the riff/cdxa filter. the dat2file has the same purpose as the filter, and the only difference is that dat2file is a command line tool to parse the file and output the original file, while the filter is used to parse the file and output (playback) it on a dshow system.

still, the filter was written by dext and myself, while the dat2file was written by someone else (and seems to function a bit better), so it's still possible that the filter doesn't play the file correctly, but dat2file does convert it correctly.

[MyC sPiTTa]

Ok, I've tried dat2file again with the file off the cd. And hey, it works.

I've now done this with 2 images written to cds. First I copied the images to the HDD - one was 700Mb on a 650Mb cd and the other was 810 on a 700mb cd. Then in command prompt I put this in: dat2file.exe myfilein.ext myfileout.ext.
I actually drag-and-dropped all of these filenames so they had all their full paths in there, including the dat2file.exe file.

One of the images was made in mode2cdmaker with a .dat extension and the other was a .avi. Both were actually .ogms. Both written with "Burn Image" -> "Mode2" in Nero.

Anyway, they converted and played this time so you might be right about my dvdrom. Kind of unlucky to have 3 incompatible cdroms in the same household though.

[DeXT]

You installed the XCD filter (test6b), right? It won't work without the filter -- it's needed to read the CD.

If you did it, maybe it's a filter problem but I doubt it's a drive issue just because the dat2file could successfully convert it. This tool lets you test if the CD was properly burned and the drive can read it. The same for your friends' drives.

Try using GraphEdit to manually insert the XCD reader filter and build a graph with it, to see if it works. Be warned that you should not install the old VCD patch because it won't work with the new filter.

[MaTTeR]

DVD-ROM drives are definitely problematic playing XCD for some unknown reason. I have 3 in the house and after a lot of firmware updates I've managed to get 2 out of 3 DVD drives working. 4 out of my 5 CDROM drives are working, the only one not working is an old 4x drive I had sitting in a closet:D

Most modern CDROM drives should have no problem playing these discs but DVD drives (especially Samsung) are a different story. BTW- I think changing the extension of the files with mode2cdmaker is a bad idea, at least it always resulted in problems for me.

[Palikrovol]

Hi.

I have a Pioneer DVD-ROM 16X (DVD-116 firmware 1.22) and it works flawlessly with the XCDs i make (with version 1.4.1). I do not put any extension (so the result is DAT). I made one time ago with avi extension and also works.

The only problem i have is when i try to read the "avi" file (XCD i made time ago) with bsplayer, it says "unknown file format", but with WMP or zoomplayer it works. And if i create xcda without extension ("dat") it works in bsplayer :confused: (and any other player). The same way when i use dat2file (the resulting avi works in all players including bsplayer).

[Koepi]

Well, guess what's to blame then...

the name BSPlayer (BS is a common word IIRC) derives somewhere from...

Damn. I always get trouble reports with this player. Why isn't all politics after forbidding those players instead of forbidding users rights?

SCNR,
Koepi

[Emp3r0r]

post lost, see quote below

[MyC sPiTTa]

As far as I know the test6b filter is installed. I have a xcdsrc.ax file in my system32 directory.

In my CDRW I can play the file (a .ogm) in Graphedit just by choosing "render media file". I don't see the XCD filter in the graph (and I'm not sure where to find it in the filter list to add it).
If I try the same thing in my DVDROM - well, it locks up when I try to open the file, so I can't see what filters it might use. I can't copy the file to my HDD either as any clicking on the file from the cd locks it up too.

I don't know if I could update the DVDROM firmware as it's already got a RPC-1 flash on there (hmmmm, maybe that stuffed it up). The first RPC1 flash I put on there was a bit dodgy and it locked the region. I think I was lucky to find a new one to correct it.

But surely everyone is de-region-protecting their drives.

I really looks like a read problem with the cd, but all of them open in the DVDROM, they just don't like accessing the files on the disk.

[Palikrovol]

Originally posted by MyC sPiTTa
As far as I know the test6b filter is installed. I have a xcdsrc.ax file in my system32 directory.

In my CDRW I can play the file (a .ogm) in Graphedit just by choosing "render media file". I don't see the XCD filter in the graph (and I'm not sure where to find it in the filter list to add it).


DirectShow Filters --> RIFF/CDXA source

[MaTTeR]

Originally posted by Emp3r0r
is BSPlayer so bad it should be forbidden? it is free? take it or ignore it.

It's not all that bad if your just using it for plain ordinary everyday movies I suppose but anything beyond that and you should be prepared for troubled water. Even in the latest version the overlay sometimes drops out for no apparent reason and I won't even go into detail on how poorly it handles DS filters compared to other well known players. The one positive thing I could say about it was that if all other players failed to play a movie with proper AC3 SPDIF out, well I could always count on BSPlayer to work for it.

As a side note, BSPlayer doesnt seem to like playing the M2F2 movies either, possibly another DSF issue with it. Try another player...too bad Core Media Player isn't public yet:D

[avih]

as noted 1000 times before, BSPlayer does NOT use standard dshow chain. it uses it's OWN avi file parser, and hence doesn't use the riff/cdxa filter properly.

it doesn't mean bsplayer is bad, just that it's more stand alone than other players that rely on dshow for playback. it has advantages and disadvantages. that's it. if it's working for you, good, if it doesn't don't complain regarding XCD since we know it has problems with XCD. the only reference player to test xcd with is wmpx.x (or tcmp or zoomplayer), these are known to work.

[MyC sPiTTa]

Thanks Palikrovol,

Unfortunately it's not going to help. Graphedit locks and stops responding when I try to drag the movie into it from my DVD drive. Basically the XCD in my DVDROM is unusable, even though it shows me the contents with no trouble.
And I didn't seem to need the Riff filter to play the movie in Graphedit through my CDRW drive (at least, it didn't appear in the graph).

[avih]

it's the source filter, and you cannot identify it. but try to uninstall the filter, and check whether the file plays or not (i would guess it won't ;) )

[Malow]

sorry to iterrupt, but just wanna say that
i have no doubt about some drives incompatibilities
because i make some xcds and works fine on a pioner a04
and dont play on a lg 8160 on same machine. (open and close imediatly the media player.

but, wen i open the file in graphedit and remove the vorbis pcm decoder the video works... any idea?

Malow