Layer Break in DVDShrink

[juancho]

Thanks Mr. DVDShrink for your new Beta Version of this great program !!

I have a question to the forum:
Does the new version takes off the "layer break" ?

How can I remove it (Only with IFO EDIT ?)
Thanks

[sapient]

do a search in this forum

In short you should open the relative ifo, press the vob-extras button and choose to strip streams/vobs but select everything when prompted. The vobs will be saved to the new location you indicated without any layer breaks.

[nyplayer]

1. Open the movie's IFO, usually VTS_01_0.IFO, with IFOEdit
2. Note the cell number where the layer break occurs.
3. Note the PGC number, usually PGC_1
4. Expand VTS_PGCITI and select the PGC noted at (3)
5. Scroll down until you find the cell number noted at (2)
6. The very first entry for that cell - cell type - will have some value other than 8.
7. Double click this line and change the value by adding 8 to whatever's there now. Thus, if it's 2 make it 10, if it's 0 make it 8.
8. Save the file.
9. You may want to do a Get VTS sectors, too. It isn't strictly necessary, but it does confirm the general integrity of the files.

[maa]

7. Double click this line and change the value by adding 8 to whatever's there now. Hey nyplayer,
is that strictly neccessary ?
What happens if you simply change it to 8 ?

[juancho]

Originally posted by nyplayer
1. Open the movie's IFO, usually VTS_01_0.IFO, with IFOEdit
2. Note the cell number where the layer break occurs.
3. Note the PGC number, usually PGC_1
4. Expand VTS_PGCITI and select the PGC noted at (3)
5. Scroll down until you find the cell number noted at (2)
6. The very first entry for that cell - cell type - will have some value other than 8.
7. Double click this line and change the value by adding 8 to whatever's there now. Thus, if it's 2 make it 10, if it's 0 make it 8.
8. Save the file.
9. You may want to do a Get VTS sectors, too. It isn't strictly necessary, but it does confirm the general integrity of the files.

Usually Works, but I have one movie with say... 15 Layer Breaks....
I have tryied VOB Extras, but the final size of the files is lower than the original (??)

Thanks again !

[maa]

If it plays its alright.
I noticed this too but think its the way others write their VOBs!

[atreides93]

I have never worried about layer breaks?? What does it do? Crash your DVD player?

[juancho]

Originally posted by atreides93
I have never worried about layer breaks?? What does it do? Crash your DVD player?

Fortunately, not mine (SONY DVP-NS-300D), but others do freeze (i.e Phillips & Pioneer) with DVD's R+ (FUJI, RITEK & Verbatim) Burned with DVD Decrypter and NERO 5.5

[mrbass]

layer break "layer breaks are one of those misnomers (an inaccurate name) that has grown out of IfoEdit identifying clock discontinuities as possible layer breaks, as an aid to splitting a DVD.

A clock discontinuity is when the system clock reference (SCR), a running value used for synchronization, has been interrupted. Most usually it has been set back to zero because the 2 pieces of video were encoded seperately. The last "phantom" chapter of many movies is an example of this. It also occurs during a layer break sometimes, which is where it got its name. Playback is not seamless over a discontinuity in a lot of players, causing a pause. If the SCR has been replaced with a new continously inceasing value, the marks can be removed.

The true layer break code, six or more sectors of all zero bytes, is removed by the DVD reader, and never seen by PC software." --by mpucoder

on my pioneer 434, 333, and dv-260 standalone dvd players you really have to look for the 1/2 second pause but never did it freeze so it's of little concern to me. However, a few dvd players do hiccup and freeze so someday it'd be nice to remove the 'layer break'.

[daehkcid]

So you do all that BEFORE dvdshrink, or after?

[atreides93]

Well if most decent DVD players ignore this problem, then it seems like a waste of time to remove it. Especially since passing it through another program increases your chances of screwing it up anyway.

[nyplayer]

atreides93,

I have to disagree it should be removed,. It might not cause you a problem in the Player you have now...but if you ever change it could cause a problem. Dvd2one InstantCopy and DVD95Copy do remove the layer breaks....The DVD's play smoothly without a hiccup or stutter.

[atreides93]

Ok but until there is a reliable way to remove them after processing through dvdshrink, then its folly to do so.

You end up creating more problems than you are trying to solve.

[JFerguson]

One would think that most newer generation players don't have a problem with these...or mask them all together...

[aicjofs]

This whole layer break issue in Shrink has become quite amusing. Personally if I were backing up a DVD I would remove all the layer breaks. You never know where you might want to play your DVD, it might not work in that player. I have the Hollywood Xcard and it chooses to view the layer breaks as starting points. Hence the movie plays out of sequence. Entirely unacceptable, it's not a "1 to 3 sec hiccup", it plays the movie out of sequence period. For the fabulous job DVD Shrink beta5 is doing in making the backup fill as much DVD space as absolutely possible and a free program to boot I can take the 5 min to run it through IFO edit and remove the layer breaks.

What's funny is why this seems(to me anyway) to be such a taboo topic here. Few want talk about it or answer questions about, a saw a thread locked the other day talking about it which I could understand. People ask questions and no one answers. It's a serious issue... people want to know the work arounds, others might not know all the movies previously transcoded won't play in another DVD player flawlessly.

No disrespect intended atreides93 but I have to agree with nyplayer. I personally would remove them. For what's it's worth to those out there that want to remove them, I have done probably 20 movies with Shrink and then passed through IFO edit with no problems..yet :)

[Kedirekin]

Does the Hollywood Xcard see the layer breaks as starting points, or is it choosing starting points based on the sequence codes going back to zero?

Is it safe to remove the layer breaks if the sequence codes are discontiguous, or will that cause more problems than it fixes in the long run?

Is it easy to make the sequence codes all contiguous?

I'm not an expert on the internal working of DVDs, so I can't answer these questions. However, I'm not willing to accept that removing the layer breaks is automatically the *right* thing to do just because everyone is doing it. It could too easily be a case of the blind leading the blind.

Incidentally, what does the Xcard do with the layer breaks in the original DVDs? Or in iso's mounted with daemon tools for that matter?

[aicjofs]

These are good questions most of which I don't have a firm answer. Kind of why I think this topic is good in the forum.

Never got an answer at the Sigma Designs forum.

I am guessing it is choosing the starting point based on sequence at zero.

I have removed 20 IFO's of layer breaks and haven't found any problems with removing them, but remaining analytical I can't say it's perfectly safe. I don't have every hardware and software configuration. Case in point : Many individuals have a combination that ignores the layer breaks and have no issue at all while some of us do.

Xcard has no problems with layer breaks on originals. Doesn't matter if it's mounted as ISO or not(I always test with Daemon tools before wasting a DVD-R). An orignal works fine, a DVD shrink created DVD that was compressed always(at least the 10 movies I tested before blindly removing the layer breaks with IFO edit) starts somewhere in the middle of the movie and plays the "skipped beginning" at the end.

Ah come on man EVERYONE'S DOING IT, you won't get hooked, just try a little, you don't want to be a sissy LOL :)

[mrbass]

Originally posted by aicjofs


What's funny is why this seems(to me anyway) to be such a taboo topic here. Few want talk about it or answer questions about, a saw a thread locked the other day talking about it which I could understand.

no one said it's a taboo thing to talk about..no need to start a new rant thread about it either though, thus I locked it. Don't yell at dvdshrink for being silent on the issue either which many seem to be doing..that's all..discuss away.

[Kedirekin]

Okay, let's discuss. The only info I have is from the One click DVD backup solutions Overview (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58950) in this very forum. I'm sure most everyone has seen this, but
layer break "layer breaks are one of those misnomers (an inaccurate name) that has grown out of IfoEdit identifying clock discontinuities as possible layer breaks, as an aid to splitting a DVD.

A clock discontinuity is when the system clock reference (SCR), a running value used for synchronization, has been interrupted. Most usually it has been set back to zero because the 2 pieces of video were encoded seperately. The last "phantom" chapter of many movies is an example of this. It also occurs during a layer break sometimes, which is where it got its name. Playback is not seamless over a discontinuity in a lot of players, causing a pause. If the SCR has been replaced with a new continously inceasing value, the marks can be removed.

The true layer break code, six or more sectors of all zero bytes, is removed by the DVD reader, and never seen by PC software." --by mpucoder

To me, the pertinent statement is 'If the SCR has been replaced with a new continously inceasing value, the marks can be removed'. This implies the corollary, that if the SCR is not contiguous it is *not* safe to remove the layer breaks. I'm sure they're there in the original for a reason.

So the obvious questions become:

Does DVDShrink make the SCR contiguous?
If not, is it really safe to remove the so-called layer breaks?
Do the other transcoders, that do remove the so-called layer breaks, make the SCR contiguous?
Is it difficult to make the SCR contiguous?
Is this a minor, easy to implement feature request, or is it major?
As a community, is it okay to be so demanding of this feature when we really don't know if it's easy or not?


Okay, the last two questions aren't obvious. That's just me pontificating.

Anyway, anyone else care to comment. I know many of us (well, not me, but many others) have been removing so-called layer breaks with nary a problem, but if you feel like pointing that out, please feel free.