DVDShrink 3.0 beta (all versions) bug reports

[snidely]

Hello everyone,

I figured that with all the various DVDShrink threads that it would be helpful to assemble a single thread for BUG REPORTS ONLY! I don't mean to scream this, but I just want to politely ask that you refrain from asking questions in this thread and merely report bugs, so that Mr. Shrink can get feedback about how the current beta is working without him having to wade through feature requests, transcoder comparisons, etc. and can just get his hands on useful information to fix the current version. Please, once again, NO FEATURE REQUESTS in this thread.

Beta 3 bug report:

To start things off, I will mention some of the already reported bugs, though I have not personally experienced all of them:

1. Color saturation issue. Colors seem to be less vivid than the original when compressed using the current engine. So far, it seems that this only happens with PAL titles, unless someone else can attest to this bug happening with NTSC as well.

***Edit: Now it seems like people are changing their minds. Is there a saturation issue or not? I have not seen it personally.

***Edit again! As it turns out, the color saturation issue is NOT related to DVDShrink at all, and was a problem with the techniques used in comparing stills. I repeat, THERE IS NO COLOR SATURATION ISSUE!

2. This version of DVDShrink forces an association of IFO files to itself. This is ok, but if the association is returned to some other program (like IfoEdit), Shrink reforces the assciation every time it is launched. I assume that this is a bug and Mr. Shrink is not trying to force us to associate our IFOs to DVDShrink. :)

***Edit: I tried this a few more times, and after 3 tries, my remapping of the association finally stuck. Weird! Maybe it is not a bug with DVDShrink after all. Anyone else?

***Edit one more time: Once again, DVDShrink insists on being associated with the .IFO extension. Won't it ever give up? :)

3. Output files have been reported to have compatibility problems with certain STB players. Odd things like menu lockups and strange navigational problems have been reported.

4. Output file size is not always accurate. I haven't had this problem, but apparently others have found predicted output size to be oversized enough to prevent burning.

5. I don't know how to describe this last bug (if it is a bug), so I'll just tell my story: I transcoded American Pie using both DVDShrink 2.3 and 3.0 beta 3, both in reauthor mode for movie only. In both versions, Shrink reported the main movie as consisting of Title 1 plus a whole bunch of small titles, both reporting 5150 mb. When I switched to reauthor mode in 2.3, I saw the entire list, including title 1 (5150 mb), as well as the whole bunch of other small titles. I dragged title 1 into the reauthor window and all was well. In version 3.0 beta 3, when I dragged the main movie into the reauthor window, I automatically dragged in all the other small titles, even though they were not needed, and I had no way to remove them, as they were "locked" to the main movie. I assume that this is some sort of bug and not something that I am doing wrong from my end, so I figured I should report it.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Bugs, anyone? :)

[daddy_fizz]

Originally posted by snidely
[B]

5. I don't know how to describe this last bug (if it is a bug), so I'll just tell my story: I transcoded American Pie using both DVDShrink 2.3 and 3.0 beta 3, both in reauthor mode for movie only. In both versions, Shrink reported the main movie as consisting of Title 1 plus a whole bunch of small titles, both reporting 5150 mb. When I switched to reauthor mode in 2.3, I saw the entire list, including title 1 (5150 mb), as well as the whole bunch of other small titles. I dragged title 1 into the reauthor window and all was well. In version 3.0 beta 3, when I dragged the main movie into the reauthor window, I automatically dragged in all the other small titles, even though they were not needed, and I had no way to remove them, as they were "locked" to the main movie. I assume that this is some sort of bug and not something that I am doing wrong from my end, so I figured I should report it.



i think that that problem might have something to do with "show titles combined" in 2.3 there was an option to show all titles combined that were main movie, etc but i can't seem to find it in 3.0b3... i betcha if you deselected that you would be able to just drag the main title only...

~Fizz

[Sbofen]

i think that that problem might have something to do with "show titles combined" in 2.3 there was an option to show all titles combined that were main movie, etc but i can't seem to find it in 3.0b3...
In DVD Shrink3.0 beta3, try view->Combine Shared Titles

[daddy_fizz]

duh, yeah i am dumb and didn't see it

thanks...try it out :D

~Fizz

[snidely]

In DVD Shrink3.0 beta3, try view->Combine Shared Titles

Nope, doesn't work. The "shared titles" are bound to title 1 no matter which way I view them. In 2.3, if I change "show overlapping titles combined", it does just that - it changes the way it is viewed, but the overlapping or shared titles are not bound to title 1 in any way. I think I have stumbled onto a genuine bug.

[insertdisk]

4. Output file size is not always accurate. I haven't had this problem, but apparently others have found predicted output size to be oversized enough to prevent burning.

I had this problem doing a movie only - reathor- on NTSC title, Bringing Down the House. Recordnow Max would not record (complaining of not enough space on destination medium) - although the file size appeared to be right on - I attributed it to a bad disc and reathored the movie again undersizing by 40 meg. I thought this would allow the movie to fit on my media. Same problem (not enough space on destination medium), so I put in a new disc and still it wouldn't fit. Then I took the original reathored file that recordnow max says was to big and ran it through DVD2one without compression (my reathored title from shrink was movie only with one sound track only). Presto! the recompiled title now fit on the original medium I had initially attempted to burn it on. I then ran the shrink files through clonedvd burning engine and it complained of an error in the structure.
I don't think shrink is actually producing an oversized title but something is wrong with the structure making it seem oversized or at least that is the error it produces with Recordnow Max.
I only had this error with Beta 3 (this is the only title I have tried with 3) I had no trouble with B2 on a separate reauthor title.

[ulfschack]

3. Output files have been reported to have compatibility problems with certain STB players. Odd things like menu lockups and strange navigational problems have been reported

Did "the ring" movie only with beta 3. It wouldn't play in my Philips 622. Proceeded to "get VTS sectors" in ÍfoEdit, burned it to a different DVD-RW (incase that was the issue). Didn't work. Then I did a total reconstruction of the IFOs from the VOBs (again with IfoEdit). Still no go, but I definitly narrowed down the bug to be in the VOBs and not in the IFO.

IC worked flawlessly from the same image, BTW.

Gonna try beta 4 tonight.

Should the title to this thead be changed to follow the current beta version?

Cheers

[Toona]

Insertdisk I had the exact same problem you are describing while trying to back-up The Godfather part II hope this gets fixed in B4 or final release

[Deviant]

I too have the oversized file problem before burning...let's see if beta 4 has the same problem.....

[jined]

Issues of DVD Playing or not Playing back on this or that player are not related to the Transcoding process!!

They are, instead, MUCH related to the kind of Burner/Blank Disk/Burning applications used...


My Bug report anyway:

Movie: The KingDom (by Lars Von Triers) Pal version.


First, ripped with DVD Shrink 3 beta 3 (was in a hurry, so,
couldn't shrink at the moment...)

Then, with calm, in the evening tried to shrink at 50%
from 7gb to 4.3gb from HD to HD...with deep analysis activated.

After 5 minutes of work, this error come out:

-----------
DVD SHRINK 3.0

DVD Shrink encountered an error and cannot continue.
The error is:

Cannot Decrypt VOBS

The reason is: Unknown





Regards,

Jined

[ulfschack]

Issues of DVD Playing or not Playing back on this or that player are not related to the Transcoding process!!

Boy, are you ever wrong. You shouldn't make definite statements like that in a thread which is precicely about ironing out transcoding issues. If the movies doesn't play, it's a thing to investigate. In my case especially we've found out that it's notthe creataion of the Ifos that faults but exactlythe trancoding process.

Not only are you disrespecting my bug report, by acting an arse-oracle, but to top it off using exlamation marks(two, no less) to emphasize your claim. How do you get off ... ?

[JFerguson]

Are we reporting just beta 3 bugs here or for all betas?

Here's one for beta 5:

I have some DVD data that I'm transcoding. I'm compressing objects in the Menus section, and some objects in the Extras section. I am not compressing anything in the Main Movie section. I set my options for compression, and Main Movie is left alone (its size stays black, versus blue for the changed content).

DVD Shrink hammered some frames in the Main Movie VOB, near the beginning. Here's are the snapshots, with progression:

Step 1. Original DVD (http://www.iownjoo.com/freeimghost/Blackhole/Test_000O.jpg)

Step 2. Transcoded with InstantCopy (http://www.iownjoo.com/freeimghost/Blackhole/Test_000IS.jpg)

Step 3. Processed with Shrink (Automatic - 100%) (http://www.iownjoo.com/freeimghost/Blackhole/Test_000I.jpg)

So, from the Original, I transcode with InstantCopy, then compress menus and extras with DVD Shrink (in Step 3). Zoom in on that third one...it looks bad!!

Note that frames farther into the VOB seemed unaffected, just ones like this near the beginning.

Now, this might be related to the earlier "FF/RW" bug that Shrink fixed in Beta 4. I noticed that my main title, although uncompressed, was set to Automatic.

I went back and set the main title to "No compression" and it came out fine (i.e., identical to Step 2).


Also, if you're curious, here's what the frame looks like if it was transcoded with DVD Shrink and not InstantCopy. I think it beats the InstantCopy one. Compression was set to 66% in both programs, btw...

Step 2. Transcoded with DVD Shrink (http://www.iownjoo.com/freeimghost/Blackhole/Test_000S.jpg)


UPDATE

I just went back and checked the VOBs. DVDShrink definitely touched that VOB when it was set to Automatic/100%. 2MB was stripped out. When set to No Compression, it left it alone, and the VOB was identical to its pre-Shrink processed version.

[snidely]

Are we reporting just beta 3 bugs here or for all betas?

When I started the thread, I figured that beta 3 would be around for awhile....wrong! :)

If mrbass would be so kind as to edit the thread title to reflect that these bug reports are for the latest beta, it would be much appreciated.

On a side note, maybe I am just not very observant, but hasn't mrbass just recently (like in the last two weeks) become a moderator here? If so, then my congratulations go out to him. I couldn't imagine a better person for the job!

[Kedirekin]

@snidely

As the author of the thread, you can change the title. Just hit the edit button on the first message.

I also extend my congratulations to mrbass.

I have no bugs to report. :D

[snidely]

As the author of the thread, you can change the title. Just hit the edit button on the first message.

Thanks, Kedirekin, I didn't know that! Done. :)

[mrbass]

I think a few months back one couldn't edit a title but they made it so one can now do it themselves just like Kedirekin mentioned. I came back after taking a year break from being a mod that's all. I know Kedirekin from the dvd2svcd forums and he's extremely knowledgable (although he'll deny it). I once recommended him to be a mod believe it or not...like 2 years ago I think it was.

as for bug reports I also encountered with dvdshrink 3.0 beta 5 where the buffer wouldn't flush using re-author mode.

[jined]

Originally posted by ulfschack
Boy, are you ever wrong. You shouldn't make definite statements like that in a thread which is precicely about ironing out transcoding issues. If the movies doesn't play, it's a thing to investigate. In my case especially we've found out that it's notthe creataion of the Ifos that faults but exactlythe trancoding process.

Not only are you disrespecting my bug report, by acting an arse-oracle, but to top it off using exlamation marks(two, no less) to emphasize your claim. How do you get off ... ?

As you prefer..
But if the Ifo is correct, and the vob files, before and after transcoding, are dvd/mpg2 compliant, they have to work.

NOT to the Vob structure itself, as long as they
play back in a computer or some player, the transcoding
process didn't interfered as long as it uses a
compression algoroithm that respect certain standards.
So, they are, or correct (and playable) or not correct
(not dvd/mp2 compliant) (not playable)...not half working.

Factors that interfere with this can be related to:
incorrect ifo correlation, file system issues
due to burning application, failed pickup sync
due to a certain laser unable to read certain
reflection surfaces (easy to solve this issue
using a different brand of blank dvd).

anyway, i did "the ring" too with shrink,
and no probls.

Jined

[slolsby]

Here's another one. DVDshrink won't open files created by TMPGEnc DVD Author. I capture Mpeg2 Digital TV using a Haupauge Nova-T and then author them with this program. If I try to open the IFO with DVDShrink, it starts the preview then stops at around 6% and says:

DVDShrink encountered an error and cannot continue.

The error is: Cannot decrypt Vobs

The reason is: Unknown

I don't think it's the source material causing this (ie DVB stuff), as I have authored other material with TMPGenc DVD Author and DVDshrink does the same thing.

[rogsm]

I know i am not the first one to report this, but DVDShrink Beta chrashes on me constantly.

I've tried Beta 3, 4 and 5, all with the same result. What happens is that the machine totaly freezes, only a "hard reset" solves the problem. I can't find any specific repetetive error. It freezes in re-author as well as in back-up mode and during analysis as well as recoding. I've tried several different DVD:s as well as ripping with DVD Decrypter before using DVDShrink. Out of approximately twenty tries, only one was successfull.

DVDShrink 2.3 works great.

The machine is a P4 1.7GHz with GeForce 3 running XP Pro.

[jined]

Originally posted by rogsm
I know i am not the first one to report this, but DVDShrink Beta chrashes on me constantly.

I've tried Beta 3, 4 and 5, all with the same result. What happens is that the machine totaly freezes, only a "hard reset" solves the problem. I can't find any specific repetetive error. It freezes in re-author as well as in back-up mode and during analysis as well as recoding. I've tried several different DVD:s as well as ripping with DVD Decrypter before using DVDShrink. Out of approximately twenty tries, only one was successfull.

DVDShrink 2.3 works great.

The machine is a P4 1.7GHz with GeForce 3 running XP Pro.


You mean the machine totally freezes, so the mouse dont move?

Usually, and i speak as an european mcse, this kind of troubles are much related to machine hardware, especially on NT based systems (nt4, w2k, xp) where the potential of system freezing by applications, is extremely limited.

There are specific issues to a total system freeze, so, possible DVD Shrink can be a veicle not the direct cause of a system freeze.

So, if we suppose that dvd shrink apply a specific stress on certain channels, as CPU, Hardisk and ram bus... also considering, as you say, that this trouble happens on a Shrink 3 and not on shrink 2.3 (but may be a coincidence, or also, we have to consider that shrink3 is faster, so it stresses cpu and ram operation more ((or just better optimized...))) i would start a check list in this line:

In particular:

1)
Keep costant track of the temperature of your CPU during the shrink process, obviously if the temperature gets too hot, the cpu freezes the entire system...this is also an extremely dangerous situation as long as stressing the cpu temperature will potentially increase the risk of burning the cpu itself, but also there is a possibility to obtain corrupt data moved from the bus memory...it depends on situations.

2) Make an extensive ram test, to seek if there is a defective ram module on your system...you can use several tools for this purpose.

3) Check that the powersupply provides a stable voltage on the motherboard, no chance...you can do only with tester, or replacing the powersupply and check if the freezing problem still exists.
(i have doubts on this point anyway)

4) Make an extensive test on harddisk blocks using apposite tools...in particular, defective IDE cables *are* capable of a system freezes, even if cables are inappropriate for ata133 bus...many people simply ignore that a $2 cable does not suit for transfering 40megabytes/second...

Goodluck !


Jined

[ulfschack]

Well, beta 4 (and consecquently beta 5, presumably) doesn't contain the same bug as beta 3. It does a good job on "the ring". Turns out it wasn't a hardware/disk/burner/app/player problem after all ... big surprise.

cheers