Big3/Scenarist Failure 50%

[BECK38]

I've been at this for over a year, running Big3/New Big3 on over 200+ backups. The failure rate, particularly of Scenarist to reauthor or rebuild, has been around 50%. The reasoning as stated in the logs is different each time, it seems to be specific as to the source, i.e., the particular dvd. Each time a new module gets released (DIF4U, etc.) I give it a try on my ever growing collection of 'things that don't backup', but to no avail.

Is this failure rate really endemic to the process? The success rate seems to be falling with the newer stuff (DIF4U 1.4.7, etc.), it simply seems to get quirkier. This is not on some strange, multi-angle, things, but straightforward single feature movie dvd's. Is there a list kept somewhere of 'known dvd's that don't work'?

I've read through everything here and one several other forums, and nobody seems to be talking about failure rate of the process. But it works often enough to make me think it's not the way, but the process itself.

[Trahald]

Using the most current tools id say 95% of the time i have no problems.. the last 5% that i have a problem with i just fix in scenarist myself. (and i dont consider them failures) Since i know scenarists compiling engine produces dvds that work on every player its worth fixing it myself 5% of the time. Most big3ers prolly consider it part of the territory.

[jel]

hi BECK38 and welcome to the forum!

unfortunately (fortunately? :D) i can not say the same. i have never not been able to make a back-up of any movie i own.

yes there have been errors but thats the nature of the beast (aka scenarist!). i always found the solution, either through the forums or through patience and (hours ) of trial and error.

i have noticed that a number of newer releases do things that 'bend' the dvd specs and cause scenarist to have fits but the authors of these amazing apps have always come to the rescue.... legends that they are.

i am sorry your success rate has not been the same. in future i strongly suggest that you post any problems you have here, so that you can benefit from others experience.

take care

j

[Chubmeister]

I almost put a similar post up a few months back, I'm certainly seeing 25% failures and I do include any that don't make it all the way thru the compile stage in scenarist, no matter how simple the fix is - the reason for this is that they definately didn't use to happen.

However, this is not a rant as most are easily fixed and I suspect its down to the more complex dvds, I'm seeing alot more with angles recently, which is fun.

I am getting alot of failures due to subs, but swappin them to jpgs usually fixes or just doing without that sub. Also failures due to frame differences between audio and video, all of this only mildly irritating. I've had a few strange ones like Troy which has a duplicate pgc of the entire movie which doitf4u didnt sense as a duplicate and processed it (I unchecked it manually and it worked and compiled fine on a second run). Pretty sure it wasnt a different aspect ratio either.

I bet if you went back to using reauthorist then it would throw up even more errors and cannot even attempt some.

So, I agree there are more errors than there used to be but I have been able to sort them all out.

Perhaps others can post any repetative, quirky errors (my contribution would be the subs and audio/video duration errors, adding silence dosent always work) and a decision can made to see if they are acceptable or not.

Cheers ears

Chubs

[BECK38]

One of my big problems, from the first, has been where the guides fail to list the version numbers of any of the software utilized. When I first started out on this (more than a year ago) I found that many of the s/w versions I was trying to use were either old (and didn't work) or new (and didn't work). It took about a month of trial and error, checking each little module against what others had working, to finally achieve some actual working results.

In trying to get things working better, particularly with 'new' big3 I've found myself going through the same process yet again. Why the guides don't list 'known working versions' is beyond me.

Since my problems seem to be related to DIF4U/Scenarist information interchange I've been trying to get 1.4.7 to work, but in talking to folks it seems that it has a high degree of unreliability. (In my case I've been able to get it to work a total of once in over 10 attempts). So I've dropped back to vr. 1.4.0.0, and have zeroed in on Scenarist. I've used Scenarist v2.7.0241 since the beginning, and have v.3.0 but have been unwilling to give it a try, as several installs of previous s/w has resulted in wacking the older, at least partially working, versions. Again, the authors of programs that interface with each other seem unwilling/unable to specify which version they even tested with.

I guess that I'll have to take the plunge, and hope that I won't have to try and crowbar out the 'new' version to get back to where I started.

[Chubmeister]

I don't think that doif4u 1.4.7 causes any problems at all, some of your settings must be wrong, all of the things that come unstuck in my case seem to be the scenaid/scenarist link. Have you tried running things on a fresh install? Could be other factors involved corrupting your system. As for versions, latest of everything and scenaid 2.7.

Sounds like you're not getting the quirky problems I refer to but rather more serious failures, like the software not interracting. Fresh install I say on win XP Pro sp2.

[Trahald]

since most dvds have duplicate pgcs , you would have to build part of the scenario by hand with reauthorist. Hand built scenarios rarely have error problems. to be fair to scenaid you should count all of these occasions as failures. ultimately reauthorist is still available for download and works fine with doitfast4u 1.47 if that will work better for you.

again.. i am almost dissapointed because verrry few of my projects need me to make repairs.. they compile without me having to interfere and i actually enjoy working in scenarist and i rarely have to now.

[D3s7]

Originally posted by BECK38
Again, the authors of programs that interface with each other seem unwilling/unable to specify which version they even tested with.


Well as an author of one of the said programs... I'm interested in all versions....

next time you have an issue, try posting to us the error you get where in the process... with a 50% failure rate I'd think you'd be able to post info from one :)

we attempt to isolate and resolve any/all issues we can however it's you the users that actually find most the bugs and only by reporting specific issues / problems that we can fix them....

Scenarist 2.7 is the most stable verion of scenarist IMO but 3.0 has it's advantages.

If it's versions your looking for
Doitfast4u 1.4.7 (latest version)
AVISynth 2.5 (latest version)
Scenaid 1.0 (latest version)
BatchCCEWS 1.5 (latest version)
Scenarist 2.6,2.7,3.0 all have been used
BatchIFOUpdate (latest ver)

These do occationally have problems yes.. but maybe 1 or 2 out of 100 that aren't a result of me doing something dumb...

[Trahald]

There is one issue i had with a title that has non-seamless angles. Scenarist 2.x cannot handle scripts with non-seamless angles.. it will crash on import (near the end of the import, not when it does the track with the angle). as a test even if you build the scenario yourself in scenarist, export it to a script, and reimport the script scenarist made it will still crash on it so its a problem with 2.x. Works fine with scenarist 3.0. Reauthorist cant do angles so you have to manually do the scenario .. scenaid can but the bug in scenarist will prevent it from importing. so this creates a 'failure' towards new big 3 that isnt its fault.

[BECK38]

Well, I've read everything everyone has said, and have to come to the conclusion that the methodology simply has way (WAY) too many faults. A dead givaway was the comment that I should install all the software on a new ('clean', presumably) XP SP2 machine. (!!!) XP is the worst Microsoft OS since Millenium, by far, but I'll keep my comments to the Big3 and the Doom9 Guides specifically.

In the last two weeks, I've conducted several tests using Big3 nethods on the following, using various new/old s/w:

DVD1 DIF4U 1.3.0 Scenarist2.7 Passed
DIF4U 1.4.0 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.7 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.7 Scenarist3.0 Failed

DVD2 DIF4U 1.3.0 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.0 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.7 Scenarist2.7 Failed

DVD3 DIF4U 1.3.0 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.0 Scenarist2.7 Failed
DIF4U 1.4.7 Scenarist2.7 Failed

DVD4 DIF4U 1.3.0 Scenarist2.7 Passed
DIF4U 1.4.0 Scenarist2.7 Passed
DIF4U 1.4.7 Scenarist2.7 Failed

There are more. As I said at the beginning, the failures occur either at the first phase of Scenarist, or during the build phase. If the upshot is that one has to go into each of these programs and muck around with the scripts and such to get them to work, well, that's a bit beyond my capability. When it works, the results are really superior to any 'single click' program out there. I'm surprised, however, that no s/w developer hasn't come up with something that comes close; time (cpu or otherwise) is not a big deal, 12+ hours spent crunching away with cce is no biggie, one is asleep during most of it, and CPU power is stunningly cheap.

The folks I talk to at length find/have the same problems and low results I have, so I have to come to the conclusion that one has to muck around with things to get it to work. Not An Option. I think everyone associated with this should come up with a 'verifyer' that looks at the structure of the dvd first, and would give a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' as to the probability it can be backed up. That way, instead of spending a week grinding through each possible permutation trying to find one that worked, could be saved.

Sorry to have taken up folks time, but I'm going to put this on the back shelf until I hear things get better (I thought DIF4U 1.4.7 was going to be a breakthrough, proves to be a large step back. Sorry).

[Trahald]

Huh? i use this method every backup with rare issues.. no mucking involved. however i do agree if its not working for YOU then its probably a good idea not using it. Im not having problems. I guess i could be lucky. Anyways, Good Luck

[influenza]

I have been using the big3 method for 'ages' now and I must say that my failure rate is very, very low. I would concur with the 95% and up success rate.

I have some explanations for my success rate though:

1) I was manually backing up all my dvds in the past. This was before there were any automated methods. So therefor I have fairly good knowledge of all steps involved: demuxing, encoding, reauthoring etc. Especially scenarist can be a PITA of course.
2) When doitfast4u was released at first I started using it I think right away. Since that moment I have had very regular contact with the author eyes`only. Because of this I grew with the program know all of this functionality very well and had a chance to be part of it's growing and better functionality.
3) same thing applies for scenaid, numenu4u and batchupdateifo.

Because of point 1 I do not consider small problems as a failure. I'm talking about a misnamed audio/substream, a small compile error. Basically anything that can be fixed within 5 minutes.
I do think that the fact that most people did not go through the manual stage causes a lot of problems. If you can't even author a very simple title by hand (or at least understand what's going on) it's going to be hard to correct errors and this will lower your error tolerance dramatically probably.
I know for sure that all 'big3' mods can author very complex titles (non seamless multiangle/BOV/duplicate pgcs etc) by hand without a single problem. Of course we don't want this and therefor we have these wonderful programs.

There are no titles that can't be reauthored is my experience. Everything I tried could be done. There's only a big BUT: Scenarist. Scenarist is just not capable of doing some things that other authoring systems can. I'm thinking of true seamless branching (Ilvu), some strange audio layouts in which not all pgcs have the same audio bitrates etc. These titles are hard to automate and involve manual work.
Personally the hardest title I ever did was James Bond - die an other day. This title has non seamless angles and I did that by hand because scenaid couldn't do it at the time. I can assure you it was very rewarding when I finally got it to work :)

I'm quite sure we are all willing to help you out and try to improve your success rate. So if you're willing to invest some more time we can see what we can work out. I would suggest using an other thread though for a specific title. Most of us can also be found at the doom9 irc channel of course, which is a more interactive medium.

[D3s7]

BECK: you seem to be focusing on 2 programs, Doitfast4u and Scenarist.... you do realize there are about 4 other applications in between these two... none of your tests list anything but those two apps and to be frank, the one application that probably has the least impact on scenarist is Doitfast4u.

Again, you don't post any of the the failures that you've had...

So, Please refrain from posting how horrible the applications are until you can post some specific issues that we may be able to help diagnose.

We are more then willing to help you fix specific issues however to keep defending our methods/applications against unknown issues is kind of a waste of time...

Next time you feel the need to try the big3 and there is an issue.. stop and post up here the EXACT error and where you are getting.. then we will be able to help you

[JFerguson]

Originally posted by Chubmeister
I've had a few strange ones like Troy which has a duplicate pgc of the entire movie which doitf4u didnt sense as a duplicate and processed it (I unchecked it manually and it worked and compiled fine on a second run). Pretty sure it wasnt a different aspect ratio either.


The deal with Troy is that the second PGC contains a French overlay for the beginning of the movie. This is where the onscreen text is displayed, that brings the viewer up to speed on the Greek history, etc. etc.

It's 1-2 minutes long, in a separate VOBId -- I'm guessing that is why DoitFast4U selects it.