If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
some DVDs "hiccup"
One more DVD problem: Recently, I bought a bunch of brand-new DVDs of a TV
series and have been playing them on my laptop (a 2008 Dell running WinXP, using VLC Media Player) to make sure they're OK. Most of them are, but a few have been hiccuping--that is, both the audio and the video stop for a moment and then continue on. Sometimes, if I remove the DVD from the drive and put it back in, I can play through the formerly bad spot--but not always. One DVD in particular has been hiccuping a lot. Is this likely to be a problem with the DVD itself or with my computer's hardware or software? I have no other device on which to test the DVDs. Thank you! Jo-Anne |
Ads |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
some DVDs "hiccup"
Jo-Anne wrote:
One more DVD problem: Recently, I bought a bunch of brand-new DVDs of a TV series and have been playing them on my laptop (a 2008 Dell running WinXP, using VLC Media Player) to make sure they're OK. Most of them are, but a few have been hiccuping--that is, both the audio and the video stop for a moment and then continue on. Sometimes, if I remove the DVD from the drive and put it back in, I can play through the formerly bad spot--but not always. One DVD in particular has been hiccuping a lot. Is this likely to be a problem with the DVD itself or with my computer's hardware or software? I have no other device on which to test the DVDs. Thank you! Jo-Anne Have you ever tried this program ? It has a couple tests you can try. ftp://ftp6.nero.com/tools/DiscSpeed.zip I use an earlier version of that program. This is a quality check of my Kaspersky AV disc, which only has 200MB of data on the disc. The scan as a result, only occupies a portion of the disc surface. This scan is pretty good, as the error rate is in the 10's rather than the 1000's. http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4200/scanresult.gif Drives (and test software), vary in what error parameters they can measure and report. Some people keep specific models of burners around, for their known measurement capabilities. You'll notice my drive is only measuring C1 in that example. I'm just happy it measures *something*. I used to have a Liteon, and it had a few more options. To measure a disc, you want a "raw" error measurement. The thing is, even when you see thousands of errors in the scan, the Reed Solomon error code corrects all of them. Eventually, the drive has trouble tracking the groove on the disc, and that leads to the drive becoming virtually unresponsive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Solomon "The result is a CIRC that can completely correct error bursts up to 4000 bits, or about 2.5 mm on the disc surface. This code is so strong that most CD playback errors are almost certainly caused by tracking errors that cause the laser to jump track, not by uncorrectable error bursts." They use a powerful error correcting code, to compensate for the abuse the discs are subjected to. ******* If you don't want to try that, you can also attempt to copy the large files held in the video_ts folder, over to your hard drive, then try and play the content from there. At least, that works for the home made DVDs I have here (I used DVD authoring software to convert captured content from my WinTV capture card, into discs). A file copied off there, can be played from the hard drive. If you're copying the entire contents of a dual layer commercial disc, the player may takes its sweet time doing the transfer. Without tricks, it'll run at 1x read rate (as far as I know, this is called "rip-lock" and is hated). If I switch over to booting up Linux, and copy the same disc from there, it copies at the max media rate (which doesn't happen to be much faster, but does shave at least an hour off the transfer time). Good luck, Paul |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
some DVDs "hiccup"
"Paul" wrote in message
... Jo-Anne wrote: One more DVD problem: Recently, I bought a bunch of brand-new DVDs of a TV series and have been playing them on my laptop (a 2008 Dell running WinXP, using VLC Media Player) to make sure they're OK. Most of them are, but a few have been hiccuping--that is, both the audio and the video stop for a moment and then continue on. Sometimes, if I remove the DVD from the drive and put it back in, I can play through the formerly bad spot--but not always. One DVD in particular has been hiccuping a lot. Is this likely to be a problem with the DVD itself or with my computer's hardware or software? I have no other device on which to test the DVDs. Thank you! Jo-Anne Have you ever tried this program ? It has a couple tests you can try. ftp://ftp6.nero.com/tools/DiscSpeed.zip I use an earlier version of that program. This is a quality check of my Kaspersky AV disc, which only has 200MB of data on the disc. The scan as a result, only occupies a portion of the disc surface. This scan is pretty good, as the error rate is in the 10's rather than the 1000's. http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4200/scanresult.gif Drives (and test software), vary in what error parameters they can measure and report. Some people keep specific models of burners around, for their known measurement capabilities. You'll notice my drive is only measuring C1 in that example. I'm just happy it measures *something*. I used to have a Liteon, and it had a few more options. To measure a disc, you want a "raw" error measurement. The thing is, even when you see thousands of errors in the scan, the Reed Solomon error code corrects all of them. Eventually, the drive has trouble tracking the groove on the disc, and that leads to the drive becoming virtually unresponsive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Solomon "The result is a CIRC that can completely correct error bursts up to 4000 bits, or about 2.5 mm on the disc surface. This code is so strong that most CD playback errors are almost certainly caused by tracking errors that cause the laser to jump track, not by uncorrectable error bursts." They use a powerful error correcting code, to compensate for the abuse the discs are subjected to. ******* If you don't want to try that, you can also attempt to copy the large files held in the video_ts folder, over to your hard drive, then try and play the content from there. At least, that works for the home made DVDs I have here (I used DVD authoring software to convert captured content from my WinTV capture card, into discs). A file copied off there, can be played from the hard drive. If you're copying the entire contents of a dual layer commercial disc, the player may takes its sweet time doing the transfer. Without tricks, it'll run at 1x read rate (as far as I know, this is called "rip-lock" and is hated). If I switch over to booting up Linux, and copy the same disc from there, it copies at the max media rate (which doesn't happen to be much faster, but does shave at least an hour off the transfer time). Good luck, Paul Thank you for all the info, Paul! I'm overwhelmed--and not sure where to start. If I can copy one DVD to my hard drive, I'll try that first. Jo-Anne |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
some DVDs "hiccup"
Jo-Anne wrote:
Thank you for all the info, Paul! I'm overwhelmed--and not sure where to start. If I can copy one DVD to my hard drive, I'll try that first. Jo-Anne Even if you remember that program for some future time, it can help you tell the difference between "good" blank media and "bad" blank media. When I get a spindle of media, for the first burn, I have a look at the scan, to see how well it was burned. If you see a high error rate, that is warning you that the burned discs might not last very long. Commercial media should be pressed, rather than burned. And they have some tricks for some of the media, to make it harder for the media to play in computers. The media itself might be perfectly good (low error rate), but due to the design of the disc, the *interpretation* of what is written on there, causes it to play poorly or not at all on a computer. So if you want yet another test to try, pop your new (recalcitrant) movie into a standalone DVD player, and see if it plays smoothly there. If it is smooth there, and jumpy or refuses to play in the computer, then you'd get out Google and Google the movie title or other info on the disc. Lots has been written about some of the titles that have their share of dirty tricks, and a Google search will help warn you what to expect. Lots of movie titles, don't have tricks. But some are famed, as "poster children", for their particular flavor of trick. I'm sure anyone who collects movies, keeps that trash in a separate section of their library rack. Paul |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
some DVDs "hiccup"
"Paul" wrote in message
... Jo-Anne wrote: Thank you for all the info, Paul! I'm overwhelmed--and not sure where to start. If I can copy one DVD to my hard drive, I'll try that first. Jo-Anne Even if you remember that program for some future time, it can help you tell the difference between "good" blank media and "bad" blank media. When I get a spindle of media, for the first burn, I have a look at the scan, to see how well it was burned. If you see a high error rate, that is warning you that the burned discs might not last very long. Commercial media should be pressed, rather than burned. And they have some tricks for some of the media, to make it harder for the media to play in computers. The media itself might be perfectly good (low error rate), but due to the design of the disc, the *interpretation* of what is written on there, causes it to play poorly or not at all on a computer. So if you want yet another test to try, pop your new (recalcitrant) movie into a standalone DVD player, and see if it plays smoothly there. If it is smooth there, and jumpy or refuses to play in the computer, then you'd get out Google and Google the movie title or other info on the disc. Lots has been written about some of the titles that have their share of dirty tricks, and a Google search will help warn you what to expect. Lots of movie titles, don't have tricks. But some are famed, as "poster children", for their particular flavor of trick. I'm sure anyone who collects movies, keeps that trash in a separate section of their library rack. Paul Thank you again, Paul! I've saved your posts on my hard drive for future reference. I decided this time to return the DVD set to the seller. Discs 1 and 3 played fine; only disc 2 skipped--and it did it a lot. (I did Google the title but didn't find anything about errors.) I don't have a standalone DVD player or a TV, so my computer is my only way to play DVDs right now. Jo-Anne |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|