Recent Posts

5526

General Software Discussion / Re: I need a frame by frame dvd video player software.

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2008, 05:17 AM »

4wd I did not know about licencing problems that Vd was having. Thanks for letting me know, that should save my couple hours easily

-kartal (July 05, 2008, 03:23 AM)

It wasn't actually licensing problems, the original developer just made the decision not to implement to avoid any problems.

At this point I'm not sure if it's been implemented lately or not - the release notes imply it has MPEG-2/4 support since about version 1.6+ but my version 1.71 won't import a VOB complaining that it's possibly MPEG-2.

Guess I'll download the latest and see what happens.

Regarding AVIDemux, try toggling: Preferences->Input->Use libavcodec MPEG-2 decoder

BTW, I'm using AVIDemux 2.4.1 (r3791).

EDIT: VirtualDub still doesn't accept a VOB as input as at 1.8.1.

5527

General Software Discussion / Re: I need a frame by frame dvd video player software.

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2008, 03:04 AM »

Yes it is asking me to index but fails to index. I had used Avidemux successfully in the past. I will try to investigate little more, probably something is weird with the .vob I am using.

-kartal (July 05, 2008, 02:37 AM)

The only time I've had it fail to index is when the VOBs are on a DVD, you need to rip the DVD to the hard drive first removing any protection in the process.

Otherwise, try opening just a straight MPEG file, (example.mpg), off of the hard drive and see if it works.

AFAIK, VirtualDub can't handle MPEG2, (due to licensing IIRC), that's why VirtualDubMod and NanDub were created - both rather long in the tooth now.

5528

General Software Discussion / Re: I need a frame by frame dvd video player software.

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2008, 02:26 AM »

For some reason avidemux cannot open the vob files(other players can play no problem). That means that I need to convert vob to avis then try avidemux. I will also try virtualdub.

-kartal (July 04, 2008, 11:53 PM)

Strange, AVIDemux opens VOBs fine here and offers to append them together if they're in the same titleset, (VTS).

Does it open "Index MPEG files" dialog, (you have to answer "Yes" - it creates an idx file so the VOBs need to be on writable media)?

5529

General Software Discussion / Re: I need a frame by frame dvd video player software.

« Last post by 4wd on July 04, 2008, 08:44 PM »

What does "scrub back and forth" mean?

-housetier (July 04, 2008, 02:59 AM)

The ability to move back and forth, (at speeds ranging from frame by frame to many times normal play rate), through a video, usually by just dragging a slider backwards and forwards.

Most players only go forward frame by frame, you usually need a video editing program to do this rather than a simple player - hence why I suggested AVIDemux.

5530

General Software Discussion / Re: I need a frame by frame dvd video player software.

« Last post by 4wd on July 04, 2008, 02:40 AM »

AVIDemux

Not a player as such but able to read, edit and playback DVD, (and more).

For any MPEG source it just needs to be able to index it first, (which means the source needs to be on a writable drive), and then you can step by frame, key frame, black frame or just scroll back and forth using the slider.

Off to the right of the slider is a control wheel that allow you to step backwards/forwards at whatever rate you like, (from 1 frame every few seconds to a few times normal play rate), just click and pull it backwards or forwards.

As a bonus it's free, standalone and SMP aware.

5531

General Software Discussion / Re: Computing annoyances and what to do about it

« Last post by 4wd on June 30, 2008, 07:54 PM »

* On my windows xp system my USB mouse stops being recognised once every few weeks. You'd expect there shouldn't be any problems with supported hardware after 30 years of using a mouse?

-justice (June 30, 2008, 07:43 AM)

I usually find it's because of a mechanical fault not software.  e.g. I have USB cables that don't work in some USB ports but work fine in others purely because the contacts are slightly too short to make proper contact or the socket can't apply enough tension to the contacts.

5532

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP and programs do not save settings on exit

« Last post by 4wd on June 25, 2008, 07:39 PM »

I've got a PC problem for a while, don't know the cause but these are the symtoms.

1. In Windows Explorer, I set my default view to details, but it always reverts back to Large Icons upon reboot. The problem started after I installed Autopatcher and particularly TweakXP UI.

-icekin (June 25, 2008, 07:29 AM)

Try Kelly's Korner, search for 'Save'.

Now, I have installed XP Smoker, but I do not use the setting that auto-closes services and programs after a few seconds of inactivity. I believe its called low-level hook timeout, program timeout and service timeout. Hence, my programs have all the time they need to save their settings before exiting.

A silly question but why do you need or even think you need all these tweaking programs?

The only time I looked at AutoPatcher, it was so ambiguous about what it was doing that I removed it 10 minutes later.  eg. It didn't make it clear what the current state of the machine was before doing anything.
I know it's only supposed to update XP with all the latest hotfixes but that's not how it presented itself.
I've long since decided not to update XP beyond a service pack release unless I specifically have a problem that is fixed by a hotfix.  I've had more problems after installing hotfixes than by not installing them.  Microsoft seem to put far less testing into a hotfix than a service pack.
My machine is at SP3 and there it will stay until the next SP is released, (which means, most likely it'll be at SP3 until I change OS).

TweakXP didn't do anything I couldn't do myself after searching the net for the limited number of options I wanted.

XP Smoker didn't do anything AFAICT.

Nowadays I apply any tweaks at install using nlite or after install using registry entries, batch files, etc, (after I make sure I know damn well what they're doing..........or at least think I do  ).

If you're interested in tweaking then a couple of sites I'd recommend are:
Black Viper for all things service related;
Bold Fortune for slimming down XP without using any other programs.

5533

General Software Discussion / Re: Poll: Did you install Windows or was it pre-installed?

« Last post by 4wd on June 25, 2008, 07:04 PM »

I've always installed Windows myself on my machines - the only exception being a laptop that came with a bog-standard XP Home OEM install.  That lasted about half a day before it became an nlite'ned XP installation.

On every machine since that, I've installed Windows myself, and I've used nLite ever since I found it to enjoy the tweaks it can do (before that I did manual unattended setup, but nLites hotfix integration is just too nice not to use it).

-f0dder (June 25, 2008, 06:20 PM)

Me too 

Plus the fact I can get rid of all those necessities that Microsoft thinks are absolutely essential to your well being.

5534

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by 4wd on June 25, 2008, 12:54 AM »

I haven't been able to find a decent burner since my Plextor PX-716A crapped out. First I went with some Pioneer drive, which wasn't especially fantastic. Then I bought a Lite-On LH-20A1S, which is better.

-f0dder (June 24, 2008, 07:59 AM)

Yes, after the experience with the Pioneer, (which does do great burns but is so damn slow at deciding it really IS a blank disc and blocking all PC operation while doing so), I'll be going back to Optiarc since third-party firmware support is so much better.

Tayo-Yuden, ho humm. First problem is finding the discs, second problem is finding discs that aren't fake - apparently there's a big market for faking TY discs because of their popularity.

-f0dder (June 24, 2008, 07:59 AM)

Yes, unfortunately that is a big problem.

The ID of mine is TY03 and they burn reliably and consistently at 18x, (the maximum speed of the burner). 

They also read back with a consistent increase in read speed until the end of the disc, something that normally doesn't happen with a cheap disc written at high speed.

So I'll go out on a limb and say I'm pretty sure I got the genuine article

Of course, I'll really be certain 12 months from now if I can still read them

5535

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by 4wd on June 24, 2008, 07:29 AM »

Let's see how I do it here with ImgBurn:

1) Open ImgBurn in Build mode - my default anyway.
2) Drag VIDEO_TS folder onto window.
3) Click burn to go to a DVD or type an ISO name in and hit the button.

-4wd (June 23, 2008, 08:01 PM)

I haven't used it in a while for video - are you saying it now automatically chooses the correct ISO9660+UDF format automatically - because all the tutorials I could find on how to burn DVDs say you have to set that manually?

-Carol Haynes

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

If you have dirs/subdirs/files as follows:

A\B\C\VIDEO_TS\(*.IFO, *.BUP & *.VOB)

You can drop just the files (IFO, BUP & VOB), the VIDEO_TS directory or the C directory onto the ImgBurn window and it will correctly identify a set of DVD files and select the correct filesystem, (ISO9660+UDF 1.02), open the layer break window if required and default the DVD volume name to "C" if it's getting burnt to disc, (rather than an ISO).

Of course, this may vary depending on what options you've got selected - so I've attached mine for ImgBurn 2.4.1.0.  It may provide somewhere to start tweaking them for yourself.

Added to the fact that ImgBurn is fully portable, (just put ImgBurn.exe and ImgBurn.ini in a folder anywhere), and IMHO it's the best "pure" burning program out there.

5536

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by 4wd on June 23, 2008, 09:03 PM »

In what way doesn't ImgBurn produce non-compliant discs?

-4wd (June 23, 2008, 08:01 PM)

Having said that I do thing that "build mode" is pretty cumbersome compared to Nero's approach. In Nero to build a DVD-Video you just create a new DVD-Project, drag the VIDEO_TS folder to the disc and click burn. In ImgBurn you have to use build mode to add the folder, calculate to make sure there is enough space on the disc, set the filing system correctly manually, set the layer break manually if your are using dual layer (and just how are you supposed to select from the list of optional split points they offer?) ...

-Carol Haynes (June 23, 2008, 08:47 PM)

Let's see how I do it here with ImgBurn:

1) Open ImgBurn in Build mode - my default anyway.
2) Drag VIDEO_TS folder onto window.
3) Click burn to go to a DVD or type an ISO name in and hit the button.

ImgBurn picks up the disc name from the folder VIDEO_TS was under, (if it was).
The files don't need to be in a VIDEO_TS folder, ImgBurn will correctly identify that it's a DVD structure and create the correct structure for the disc including filesystem.
ImgBurn will offer alternative layer break points if it's a DL disc.

Just tried it to be sure - yep, it's as easy as that for me.

This is my understanding regarding layer break point.  ImgBurn highlights the best choice closest to 50% of the size of the complete disc.  This is to try and ensure that minimum data is written to the outer edge where, generally, the most reading problems occur.
But it offers you the option to override this.

By the way I do use discs recommended by Pioneer for the drives I am using - Verbatim 8 x DVD+R DL - which are quite expensive. I tried cheaper ones and had mixed results (but still consistently better in Nero). I can burn those Verbatim discs at 8x in Nero without problem - when I tried ImgBurn I generally had to burn at 4x or less and still got coasters.

I also have a Pioneer drive, (215 SATA - and personally won't be buying any Pioneer and possibly SATA optical drives again), and an Optiarc AD7170.  I stopped using any kind of Verbatim discs because I started getting crap burns even at lower than rated speed.  These days I only use Taiyo Yuden - pretty much acknowledged to be one of the best, if not the best, around, (and at only AU$50/100 for SL, why wouldn't I ).

5537

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by 4wd on June 23, 2008, 08:49 PM »

Humm, ImgBurn works well with VIDEO_TS for me, at least movies burnt that way play on my standalone Philips player. I dropped using Nero when I realized that it consistently made bad burns. Not coasters, no, a lot more devious: it made burns that gave horrible read speeds, but other than  that worked just fine. No idea how they pulled off that trick.

-f0dder

You hit the nail on the head f0dder, I was trying to remember how Nero was crap when I used to use it and you've just reminded me.

5538

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by 4wd on June 23, 2008, 08:01 PM »

Strange thing is I keep coming back to BurningROM. I get far fewer coasters with it and I can do most things more quickly - especially if you want to build DVDs. ImgBurn doesn't really support building disc contents in a nice way (in fact it is pretty awful and doesn't produce compliant DVD video discs from a VIDEO_TS folder) and AShampoo's offering is not much better.

-Carol Haynes

In what way does ImgBurn produce non-compliant discs?

I've used it for writing Video DVDs ever since it could and never had a problem with a player not playing one.  The ones that were a problem were all due to the disc I was using, (ie. low quality).

Even when I do have an ISO file I find I get fewer bad burns with Nero than I do with ImgBurn - especially with Dual Layer DVDs (which are expensive to waste). I don't know why - never been able to figure it out.

My experience was exactly the opposite, I had more crap burns with Nero than with freeware tools - such that I haven't used Nero for anything since early version 5.5.

Personally I would like to see the back of Nero on my system - I hate the massive downloads for updates, and the annoying installation/uninstallation/reboot nonsense - but it does work and does pretty much everything you need in a burning app.

You could try NTI's offering, my laptop came with it and I found it to be actually very good compared Nero.  Or not, I've just seen their software is now 188MB+ - still it is smaller than Nero.  The original NTI CD & DVD Maker was very good at what it did and was only about 30MB, (which is still ridiculously big I think).

I just don't understand the Nero mentality - why take THE most popular burning app and turn it into a ridiculously over the top bloatfest? They must realise that they are alienating lots of long term users. Presumably the profits from the mindless people who buy the upgrade simply because it came with their computer and think "OOOO Look at all this nice video/picture stufff " (which they will never ever remeber they have got after running it once). Presumably they felt they had to compete with ROXIO - but does anyone even use ROXIO any more - I haven't heard of them in years.

Luckily I buy OEM optical drives, cheaper and don't come with the Nero bloatware

Presumably Nero will start losing out as users become more savvy - let's hope they have the sense to sort things out before they end up down the flusher .... the mind boggles.

Hopefully they'll die a quick death and then they'll figure out where they went wrong - it's the only way it happens these days, the company goes bust AND THEN some bright spark says, "I wish we'd done it that way."


EDIT: DOH!  Double negative......

5539

General Software Discussion / Re: How to convert a bootable CD into a bootable Flash USB

« Last post by 4wd on June 22, 2008, 07:57 AM »

Now, the next question is : is there any equivalent with Vista instead of XP SP2 : for instance, using chkdsk from XP on a Vista system may cause problems ?

-MerleOne

Have a look at WinBuilder - it can be used to build PE environments including a really small VistaPE, (40MB).

VistaPE 010 is probably the WinBuilder project you want to use and customise it from there.

BTW, AFAIK Vista still uses the same NTFS as XP - WinFS got canned before Vista was released - so the normal chkdsk and any standard HD tools should be OK.

5540

General Software Discussion / Re: How to convert a bootable CD into a bootable Flash USB

« Last post by 4wd on June 21, 2008, 09:50 PM »

Thanks all for these directions.  In the mean time, I also found an interesting but not free software, Flashboot (http://www.prime-expert.com/).

-MerleOne

I've tried FlashBoot, it basically makes your USB drive bootable, (which can be done by free tools, eg. HP USB drive tool), then create an image of the CD and copies it to the flash drive with a small bootloader that when booted copies the entire image into RAM and boots it.

The entire process can be done with freeware tools, I've done it to create a 2.5" USB HD drive that could boot different OS's, eg. BartPE, VistaPE, Acronis Rescue CD, etc, using GRUB4DOS.

The easiest way would be:

1) Make the flash drive bootable using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
2) Create an ISO of your BartPE or UBCD4Win using ImgBurn or some tool, just make sure it's a standard bootable ISO.
3) Then use GRUB4DOS to load the image into RAM and boot it when you boot off of the flash drive.

This is a section of the menu I used for Acronis Rescue CD which shows how I load and then boot the ISO:

[Select]

[size=12pt]title Acronis True Image Home v11
map --mem --read-only (hd0,0)/Acronis.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)
boot[/size]

The main problem with this approach is that the target machine always has to have enough RAM to load the image into - this is why I prefer to use a USB 2.5" HD with BartPE installed plus you get heaps more storage.

I ended up dumping this method as a lot of machines USB2.0 ports aren't USB2.0 until an OS and driver are loaded, (including mine  ),  which made loading an ISO image off of the drive and then booting it vvvveeeeeerrrrrrryyyyyy sssssllllllooooowwwww, (ie. 1.1MB/s).

Alternatively, instead of steps 2 and 3 above, once you have made the USB flash drive bootable you should be able to use PEINST to install BartPE onto it.  PEINST is part of PEBuilder.

Regarding the type of bootable CD I'd like to convert, they are of all kinds : WinPE, BartPE, DOS, but generally not Linux.

I also just tried yesterday UBCD4win, which solves the problem I had with BartPE CD on a SATA notebook, now it would be great to "USBize" it.

All you need to do is add the driver for the SATA interface on your notebook to your BartPE but I'm surprised that the SATA interface on the notebook isn't capable of using the generic driver in a BartPE.

Try Reatogo to create your BartPE.  It has a builtin driver detector that can add the drivers off of the machine you build your BartPE on.

5541

General Software Discussion / Re: How to convert a bootable CD into a bootable Flash USB

« Last post by 4wd on June 21, 2008, 02:58 AM »

It would help if you mentioned what type of bootable CD.  eg. Linux, WinPE/BartPE, Windows install CD, DOS, etc, etc

For BartPE but may work for other Windows based CDs: PEtoUSB

Google is your friend.

5542

General Software Discussion / Re: monitoring internet usage

« Last post by 4wd on June 18, 2008, 12:01 AM »

You may want to try Bandwidth Daemon.

You can define filters to specify what traffic to monitor, it looks like you can do it based on IP so you could set monitoring rules for your most used websites to see how much traffic they're dumping to you.

As a bonus, the trial period is 30 days - just enough time to find out where your bandwidth is going

Also, you may want to check out 3proxy, files are hosted on Sourceforge if being a Russian site discourages you.

It can do logging of data received from destination IPs outputting to a format defined by you, (check it's documentation on Sourceforge), including Squid compatible, so you can use log analysers.  Or output to a CSV and load it into a spreadsheet to work out.

It should be a simple matter of installing it and then setting your browser to use the local proxy, (at least that's what I remember when I used a local proxy).

Of the two methods above, the local proxy would probably be the most useful at determining where your data has gone.

PS. You're not a YouTube junkie are you ? 

5543

General Software Discussion / Re: Best duplicate finder in email client?

« Last post by 4wd on June 17, 2008, 01:07 AM »

For Thunderbird, (I actually use Portable Thunderbird), the addon Remove Duplicate Messages.

-4wd (June 16, 2008, 08:54 PM)

I recall using this in TB, but seems like I had a reason that provoked me to abandon it?  Can't remember right now.

-CodeTRUCKER

I've used it for over a year now, it's only used occasionally when I want to compact the databases but I've never had a problem with it.

I don't have it set to 'Auto Delete' so I get to see what it's going to do before I let it.

5544

General Software Discussion / Re: Best duplicate finder in email client?

« Last post by 4wd on June 16, 2008, 08:54 PM »

For Thunderbird, (I actually use Portable Thunderbird), the addon Remove Duplicate Messages.

You can compare on various things, (see attached), and choose by default which it will delete - although it displays a list afterwards to allow you to manually (de)select emails.

5545

General Software Discussion / Re: CleanAfterMe - a new Nirsoft tool

« Last post by 4wd on June 15, 2008, 07:03 AM »

Also, CleanAfterMe remove MUI Cache entries and ccleaner doesn't.

-PhilB66

Actually it can but not by default.

Go to CCleaner Forum and download the winapp2.ini archive file, extract it to your CCleaner directory and it will add a whole lot of new things to clean, (providing they're installed), to CCleaner, including MUICache.

5546

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted: Compare contents of two RAR archives as if they were directories

« Last post by 4wd on June 12, 2008, 07:42 AM »

Sorry I missed 4wd`s post.

-kartal

You are forgiven my son

Actually, this wouldn't be all that hard to do using AutoIt, eg:

1) Extract archives to two temp directories using UniExtract.
2) Compare and report the contents using any diff program, (BeyondCompare, WinDiff, etc).

The updating of one archive based on the result is a little more interesting but should be possible providing the comparison program can output a plain text difference list, then just pass it to the appropriate archiver to update the chosen archive.

Simple!

Let me know when you've got it done

EDIT: A little poking around on SourceForge reveals CompareArchives.  Will do ZIP, EAR, WAR and JAR.  It's written in Java so it's platform independent and if you're able you could modify to do other types.  Output is in the form of a HTML report, (hardcoded to use IEXPLORE.EXE on Windows).

Another EDIT: Thinking about it, the AutoIt, (or similar), way of doing it is probably the only way you're really going to get something like this done w.r.t RAR archives.  Other programs are able to do ZIP, (and others), because they are open-spec algorithms - RAR isn't.  You're always have to have WinRAR installed if you want to do more than just see the results, whereas other programs can actually update archives.

5547

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted: Compare contents of two RAR archives as if they were directories

« Last post by 4wd on June 10, 2008, 09:10 PM »

I just thought of something. It would be cool to have a way to mount RAR and other archives to a drive like you can with ISOs. Then you could do all kinds of stuff like comparing, etc.

-tinjaw (June 10, 2008, 08:47 PM)

Not free: WinMount

Actually, these days to mount ISOs I rarely use virtual drives - unless some software specifically requires that it needs access a "drive" or because of copy protection.

Check out Pismo File Mount Audit Package - free and allows you to mount ZIPs, ISOs, Compact ISO, Compact File Set and Private Folder files as virtual folders.

Right-click an ISO, choose Quick Mount then double-click on the ISO file - you're in.  No virtual drives required.

They also have a Pismo File Mount Developer Kit to add support for other filetypes ... RAR anyone?

5548

General Software Discussion / Re: Media Player Linux Distro Available?

« Last post by 4wd on June 10, 2008, 08:51 PM »

Limp OS

5549

General Software Discussion / Re: Comparison of Windows file copy replacement software

« Last post by 4wd on June 10, 2008, 07:37 PM »

There's also ExQueues Shell Queue which can be integrated into Windows Explorer and DOpus.

Also, for those interested in integrating TeraCopy with DOpus here's some info.

EDIT: Actually, ExQueues isn't quite the same as it allows queuing of almost any operation - oh well, almost got it right 

5550

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted: Compare contents of two RAR archives as if they were directories

« Last post by 4wd on June 10, 2008, 07:18 PM »

Rather old, shareware and probably unable to handle newer RAR format: ArcDiff - which has a very lenient attitude towards trial period.

Or there's UltraCompare.

Mind you, if DOpus had an ARexx port I could whip you up something in about an hour   (Actually if Windows had any decent inter-process communications language, this would be a breeze.)