Max Burn Speed set in Options isnt carried to Burn page

[DougInAZ]

I've noticed that the MAXIMUM BURN SPEED as set in the OPTIONS menu doesn't get carried into the DVD burn page. When I launch the DVD burner to burn a folder, the DVD SPEED on the burner page is always set to maximun, even though I set it to 4x max in the OPTIONS/DVD menu.

I've seen this for quite a while. It is not limited to V566. I don't know if I've ever seen it work as I expect it to on either my Vista or XP machine.
Doug

[Dan203]

The max burn speed is only used when automatically burning a DVD from the DVD creation dialog. If you're launching the DVD burner manually then we assume you're available to make the decision manually.

Dan

[bkh]

But Dan, the issue is what should be the initial value on the burn page. It seems reasonable that the initial value in the burn screen should be whatever is set in the options, rather than ignoring that value and initializing to MAX for each burn.
Another reasonable initial value would be whatever value was used for the most recent burn. The goal here is to initialize to the value the user will most likely want, so the user doesn't have to manually change the value for _every_ _single_ _burn_.

[Dan203]

OK I see your logic, I'll look into it and see what I can do about it. (it's not as simple to fix as it may seem)

Dan

[HoosierDaddy]

This reminded me of my earlier thread on this issue. I don't recall who at VRD answered but they said they would post the switches for the program so we could at least set up shortcuts to launch the burner with the options we wanted. That hasn't happened yet.

[Dan203]

Here is a quick run down for you...

/s:<source> - Source path of input folder or ISO image

/o:<ISO> - Output path of ISO (assumes ISO output)

/n:<Volume> - Volume name for ISO output

/b - Starts burn automatically

/b:<max speed switch> - Values 1=2.4x, 2=4x, 3=6x, 4=8x, 5=12x, 6=16x, 7=20x, 0=same as /b

/v - Verify disk

/d - Erase input upon completion (only works if verify is also set)

/e - Auto erase RW disk

/m - Minimize to tray during burn

/x - Automatically close when done

Some of them only work when combines with others. For example the /b switch will only work if the source folder/ISO is set and is valid. And /d will only work if /v is also set and the verify is successful. /n only applies when outputting to an ISO. etc...

Dan

[Dan203]

OK I've made this change and it should be in the next beta release

Dan

[bitbinder]

I am having the same issue, I think. I have a DVD burner that will burn at 8x; however, I need to burn at 4x. I have set the speed to 4x in VideoReDo TVSuite Options, but when I launch the burner from VideoReDo, I still only see "maximum". I thought maybe this was using 4x under the covers, but it is not. When I burned, it was at 8x. From what I read in the appends above, I rather got the impression that this should be using lower speeds.

I also tried launching DVD burner directly. Here all I see is "maximum". I assume the fixes have somthing to do with the setting.

I tried the DVD burner CLI with the /b:2 option with /s:. This also burned at maximum 8x speed. I thought the CLI version would honor the slower setting. Unless of course the parameters are positionally dependent, i.e., /s: must precede /b:. I have /b:2 first.

I am at VideoReDo TVSuite 3.1.5.564.

What exactly is going to be fixed, and how soon will it be available?

I would really like to have the option to set the speed in the DVD Burner GUI panel so I can see what the speed is.

Thanks

[wscannell]

See the first post in this forum. It appears that the issue is fixed in the current beta (.567).

[bitbinder]

I just installed Beta 572 yesterday. I opened DVDBurner.exe and I saw the 4x speed set. Hooray! And I burned a DVD at this slower speed. All was great. Today I went to burn another DVD. The 4x option did not show. All I saw was a blank. If I clicked on the down arrow, my choices were blank and maximum.
I uninstalled VideoReDoTVSuite and reinstalled Beta 572. Same results. I left it at blank and burned a DVD. It burned at max speed even though the options were set at 4x.
It makes no sense that it would work once then lose the option.

[Dan203]

Can you send us the log?

Dan

[bitbinder]

It has been a while, but I have not been able to get a 4x burn again. I don't think this problem was really fixed.

[bitbinder]

My apologies for my previous hasty comment, and for not responding much sooner.

I have attached a log. This log shows activity from today (6/29/09) only. There is at least one instance of trying to burn to a write-only DVD. It burned at maximum speed (8x) when I only wanted 4x. This was all done from the GUI.

You will also notice the last two burns were an experiment done with the command line options. I tried
c:\VideoReDoTvSuite\DVDBurner.exe /s:F:\iso\chuck_6-10.dvd.iso /b:1 /e
and
c:\VideoReDoTvSuite\DVDBurner.exe /s:F:\iso\chuck_6-10.dvd.iso /b:2 /e
with a read-write DVD in the burner. In both cases the burner window came up and started processing immediately. Both times took exactly 15 minutes 04 seconds. The lower burn rate of 1.4 was not honored.

Thanks

[Dan203]

Do me a favor unzip this file to your VideoReDo install directory, then run your tests again and send me the log. It's a build of the burner with some extra logging added so I can see exactly what is going on.

Based on the current log I can see that the burner is not adding any of the standard speeds to the list when you use DVD+R media but I can't see why. This will help with that.

Dan

[bitbinder]

I unzipped the new .exe. I had to get from the web two MSDN 80D DLLs as well (mfc80d.dll and msvcr80d.dll). I mention this because of the strange test results.

The log should show five burn attempts. The first two are via my .bat file to a rewritable DVD. The window came up nd looked OK, but the burn did not start like it did before. Even if I clicked the Burn button, nothing happened. I cancelled out of these.

The next two are attempts via the GUI with a write-once DVD in the burner. The GUI comes up. As soon as I select my .iso file, the window closes.

The last attempt is the .bat file again with the write-once DVD in the burner. Same results as for the rewritable DVD.

I put the original .exe back and reran the burn from the GUI. This time file selection work and the burn started.

Not sure what you expected to happen, but I expected a real burn attempt.

Thanks
Ron

[Dan203]

Yeah sorry about that, my machine is not the one we typically use for release builds so that's why you were having trouble. But in any case that log contained enough info for me to see what's going on. However the results are strange.

The burner determines which speeds are supported by your drive in two steps. First we use a special call which determines the maximum speed of the drive with the current media. That is where the "Maximum" setting comes from. Second we loop through a list of common burn speeds and attempt to set the drive to each one. We then check the speed your drive reports that it is set to and if it's +/- 100KBps then we accept it, if not we reject it.

Now here is the weird part. Your drive reports the same value for every attempt no matter what. For the DVD+RW media it always reports 5540 (i.e. 4X) which also happens to be the max. However for DVD+R it always reports 8864, which is like 6.4X, even though the max returned by the first call is 22160 (i.e. 16X).

I'm not sure why it's doing that. On my test machines it reports the maximum speed for all attempts above the max, the proper speed for all support speeds, and the minimum speed for all attempts that are too low. Which is how it's suppose to work.

Have you checked your drive manufacturers website to see if they offer a firmware upgrade for your drive? Perhaps there is a bug in the firmware that is causing this oddity.

One thing I will do on my end is change the loop so that instead of checking all the speeds in the list I will make it start at the one closest to the max reported by the drive in the first step. My thinking is that maybe your drive is getting confused by the attempt to set the speed so high and that's what's causing it to lock on that one speed.

Dan

[bitbinder]

Both of my drives are Lite-On DH-20A4H. I checked the Lite-On web site and did find a firmware upgrade (to QP5B, not that you care). I upgraded the firmware in both drives from QP5A to QP5B. I rebooted, as recommended, and reran the tests with the 630 module. I ran three tests: 1) with +R disk in drive E:, 2) with +R disk in drive D:, 3) with +R/W in drive D:. I am attaching this log, but the results look pretty much like the 07-02-2009 tests.

I am also including the DH-20A4H spec sheet .pdf file in the .zip file. This says that the max speed for DVD writing should be 20, but then there are other conditions that rather escape me. Perhaps these specs will help you better understand this particular drive and how to handle it.

Finally, there is no special Windows 2000 driver for these drives. They use the standard Windows drivers. They show up in Device Manager as "ATAPI DVD A DH20A4H. They use drivers cdrom.sys, redbook.sys, and storprop.dll.

Thanks

[Dan203]

Have you ever tried the SPTD protocol instead? (default is SPTI)

If not what you need to do is install this driver... (reboot after install)

http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads

Then open VideoReDo, hold the Shift key and click Tools->Options. This will bring up a hidden list of options. Near the bottom is one called Burner Protocol. Set it to 1 and hit OK. Now try the test again and post the log.

Dan

[bitbinder]

I followed your instructions and installed the SPTD driver, and rebooted. I used the 630 version of DVDBurner.exe and reran two tests with my .bat file. The first was with a +R/W disk in drive D:; the second was with a +R disk in drive D:. Except for the use of SPTD protocol, the log looks remarkably like the previous ones.

Thanks
Ron

[Dan203]

You're right, they do.

Try this build. I just want to see if the change I made where it only tries speeds below the max, rather then the whole list, makes any difference.

Dan

[bitbinder]

I reran my tests. The log is attached. There is a lot of other activity in this log since I was processing other movie files. There are three burn tests with the 707 exe at the end of the log.

First burn: with bat file to +R/W disk with /b:2.
Second burn: with bat file to +R disk with /b:2.
Third burn: with bat file to +R/W disk with /b:1.

There does not appear to be any change.

I am still using SPTD. I don't know if you intended me to go back to SPTI.

Thanks
Ron

[Dan203]

There is something really weird with your drive...

2009-07-09 23:28:01 DVDBurner - CBurnLib::GetSpeedList adding max speed: 22160
2009-07-09 23:28:01 DVDBurner - CBurnLib::GetSpeedList attempting to add: 22160
2009-07-09 23:28:01 DVDBurner - CBurnLib::GetSpeedList add failed! Set speed: 22160 - Get speed: 8864

It reports that it's capable of supporting 22160 but when I attempt to actually set it to that speed it locks to 8864.

I'm going to have to report this to the developer of our burning library and see what they say. I'll have to get back to you on this.

Dan

[bitbinder]

It has been almost three weeks since the last post. Any update on this problem?

Thanks
Ron

[Dan203]

I'm still working with the developer on this.

In the mean time do me a favor and email us at support @ videoredo.com. I have one more thing you can try that I don't want to post in public.

Dan