MPEG2 Fast Forward Issue, Fast Forward Behaves Strangely Options

[hurricane51]

I've installed F/W 1.03.01 and notice a problem on the MPEG2 files extracted from VOB files on a DVD.

Everything seems to work ok except for fast forward. When you press the FF button, it works fine at all speeds, but when you stop it does not stop at the desired location -- it backs up. Sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a minute, sometimes a few minutes, sometimes all the way back to where you started, and sometimes even further.

I've tried this on about 20 different MPEG2s and all of them behave in this fashion.

[KevinC]

I'm still with 1.02.07 and seeing the same thing. Wonder if it has something to do with DVD chapters?

[hurricane51]

I'm still with 1.02.07 and seeing the same thing. Wonder if it has something to do with DVD chapters?

I don't know. If I copy the entire VIDEO_TS folder, then FF works fine, although chapter markers are ignored in both cases. If I'm watching either a full DVD or the MPEG2 file, "Next" restarts the video.

If getting a high quality AVI didn't take so long rendering, I would bite the bullet and start converting. I'm hoping this is something that can be fixed in firmware.

Or I can just bite the bullet and get another hard drive. But having just one MPG file to manage instead of 20-60 VTS files in 2 additional sub-folders is so much easier

[flexscan676]

... I got a similar experience, but not only for VOB files, basically any format.
Stopping the fast FF or re-winding does not stop at the point when you push the remote.
Kind of like the Economy class entertainment system in some airplanes.
Always a few seconds off, no matter where you push STOP or PLAY.
I guess it's a result of the slow response of the main unit to remote commands.

[WDUser]

Yep, I think it's due to the slow as molasses response to the remote. What's with that anyway? Never seen any other electronic item behave this way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

BTW, I have a few more gripes with the FF/RW functions:

1) The biggest one is that they don't work when the video is paused. I just love that my DVD player goes into a frame-by-frame advance/rewind mode if I use the FF/RW button when paused.

2) They're not too accurate. For example, quickly clicking Play, then RW and finally Pause actually makes the video go forward, then rewinds a bit. This, coupled with the slow response always means that I for one end up after the point that I wanted to rewind to, and then need to rewind some more.

Frankly, none of these issues sound like they cannot be fixed with a firmware update (except maybe for the slow remote, which may be a weird hardware limitation. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) ).

[hurricane51]

I've found a partial fix, and it was from a program I bought a few years ago called CloneDVD.

CloneDVD enables you to select the entire DVD to copy, only the main movie, or you can even go through and select individual chapters. It's very fast, as it doesn't do any re-rendering of the MPEG2 files. CloneDVD fixes the following:

- Eliminates all the "extra" content from the DVD, saving much space.

- Fixes those troublesome DVDs that won't play on WDTV -- they get stuck in the preliminary warning screens, etc.

- Fixes the fast forward problem. Stops where you want it to.

- If you extract the MPEG2 files from the VOBs that have been copied using CloneDVD (like TV episodes), they seem to fast forward correctly, although I've only tried a couple.

Negatives:

- Doesn't solve the chapter problem. I suspect you would have to re-author the DVD to do that.

- Expensive. At $70, CloneDVD costs almost as much as the HDTV box.

P.S. I don't work for Clone DVD, but I thought I'd mention it. It looks like a solution for my problems.

[WDUser]

I prefer AnyDVD HD over CloneDVD, but anyway... As for the price, you can buy a 1-yr. subscription (the minimum) instead of a lifetime one, that'll only work out to ~$48. You might also like to try MakeMKV, which is free as of now (and the DVD decryption part will remain free but only the BR decryption will be a paid feature later).

[hurricane51]

I prefer AnyDVD HD over CloneDVD, but anyway... As for the price, you can buy a 1-yr. subscription (the minimum) instead of a lifetime one, that'll only work out to ~$48. You might also like to try MakeMKV, which is free as of now (and the DVD decryption part will remain free but only the BR decryption will be a paid feature later).

Well, AnyDVD is a decrypter only, right? I use it as well. But CloneDVD does a lot more, making copies of only the parts the DVD you want? It saves space as well fixing some anomalies that show up with just a straight copy.

[WDUser]

Well, AnyDVD is a decrypter only, right? I use it as well. But CloneDVD does a lot more, making copies of only the parts the DVD you want? It saves space as well fixing some anomalies that show up with just a straight copy.

I might be wrong, but you do need AnyDVD running in the background before you can use CloneDVD with commercial DVDs, right? Also, I use the fantastic (and free!) DVD Shrink to do what the $ware CloneDVD does, i.e. allowing you to make a custom DVD from an existing one, delete/modify audio/video/subtitle tracks, resize DL DVDs to SL etc.

[hurricane51]

I might be wrong, but you do need AnyDVD running in the background before you can use CloneDVD with commercial DVDs, right? Also, I use the fantastic (and free!) DVD Shrink to do what the $ware CloneDVD does, i.e. allowing you to make a custom DVD from an existing one, delete/modify audio/video/subtitle tracks, resize DL DVDs to SL etc.

Yes, you need a separate decrypter. I used to use DVD43, but when I helped a friend set up his x64 system it trned out that AnyDVD was the only decrypter I could find that worked under x64 Windows.

I'll have to try DVD Shrink. It sounds like it does exactly what CloneDVD does. Like I asid, I bought CloneDVD a number of years ago before I got used to earching for better software (at lower cost) on the web.

At the risk of offending the thread gods, have you found any problems in playing some DVDs from their folder structure on your hard drive compared to playing them from DVD media? I have abut 10% of the DVDs I've copied to my hard drive display the wrong aspect ratio. Actually, it's just a smaller image, letterboxed on ALL sides. I haven't found a fix yet, other than converting from the source MPEG2, and that's a road I'm not willing to take just yet.

[hurricane51]

I might be wrong, but you do need AnyDVD running in the background before you can use CloneDVD with commercial DVDs, right? Also, I use the fantastic (and free!) DVD Shrink to do what the $ware CloneDVD does, i.e. allowing you to make a custom DVD from an existing one, delete/modify audio/video/subtitle tracks, resize DL DVDs to SL etc.

I downloaded DVD Shrink, but came away with the impression that no matter what you do (short of a full copy of the DVD), it will re-render (re-compress) the source MPEG files. That is what I wish to avoid.

I use two utilities with MPEG2 files: CloneDVD and VideoReDo. (sometimes VegasPro but that's another subject entirely).

While I can use VideoReDo to do some minor editing of VOB (and other MPEG2) files, it sometimes has trouble with the source VOBs when they are merely copied from the DVDs to the hard drive using Windows copy. Sometimes it's due to that fact the the DVD producer may shift from progressive output in the menus and logos to interlaced to to the main movie, etc. VideoRedDo outputs a clean MPEG2 file with no re-rendering outside of the fact that it can't handle multichannel audio, so everything comes out in stereo. It also can only handle one audio (language) track and one subtitle track. But that's my tool of choice. Until, of course, WD TV HD came along with its disdain for FF and Reverse on MPEG2 standalone files.

I found that if I use CloneDVD first to copy the files from the DVD to the hard drive, then use those files as the input to VideoReDo, there were no problems, and I still maintained the original quality, i.e. there was no re-rendering involve except for the cuts at the beginning and end of the file, should I wish to do so. However, if I wish to change the structure of the DVD itself (beyond copying the raw files or discarding the "extra Titles" like "Special Features"), CloneDVD will also re-render the output, so I avoid using it for this.

(Man, this is hard to describe in writing).

Anyway, back to DVD Shrink. What it seems to do is allow you to choose only the pieces of the DVD you want, then re-authors the source VOBs into a "new" complete DVD folder/file structure. Along with re-rendering of the files, which by its very nature affects quality.

After all is said and done, I'm still looking for a solution that will correct the image problem in those pesky DVDs that don't like to be played from the hard drive, no matter which media player I use (VLC, WMP, WDTV, etc.). And not change the encoding, since it is obviously a disply problem as the movie plays properly when reading from DVD media.

[WDUser]

At the risk of offending the thread gods, have you found any problems in playing some DVDs from their folder structure on your hard drive compared to playing them from DVD media? I have abut 10% of the DVDs I've copied to my hard drive display the wrong aspect ratio. Actually, it's just a smaller image, letterboxed on ALL sides. I haven't found a fix yet, other than converting from the source MPEG2, and that's a road I'm not willing to take just yet.

Nope, I've never came across any such issue so far. I generally never rip DVDs to my HDD as VOBs. Instead I always use AnyDVD to create an ISO and then load that in a virtual DVD drive. That means my system sees the ISO as being no different from the original DVD in the drive, and so I see no difference at all in the video/audio.

I downloaded DVD Shrink, but came away with the impression that no matter what you do (short of a full copy of the DVD), it will re-render (re-compress) the source MPEG files. That is what I wish to avoid.

However, if I wish to change the structure of the DVD itself (beyond copying the raw files or discarding the "extra Titles" like "Special Features"), CloneDVD will also re-render the output, so I avoid using it for this.

I'm confused. So aren't you saying that DVD Shrink and CloneDVD both behave the same way when it comes to re-authoring a DVD's contents? If that's so, then frankly I'd prefer the free and equally effective DVD Shrink any day over paying $70 for CloneDVD! AFAIK though, DVD Shrink will not re-encode if all you want to do is re-author the DVD (remove subtitles/menus etc.) from DVD9 to DVD9 or DVD5 to DVD5. If you want to go from DVD9 to DVD5 however, it obviously will re-encode. There's also a Compression Level setting that you can set to "None" is you so please. See here for more.

As far as making an ISO image of a DVD goes, AnyDVD is the best when it comes to handling all the latest copy protection schemes out there. Now an ISO image is virtually a bit-perfect copy of the DVD (without the copy-protection, of course). So if the WD TV has problems playing the ISO whereas it plays back fine on the PC or if written back to a DVD-R, then IMO the problem lies not with the ripping program etc., but with the WD TV's firmware itself.

Finally, re. your process of using AnyDVD+CloneDVD to first copy the VOBs to your HDD (without any re-authoring), and then feeding those VOBs to VideoReDo to output 'clean' MPEG2 files, what I can't understand is, why are you using CloneDVD at all? Why not simply use AnyDVD itself to copy the VOBs to your HDD? If you're not re-authoring, what does CloneDVD add to the mix re. ripping VOBs that AnyDVD cannot do by itself?

[hurricane51]

Well, the ISO solution won't work for me because WDTV won't read mounted drives -- it just reads the single drive that is connected to its USB port(s).

And the CloneDVD vs. AnyDVD/DVD Shrink issues are that I had CloneDVD already and was familiar with it. I don't see any advantage to using either of these products in its place.

I agree that something is wrong with the firmware; I was just trying to find a workaround. Hopefully this will get addressed in the next firmware release, although it's not something I can count on.

[WDUser]

Well, the ISO solution won't work for me because WDTV won't read mounted drives -- it just reads the single drive that is connected to its USB port(s).

Which reminds me... Has anyone successfully used an external USB DVD drive with the WD TV and got a DVD to play successfully? Is it possible with the official firmware or any custom firmware? Is it even possible at all?

Hopefully this will get addressed in the next firmware release, although it's not something I can count on.

Sad but true. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[hurricane51]

In case anyone's still following this thread, I found an easy workaround to the FF and FR issue. I simply take the MPEG file and drop it into an MKV container using MKVmergeGUI. No re-encoding. It's fast (typically around 2-3 minutes for an entire DVD) and the FF and FR work perfectly.

[WDUser]

- If you extract the MPEG2 files from the VOBs that have been copied using CloneDVD (like TV episodes), they seem to fast forward correctly, although I've only tried a couple.

What happened to this fix?

As for MKV, yeah, that seems to be by far the best supported format on these players. But instead of ripping VOBs from a DVD, extracting the MPEGs and then muxing using mkvmerge GUI into an MKV container, why not simply run MakeMKV on a DVD and do it all in one single easy step?

P.S. I might have mentioned this somewhere above as well, but no time now to re-read the entire thread. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hurricane51]

I'd never tried MakeMKV until today, and that certainly looks like the easiest way when starting from scratch with a DVD. Unfortunately I've already copied/converted all of my DVDs as VOBs and MPEG2s. At this point I have done the prep work so it's a breeze to add them to a job queue in MKVmergeGUI and run them all late at night.

As for the "fix" I mentioned it seems it was not a fix at all. I must have gotten lucky, because it only worked with about 10 of my DVDs.