Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[lamaros]

Seem to have worked it out, finalllly. *crosses fingers)

[Mosesandstick]

Anybody got advice on ripping dvds and transferring them to single media files? I've got a martial arts DVD I want to split up for my own purposes and I haven't managed to get anything done. I've tried using dvd decrypter and handbrake, but all I end up is a mess with no video and the wrong audio channel (Jap instead of English).

[Trippy]

Not sure why Handbrake isn't generating any video but for the audio you need to pick the correct stream if you want to get English rather than Japanese. I don't remember how to do that in Handbrake but DVD Decrypter can do it you are in IFO mode and fiddle with the Stream Processing selections to write out a VOB with the Japanese audio track (and other non-English tracks) removed. Also if you care about quality and/or don't care about file size you can use DVD Decrypter in IFO mode to write a single file VOB which pretty much any MPEG-2 player can read. Note that if you keep it as a VOB you don't need to strip out any of the audio streams as you can just select between them in your MPEG-2 video player assuming it has that capability.

[Mosesandstick]

Thanks Trippy, think I got it working. The makers of the DVD messed things up and despite having two sound channels have duplicates of some scenes with both channels being either English or Japanese!

Edit: Next question. When I watch the converted mkv/vob/dvd on Vlc I get compression artifacts (at places with rapid movement). I don't get any when watching the DVD with WMP. Any advice?

[Trippy]

Increase the video bitrate and/or do a two-pass VBR encoding. Or just write out a single VOB file in DVD Decrypter as that doesn't do any transcoding.

[Sky]

These days I buy most of my computer components from Amazon (US) cause I don't have to pay sales taxes like I do with Newegg and 2 day shipping is free for me (Amazon Prime).

I'm in exactly the reverse situation.

[Strazos]

Was doing some disk space management when I noticed three things taking up lots of space that I don't like -

1) DA:O. Bought it on Steam and installed to my large partition. Unfortunately, the program sees fit to still toss stuff in my user folders on my system partition. As I still want to hang on to the install for now, I'll let it be...
2) An "Installer" folder, which seems to hold a ton of files for downloaded system patch executables. The folders all have completely garbage names, such as "{B6CF2967-C81E-40C0-9815-C05774FEF120}", and I'm wondering if I can nuke this folder. At about 800mb, I'd like to.
3) Under "Software Distribution" there's some downloaded stuff, specifically a 880mb cab file called windows6.1-kb976932-x64. What is this, and do I need it?

[Chimpy]

#3 is Win 7 SP1 .

You can remove those windows patch installers if you want, but you might not be able to properly rollback updates.

[Mosesandstick]

Not exactly a tech question, but now that my 360 has RROD I need to send it back to msoft for servicing. My 360 only RROD after a system update and I don't want to pay for something Msoft might have screwed up. Anybody have any feedback with getting their 360s repaired (its out of warranty)?

[SnakeCharmer]

Fairly certain that when you go to the xbox website and file a claim for the RROD they'll let you know the cost.  Anything under 100 bucks and I would jump all over it.

[Strazos]

#3 is Win 7 SP1 .

You can remove those windows patch installers if you want, but you might not be able to properly rollback updates.

Welp, I guess it's a good thing all my updates work, and I see no reason for a rollback any time soon.

[Yegolev]

I have a new video camera which does not use tape.  This is fantastic, really, but new to me and my tired brain.  Without using the software that came with it, I'm copying off some .mts files which seem to be "AVCHD Video" according to Win7.  Supposing I purchase some BluRay authoring software, am I going to need some intermediate conversion software or is this standard enough that I might expect to hit the ground running?

You shouldn't need to convert it as AVCHD is the standard format used on Blu-ray right now so any relatively recent Blu-ray authoring program should support it directly (ancient ones might only support MPEG-2).

I'm back to this.  I sort of gave up on completing the rebuild of my computer but since I have lots of .mts videos on a hard disk here, I wanted to burn this to BD anyway.  Turns out the software that comes with my camera does not recognize a simple pile of files.  It is geared toward pulling the data directly from the camera and burning directly or storing it into some mysterious dir structure, so it's useless to me.  Does anyone have any suggestions on a software to use to edit/burn .mts to BD?

[Trippy]

I have a new video camera which does not use tape.  This is fantastic, really, but new to me and my tired brain.  Without using the software that came with it, I'm copying off some .mts files which seem to be "AVCHD Video" according to Win7.  Supposing I purchase some BluRay authoring software, am I going to need some intermediate conversion software or is this standard enough that I might expect to hit the ground running?

You shouldn't need to convert it as AVCHD is the standard format used on Blu-ray right now so any relatively recent Blu-ray authoring program should support it directly (ancient ones might only support MPEG-2).

I'm back to this.  I sort of gave up on completing the rebuild of my computer but since I have lots of .mts videos on a hard disk here, I wanted to burn this to BD anyway.  Turns out the software that comes with my camera does not recognize a simple pile of files.  It is geared toward pulling the data directly from the camera and burning directly or storing it into some mysterious dir structure, so it's useless to me.  Does anyone have any suggestions on a software to use to edit/burn .mts to BD?

If your "mysterious dir" structure is actually the Blu-ray folder structure (BDMV, CERTIFICATE) with all the metadata files plus the video files you might able to use something like ImgBurn, which is donateware, to burn the disc. It's made by the same guy who did DVD Decrypter:

http://www.imgburn.com/

I don't know if there are any good free tools for Blu-ray mastering starting from just the raw video files. If you don't mind a commercial product you could try the Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD trial:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope

[Yegolev]

I'm not yet so destitute that I won't pay for a good tool.

Anyway, when I manually copied the files from the camera, I just put them into a dir, and I didn't copy off any metadata.  There wasn't much and I assumed it was not necessary for editing/burning the vids, so I'm interested in a tool which doesn't need the metadata.  Otherwise I suppose I'm boned, but that seems nuts.

[ghost]

Okay, this is bizarre.  My Windows 7 computer is showing that there is "limited connectivity" with the little caution icon in the task bar yet the internet works just fine.  Any thoughts?

[Trippy]

It may be from some other network adapter you aren't using but have enabled (e.g. second Ethernet port, Wi-Fi, Firewire connection, etc.).

[ghost]

Is it something you think I need to fuck with, or just ignore?

[Engels]

Run the network diagnostics and see if it provides further info.

Control Panel>Network & Sharing Center>Change Adapter Settings>Right-Click on adapter, select Diagnose

[ghost]

No dice. 

[Sky]

I generally disable all network adapters I'm not using, have you tried that? Properties for the adapter you're using showing anything?

[Chimpy]

Is it a computer that moves around a lot between network connections?

Deleting multiple networks usually helps just about any networking issue with those types of computers.

[Strazos]

Hmm, so I bought some DVDs, but they're Region 2 discs. My Xbox, predictably, wouldn't play them. However, my PC also wouldn't play them without changing my drive to Region 2 (still had 4 changes left), and I'd rather not do that unless absolutely necessary.

Are there any easy workarounds to this? I purchased these completely legitimately, so I have no compunction with circumventing the moronic region locking system.

[Trippy]

Hmm, so I bought some DVDs, but they're Region 2 discs. My Xbox, predictably, wouldn't play them. However, my PC also wouldn't play them without changing my drive to Region 2 (still had 4 changes left), and I'd rather not do that unless absolutely necessary.

Are there any easy workarounds to this? I purchased these completely legitimately, so I have no compunction with circumventing the moronic region locking system.

A few options:

* Install DVD43 and see if that will patch out the region code on-the-fly

* Rip the DVD with DVD Decrypter with it set to strip out RCEs and then burn that image to a disc so your Xbox can play them

* Flash your DVD-ROM drive with region-free firmware assuming you can find such a thing for your drive

[Strazos]

I should have been clear-er...I don't need to Xbox to actually play the discs at this point - I can either watch on the PC or enable the desktop to stretch onto the TV.

[Trippy]

Doesn't change my reply.

DVD43 is the easiest option if it works. Writing an ISO image or burning a new disc with RCE removed is the next easiest. Writing new DVD-ROM firmware is the last resort.

[ghost]

Is it a computer that moves around a lot between network connections?

Deleting multiple networks usually helps just about any networking issue with those types of computers.

It's a desktop computer that stays put and only has one network.  It just started doing it recently. 

[Engels]

Sometimes viruses change your proxy settings. Could you have recovered from a virus attack recently, but this element remains unchanged?

Go here:

Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections > Lan Settings. It should all be blank. If Automatically Detect Settings is checked, this may be ok too, but to test the problem uncheck it and see if that clears the problem. If so, the proxy settings in registry may have been hijacked.

[ghost]

Interesting.  I'll check that when I get home tonight.  Thanks.

I don't know where I would have gotten a virus.  I don't use that computer for anything but watching porn.   

[Soln]

Ok I have to ask for help.

A number of weeks ago a very small, personal MYSQL instance of mine went boom and I've been in the process off/on of trying to recover without a backup.  I don't know why the backups (dump) did not work, suffice to say all I have is the ibdata1 and ib_log0 files (and maybe other stuff, but no export dump).

I have another host running to monkey with and I'm fresh out of options.  I'm up to stopping MYSQL, dropping in the 2 files, changing their ownership to root and then re-start to see what happens.

Does anyone have any advice?  Thanks.

[Trippy]

What do the log files say when you try to start up the server?

[Soln]

server will no restart :(  I am going to try again tonight and change permissions to root.  Are there logs created even on attempting to start and it hangs?

[Trippy]

What OS (don't say Windows)?

[Soln]

Sorry Sir -- Ubuntu (10.04)

[Trippy]

Look in /var/log. On mysql startup it normally writes to syslog. If there's an error on startup it should show up in there. There may also be log files starting with mysql, there might even be a /var/log/mysql directory depending on your setup.

[Soln]

got mysql running again with the files copied over, but while I know ibdata1 has the original data (since I checked a copy with an editor), the db isn't showing up.  I wonder, is there some --force  table create syntax I can try?