===================================================================== VCDEasy v1.1.0 FAQ ===================================================================== Q: CDRDAO is disabled by default A: VCDEasy checks the status of the ASPI drivers. If it thinks they are not fully installed or too old, VCDEasy disables CDRDAO. You can manually enable CDRDAO in the VCDEasy settings page... but if you then experience crash or error at VCDEasy restart, you will have to upgrade your ASPI drivers. See below. ===================================================================== Q: I keep getting a "No CD Writer Selected" on the CD Writer line. A: No Cd/Cd Burner Devices has been detected, the CDRDAO scan has not been launched or failed, surely because the ASPI drivers (required by CDRDAO) is not installed or does not work properly. You can check if the ASPI drivers is installed with "aspichk.exe" (available at http://www.fireburner.com/downloads.shtml). If you need to install them, use aspi32.exe (http://www.fireburner.com/downloads.shtml) or use ForceASPI 1.7 (http://www.doom9.org/software.htm , decompress it (with PowerArchiver http://www.powerarchiver.com/ for example), run DUMPASPI.BAT to backup your current Aspi layer, then run INSTASPI.BAT and reboot when it tells you to). After that, you may need to re-activate CDRDAO manually in the VCDEasy settings page. So also in this FAQ "Adaptec ASPI 4.7 upgrade" ===================================================================== Q: When I start VCDEasy it fails, giving an unknown error ("illegal operation error "). A: This should not happen anymore since VCDEasy v1.0.4. The failure was due to the ASPI tools (eject/load/lock/...) when windows has only the 'default' ASPI layer. VCDEasy now checks the ASPI drivers and disable the ASPI tools if necessary. ===================================================================== Q: The ASPI tools (eject/load/lock/...) are disabled. A: See "When I start VCDEasy it fails, giving an unknown error". To enable the ASPI tools, you need to make the ASPI drivers update (See "I keep getting a "No CD Writer Selected" on the CD Writer line"). ===================================================================== Q: I can see my Cd writer is the Cd writers list, but my Cd writer is not recognized by CdrDao or I have burning problems A: Your CD Writer may not supported by default by CDRDAO. Check at http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/drives.html. In VCDEasy, you can go to the 'Setting' / 'CDRDAO' page and force a driver "Force Driver" for CDRDAO. generic-mmc or generic-mmc-raw often solve the problem... it may work... it may not work... You may directly contact the CDRDAO team to have more information. ===================================================================== Q: I have seen a problem when you are setting chapters entry points. The 5 minute mark I put was in real (on my DVD player) 3 min 37... A: If you relax APS constraints (if your player supports...) you will not have this entry point change. If you do not relax APS constraints (default), then GNU VCDImager assigns the nearest APS - Access Point Sector (you asked for an entry point at 5 min, VCDImager found in the sequence 3 min 37 as the nearest APS). See the detailed log to see how VCDImager allocates the entry points. The more APS you have in the sequence, the smallest the difference between what you want and what you have will be... when you do not relax APS constraint. ===================================================================== Q: Chapters fail to work in my DVD player. When I press the 'Next' button it skips to the next track rather than the next chapter. If I press 'Previous', it goes to the beginning of the current track rather than the previous one, no matter how many times I press it. A: The player surely does not support chapters when PBC [PlayBack Control] is OFF (the default behavior in this case is to go to the next video sequence when pressing NEXT). Note that this behavior may depends on the fact that it is a VCD or a SVCD. Try with PBC ON... ===================================================================== Q: I have a bad display of the GUI A: Be sure to have "Tahoma" font installed on your machine or the display will not be good. (go to http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/offeurofonts.aspx) ===================================================================== Q: CDRDAO is no more activated by default when I first launch VCDEasy A: I found some Windows configuration where CDRDAO itself crashes (when doing a "cdrdao.exe scanbus", to retrieve the CD devices list). So, I now enable CDRDAO by default only when the ASPI drivers are up to date. But CDRDAO can still be enabled by hand in "Settings/VCDEasy". ===================================================================== Q: When I add an SVCD compliant MPEG file produced by TMPGEnc, I get the following message: "Warning: consider enabling the 'update scan offsets' option, if it is not enabled already!". I don't understand why I get this option, or what will happen if I enable the option mentioned. A: 'update scan offsets' is an option for 'fixing' mpeg2 (for SVCD only) streams, when they have been encoded according to the Chinese MPEG2 specifications... (the case for TMPGEnc) ===================================================================== Q: Chapters and SmartRipper - it would be excellent if instead of just being able to paste the chapter info from the sources you already have, if you could make it open and parse the info from the SmartRipper TXT file, since most of us use SmartRipper to begin with. ChapterXtractor is a nice program, but unnecessary since SmartRipper already gives us this info. A: The problem is that SmartRipper gives the entry points in Frames not in Seconds so if the users change the frame rate (NTSC->PAL for example), there may have confusion... In fact, I would like SmartRipper to output entry points also in seconds... Or I should get the original frame rate and compare to the sequence's one, then change from frame to seconds... See what I already put as tooltip in the "Create a chapter at frame" edit box... ===================================================================== Q: IFO/ChapterXtractor and SmartRipper IFO text file sometime give different chapter entry points A: ChapterXtractor does IFO-parsing only, SmartRipper does VOB-parsing (because the IFO information may be not correct). NB: That is why you can not give SmartRipper an IFO file and have the corresponding text file. SmartRipper generates the IFO text file during VOB ripping. ===================================================================== Q: I have no audio during SVCD playback via my home DVD Player, but the SVCD plays well under Windows A: On some DVD players, during SVCD playback the audio is only audible via the analog audio channel of the player, not the digital channel (fiber optics cable...). By setting the DVD player's analog audio channel selection to PCM mode instead, this overrides the digital audio path, and you should hear the audio ===================================================================== Q: After a successful blank CDRW, when I perform a simulate or a burn, VCDEasy claims that the CDRW is not empty... Why ? A: CDRDAO, with some cd writers, needs to refresh the status of the inserted cdr(w). The refresh is done via Eject/Reload. So after a successful blank CDRW, you may need to eject and reload it before trying to simulate or burn. You may check "Force Execution" in the CDRDAO settings page instead if it works... ===================================================================== Q: Shall I relax or not the APS (Access Point Sector) constraints A: An "Access Point Sector", APS, is an MPEG video sector on the VCD/SVCD which is suitable for chapter entry points. APS have to precede every I-frame by a GOP header which shall be preceded by a sequence header in its turn. In relaxing the APS constraints, every sector containing an I-frame will be regarded as an APS. This will increase the number of possible chapter entry points... but relaxing the APS requirement may lead to non-working entry points! Now you can choose if you want to relax or not the APS constraints... Note that in all cases, you can not force a chapter entry point and being sure that the chapter will be physically at this point. ===================================================================== Q: Shall I let VCDEasy analyze the MPEG files A: When you let VCDEasy analyze the MPEG files, VCDEasy uses the APS (relaxed or not) information at chapters design time. This allows to know at design time what will be the exact entry points. If you do not let VCDEasy analyze the MPEG files, the chapter entry points you will enter will be changed at CD Image generation time (VCDxBuild), so you won't be able to know at chapters design time what will be the exact entry points (even if you relaxed the APS constraints See "Shall I relax or not the APS (Access Point Sector) constraints" ===================================================================== Q: I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but the "Previous" and "Next" dropboxes are gray by default, but can be changed. The "Return" and "Default" dropboxes are not gray. A: The "Previous" and "Next" dropboxes are grayed... but then become white if you change the value. "Gray" means "default value", i.e will be automatically updated if you add later some other chapters, while "White" means "Overwritten"... won't be automatically updated anymore. In fact, it is as the Numeric Keys support but without having to check explicitly "Overwrite this default assignment". I wanted to avoid adding 3 more "Overwrite" checkboxes. NB: "Return" and "Default" have default values that won't be updated, so considered as already overwritten. ===================================================================== Q: After a successful burn, I am unable to see the content of the Cd under windows... A: The "Forced Driver" may be inappropriate for you cd burner, even if you get successful burns. For example, using a "ACER 10x8x32" you may have this issue when using the "Generic-mmc", but it will work fine when using "generic-mmc-raw" ===================================================================== Q1: The VCD disc plays fine in my CD burner, but not in my PC DVD/CD-ROM drive. Q2: From the Windows explorer, I can not copy to the hard disk the VCD files. I get a "Cannot copy CDI_IMAG: Invalid MS-DOS function" error message or explorer crashes A: See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q155120 "Windows NT 4.0 does not fully support the CD-i format". Even under Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP, you can still have problems if your CD-ROM drive is not CD-i compatible. A user has this problem with its PINE DVD-ROM drive. If CD-i support is useless for you, remove it! See: http://mujty.aexx.net/vcdeasy/ ===================================================================== Q: When I do Simulation then Burn, I have "Simulation finished successfully", then burn fail at the beginning with "ERROR: Cannot load/unload medium." A: Something avoid the eject between Simulation and Burn (maybe an application like DirectCD, PacketCd or InCd).Do not do both Simulation AND burn at the same time. ===================================================================== Q: I have "Write data failed", "Writing failed - buffer under run?" A: Some users reported that this problem may occur when the default detailed CUE file is used, and seems to be solved when the "CUE For Fireburner" file is used. ===================================================================== Q: Authoring and Burning succeeded but I have jurky audio/video, desynchronized audio, noise... on my DVD Player A: It may come from the MPEG encoding or the DVD player not fully compliant with the VCD/SVCD specifications... But it may also come from a too high burning speed (so, decrease the burning speed), or a CdrDao "forced" driver which seems to work but is in fact inadequate for your Cd Writer (so, try another forced driver). ===================================================================== Q: Since I did the Adaptec ASPI 4.7 upgrade, CDRDAO fails to write or VCDEasy crashes... sometimes only when I have some USB devices plugged... A: Well... I do not know... You may go back to ASPI 4.6 using ForceASPI if CDRDAO worked before... You may contact the CDRDAO team... You may use Fireburner or CdrWin to burn the VCDEasy generated BIN/CUE files... ===================================================================== Q: VCDEasy refuses to function with network files \\SERVER\PATH\FILE A: This limitation comes from CygWin, the UNIX emulator used by some command line tools... CygWin currently still does not support network files, VCDEasy can without problems...