MTR/DTOX Problem specific disk- a general work around

[MerlinMacuser]

Last winter, some lady friends at work asked me to record a certain premium cable show for them on my VCR. So I went one better and put the episodes on Tivo then sent them to my computer and burned dvds with menus and cool animated backgrounds. This whole series consisted of a pilot and 13 episodes. Somehow Tivo missed getting 3 key episodes right in the middle of the series.

When the show was released on DVD I rented the one with the episodes I'd missed and used MTR2 and DTOX to make a back up to fill in the blanks. When I tried to play it on my dvd player, it froze on my screen at the FBI warning page. Same thing on my computer! Argh! I tried to run MTR again on the back up disk but got a big red error message that it was unable to locate the (xxxx) file. (Sorry, I should have taken better notes.)

Anyway, I found that by using DVD-DV I could extract a QT movie for each of the relevant episodes then import them directly but separately into iDVD. I put in some background goodies using the Montage theme, edited the chapter names on the menu and burned perfectly acceptable copies for the library except now I had two disks to cover the 4 episodes that had been covered in the one disk I rented. No problem though since the pattern had been 2 episodes per disk on my work from Tivo.

By the way, the music I selected for the background menu was from the Apple Store..."Man, I Feel like a Woman" gives a clever clue to the name of the show. (I'm so witty sometimes I can hardly stand myself.)

I only wanted to report the work around in this forum but if anyone needs more details about the road block, please send me a PM.

[WiseWeasel]

Did you use the UOPs disabling function in MTR? I find that very risky as it sometimes messes up menu playback as you describe. I never use that function anymore as I've experienced similar problems. Always be sure to play the VIDEO_TS folder from your hard drive after ripping if you use the UOPs disabling function, so you can rip again without it if there are playback problems in the menu navigation. If you didn't use that function, then I have no idea what may have caused it. You did use FULL DISC mode, right?

[MerlinMacuser]

Yes, I did have UOPs disabling checked. Yes, I did a full disk extracton. What application would you recommend for testing the Video_TS folder? When I start VLC I get an error message saying core audio failed to set proper buffer so I hear no sound.

I will try not disabling UOPs. and see what happens.

[MerlinMacuser]

Oops, silly me. Why don't I try DVD Player? Duh!

Sorry for the brain cramp.

But still not hearing any soundtrack on my computer.

[WiseWeasel]

On G5s, VLC will crash coreaudio if you try to play surround sound with its default settings. You need to go to the VLC preferences, check the 'advanced options', go to modules/audio output/coreaudio, and change the 'Audio Device' paramater from -1 to 1. Then, quit VLC, restart, and it should play normally. Each time VLC crashes coreaudio, you will get no more sound until you restart your computer. Sometimes, if you launch VLC by double-clicking on a document tied to it (like on a .avi or .vob if you made VLC the default handler for those files), it will reset its 'audio device' setting back to -1, and crash coreaudio if you're trying to play a movie with surround sound. Anyways, DVD Player shouldn't have that problem. As for MTR, I'd recommend never using the 'Disable UOPs' function. I warn that it's dangerous in the user manual, and there's a warning dialog that warns of its danger by default. It works sometimes, but more often doesn't, and at times makes the menus refuse to play normally.

[MerlinMacuser]

Thanks. I was wondering why I had to keep resetting the sound output panel in systems preferences.