Mysterious VOB Bleeding?

[yonidass]

I recently backup up some of my DVDs using Mactheripper, DVD2OneX and Toast 6. I just discovered that on at least 2 of the DVDs, a tiny clip from one movie on my HD (3-5 seconds) made it's way into another movie I burned. In both cases this happened just once during the movie.

My first hunch is that this might be a directory problem with my hard drive. I copied quite a few DVDs to a new external Hitachi 250G. Most of the DVDs were in the same directory from where they were deleted before new one's were added. Otherwise my new drive has been flawless.

Anybody have any clues as to why this might have happened?

[TugBoat]

My first hunch is that this might be a directory problem with my hard drive.....Anybody have any clues as to why this might have happened?

I'd say go with your first hunch. I had exactly the same thing happen. Only the clip in question had come from an ALREADY DELETED movie and MTR and DVD2oneX wasn't involved. I also suspected disk errors. I booted to my Jaguar partition which is the only one with Norton installed. Disk Utility and DiskWarrior found nothing. Disk Doctor said,
"Check Disk Information: A major error was found in the Allocation File.
The contents of the file do not agree with the locations of all files as shown in the Catalog. (8,1) The problem was fixed."
I had to run the Doctor three times to see a clean report. It hasn't happened since. Now I ALWAYS watch the entire DVD before allowing someone else to view it

[terryj]

You mean, you guys don't wipe your HDs
( Disc Utility--> Erase Disc) after doing
several DVDs, to avoid fragmentation?

Maan, we learned this waaaaay back in
Computing 101! Disc Fragmentation, especially
to discs that get written to all the time,
happens VERY frequently, and can cause
things like what you guys experience.

I have a target partition for all DVD2ONEX
remastered VIDEO_TS folders, and a seperate
partition for incoming rips.
When I'm done ( usually five is the limit either way,
coming in or going out) I then launch Disc Utility
and WIPE the partitions clean.
Keeps fragementation VERY low on my system.

[londor]

In OSX you do not need to defragment the HD unless your disc is almost full and you create or modify large files.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25668

[terryj]

From the article you just quoted:

If your disks are almost full, and you often modify or create large files (such as editing video, but see the Tip below if you use iMovie and Mac OS X Panther), there's a chance they could be fragmented. In this case, you might benefit from defragmentation, which might be performed with third-party disk utilities

pretty much sums it up right there.

to further expand:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@233.9bZ0a0Plv9I.0@.6898d5b8/1

http://www.kenstone.net/cgi/discussions/general.cgi?read=37692

http://askal.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=askal&-lay=main&-sortfield=Date&-sortorder=desce...&-Skip=0&-find

http://www.macintouch.com/mosxreader10.2pt38.html
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@126.wAlOaGntwlk.1@.689adbe3

http://www.macintouch.com/fragmentation.html

The general consensus is, large video projects take up
space, and the constant writing to the drive of large
chunks of data can cause fragmentation.
( As one who can attest to ripping four or five dvds
at a time, I would smartly agree.)

Either running DiskWarrior 3 and cleaning/replacing
the directory, or at very least wiping the partition
for the video dump in/out, will cure any "lingering
clips" or "weird bleeds" like those being mentioned here.

Also, Keep your OSX boot system files and the video
you dump onto your HD, either via FW Capture or
via ripped DVD, onto seperate partitions, to avoid
fragmentation and (eventual) corruption of the
boot HD to the point of having to stop
and run Disc Utility, seems to be a recurring theme.

or maybe i'm just odd man out since I do the above steps,
and I seem to be cruising along without encountering
these types of problems...?

[londor]

Fragmentation can only happen if your disc is almost full which is more likely to happen in you have a small HD or if you partition it. I never partition my drives and I just make sure that I will have about 10-15 GB to spare after whatever video importing, editing or DVD back-up I am doing and to erase things I use the "Secure empty trash" command and I have never come across a problem. Anyway just stick to whatever works best for you.

[TugBoat]

Ya know,
If I thought that disk fragmentation was causing the OS to lose track of the allocated blocks..... I'd be firing off a bug report to Apple daily. But I don't, so I'm not.

A more realistic cause would be having Apps that 'Unexpectedly Quit' while writing data to the drive. Another would be a system hang while an App is writing to a disk. Much more realistic.

I'm going to go out on a limb and place the blame of my DISK ERROR on TMPGEnc and it's inability to consistently encode 'legal' MPGs. At the time I found my problem, I was trying everything under the sun to Fix MPGs that absolutely nothing liked. QT itself, not to mention about half a dozen others, must have crashed a few dozen times while writing data to the disk. I also managed to encounter the SBOD a few times.

And yes, erasing a disk will create a new directory thus eliminating a present directory error. This in no way implies that fragmentation causes disk errors. Sometimes it's easier to run a utility than to transfer 100 GBs to another disk so you can erase the problem disk.

In my case, the main OS is on an external FW disk, an internal slave drive holds two other systems and two more partitions, and another two internals comprise a striped RAID 0 disk that is the work disk. The problem was on the RAID disk. I'm fairly certain the error wasn't caused by fragmentation. And it only happened once.... after the previously described write failures.

I can't speak for the original poster, but, this arrangement has been encoding video almost 24 hours a day for over 18 months and I've had that ONE disk error. I think I've erased the RAID maybe four times in that time. Two of those times was because the machine made trips to Apple to repair the speaker port problem and then again due to the AirPort Extreme debacle.

But you can keep your method of 'disk repair' going. One thing's for sure, if you nuke the directory often enough, you'll never get a disk error :P

[yonidass]

Yes, I know all about fragmentation. But this (brand new) drive was not nearly full, though I had done quite a bit of adding and delting of large files. Still, I've done much heavier work on smaller, older drives and never had this happen.

I'm inclined to agree with TugBoat's suggestions of other culprits. But yes, if one can afford to, zero your drive as often as you like.

[terryj]

Tugboat,
I am unfamiliar with TMPEGEnc,
but from what you state, it seems
like ffmpegx would do the same things?
How is TMPEGEnc better in this regard..?

To londor and yondiass, I was just offering
steps I take that seem to keep me moving along
without any problems. Take that just as that
and if it helps you, great, if not well ok then.

[TugBoat]

You shoulda clicked on the link
TMPEGEnc is sorta the PC worlds ffmpegX. Only ffmpegX has it beat hands down. If you ever acquire a MPEG from a PC, chances are, that it was encoded with TMPEGEnc. The only problem is, TMPEGEnc has problems encoding technically legal MPEGs. Just ask the so called experts.

So, when a Mac person runs across one of these 'not-quite legal' MPEGs. it usually causes problems. I speak from experience. Man, whatever happened to standards.....

On another note, I'm still having problems with ffmpegX's MPEG1 files working in DVDSP-2.05. If anyone has a clue as to how to get them to play nice, I'd be thankful. I've tried all the suggestions and my DVDSP still hates them. I have discovered that MMT-EZ MPEG1s work fine in DVDSP, so, it must be something related to ffmpegX. MMT-EZ is using a Jan. 25th, 2004 version of mpeg2enc which is an older version of what ffmpegX uses. Seems odd that one works and the other doesn't.

It's always something 8)

[terryj]

It's always something 8)

on this, we agree....
8)

[thoughton]

Sounds like a bitch of an error. And probably the only example where Norton does something right in OS X. Perhaps I'll have to start storing the porn and kid's movies on different drives... FWIW, I also would be amazed if this had anything to do with disk fragmentation (sorry terry )

PS Is this thread incredibly wide for everyone, or is it just me? I'm having to scroll horizontally a whole extra page to read the 2nd half of every line of text. It's quite annoying Other posts I'm reading are fine...

[londor]

PS Is this thread incredibly wide for everyone, or is it just me?

It displays fine for me.

[Ladd]

PS Is this thread incredibly wide for everyone, or is it just me? I'm having to scroll horizontally a whole extra page to read the 2nd half of every line of text. It's quite annoying Other posts I'm reading are fine...

I'm getting that same error here. I rarely have to scroll horizontally anymore since getting a large Cinema display, but I'm having to do it with this thread!

[TugBoat]

What browsers are you people using? The latest Safari and Exploder 5.23 appears to handle it alright. My guess would be that long link in Terry's post is throwing things off. That thing takes up three complete lines on my machine. I always hide links that long when I post them 8)

[thoughton]

Bingo Tugboat, it was terry's link - didnt even notice it earlier. I'm using firebird 0.6.1 on XP at the moment (I know I know, very old, time to update it I guess )

[terryj]

I'm on a 15" flat panel in Safari 1.23
and everything is dead center.
My window measures 11.75" inches
across, and I can see everything fine.

just must be me again....

FWIW, I also would be amazed if this had anything to do with disk fragmentation (sorry terry )

Perhaps not necessarily disc fragmentation, but most
certainly disc directory errors? Either way, nuking the
partition after so many rips/reformats, or running
Diskwarrior 3, would (possibly?) fix the problem.

Pointing to myself here:
The last five I finished up this morning:
Passion of the Christ
My Plaything: Carmen Luvanna
(DVDSP3 create) Dave Chappelle: Best of
(DVDSP3 create) Days of our Lives: New Salem Chapter2
Man on Fire

All are ok with no VOB bleeding whatsoever,
watched all five beginning to end.
;-p

OSX 10.3.5, Toast 6.07, DVD2ONEx 1.4, MTR 2.01, DVDSP3.
A 60GB WD partition for the incoming,
a 40GB WD partition for the outgoing.
only thing I do is after every five or so discs,
I wipe both partitons so that they are free and clear.
( restarts occasionally if i am doing other intensive
graphic work WHILE I am ripping/remastering, just
to clear memory caches.)

Never have the problems mentioned.
Only offering possible solutions, take it for what you will.

[thoughton]

I'm on a 15" flat panel in Safari 1.23
and everything is dead center.
My window measures 11.75" inches
across, and I can see everything fine.

just must be me again....

As noted above it seems to be an old firefox bug (PC version).

Perhaps not necessarily disc fragmentation, but most
certainly disc directory errors? Either way, nuking the
partition after so many rips/reformats, or running
Diskwarrior 3, would (possibly?) fix the problem.

I think everyone agreed that it is directory errors. It is only interesting because it is such an unusual error. I mean, chapters from one disc image migrating over to another disc image because of a erroneous file pointer on a disk! When you think of all the millions of other things it might have pointed at ...

Cheerio!