TMPGEnc 2.00 fixes a GOP bug and contains SSE2 enhancements but the biggest change is probably the version number. As usual don't forget the VFP plugin. HeadAC3he pre12 adds floating point 2 pass mode and a calculation bug.

I've also updated the DVD2SVCD guide. I've also been looking into Xmpeg in combination with Edwins wrapper codec. So far I haven't been able to teach Xmpeg to properly resize for SVCD but I haven't been trying very hard and I'm sure I'll come up with a solution to resize properly inside Xmpeg soon and will be able to update some of my SVCD guides.

And some good news on the hardware and software side: SBLive has been performing without any problems for 3 days now and WinXP has been running without problems for 2 weeks and so far I haven't found any program that wouldn't run (though I'm not really into testing old dos games and that kind of stuff, more like ripping programs).

DVD2SVCD 1.0.3build1 offers to min average bitrate can now be turned on and off, there's support for title picture, change CD picture and chapter selection, deinterlacing has been added, saving and loading settings has been included, support for overlapped CDs has been added and crash recovery has been added (still in beta stage though). VCDImager Easy 1.0.1 offers direct VCD/SVCD ripping, the ability to select the paths of the CLI tools, some hints have been added and the eject options should now work properly.

A word about my hardware talk: I don't have any problems. SBLive 5.1 has been working great for 48h now, and I'm pushing the PC to the max trying to cause whatever problems there might be. But there really is none. That makes 2 SBLives and 3 boards without problems (using KT133, KT133A and KT266 chipsets) and an old SBLive value and an SBLive 5.1 value. Still, since there clearly is a problem with that kind of hardware, it should be possible to determine it more properly. I suppose the solution would lie somewhere in the windows configuration or the BIOS settings as you can have two identical MBs and one guy has the problem and another doesn't.

Nothing new going on in the ripping department today. I have some ideas about future extensions of the guides but a general lack of time prevents me to do much on normal week-days :(

I've been checking on the Audigy card and found some more tests, at THG and Firingsquad. Interestingly both have tested on the Athlon platform and both have not reported any problems. So, whom do you believe? And the discussion in the forums is mostly academic as most people complaining do not even have the card, they just speculate. How about a few hardware dealers start doing some testings with their different platforms? As the problem appears to happen on and off there should be a way to determine what settings really are responsible for the problems, be it in the BIOS or in the Windows registry. Yesterday I dared to put my SBLive 5.1 back in and so far I haven't had any problems. I watched a movie I burned a while back and it had severe problems and the sound was popping at some times. After having watched the whole movie I watched some scenes directly from the CD (I copy movies to the HD to watch, it's less problematic and probably better for the drive) and the problems were still there so it must've been one of the CDs I burned in my "data corruption age". I decrypted 2 DVDs and did the audio on them and no CRC errors in azid, and the downloaded files are not corrupt as well so I may be on a good track. But let's not break out the champaign too early as I previously also had 24+h without any problems before problems re-appeared. But it would be very interesting if the card really worked now and I could make full use of my 5.1 capable stereo (no AC3 decoder so I need the decoding to be done in the PC) and XP already supports that stuff out of the box, I just have to find out how to configure the dual purpose output. Oh, and according to FQ the Audigy cards still process everything internally as 16bit/48Khz. Hopefully the nForce won't resample internally.

Despite all the problems I finally managed to get Xmpeg to encode DivX4 in 2 pass without manual intervention. Therefore I decided to bring the Xmpeg guide up-to-date.

FuBatch 0.7 is a bugfix release. DVD Decrypter 3.0.0.5 has better ASPI error report code and the logging should work better. SubMist 0.3.1 is now a GUI application.

How would you feel if you learned that manufacturing or selling a regular PC, audio or video recording device as we all know them would suddenly be illegal and punishable by $500'000 and up to 5 years of prison? You'd probably think it was a bad joke. Unfortunately that's not the case, rather it's the latest attempt of RIAA and MPAA to ban fair use and to turn the world into a pay-per-view only place. An act called Security Systems Standard and Certification Act has been put before congress. Should it pass kiss your rights as a consumer by bye. As a side effect any open source software will effectively become illegal as well as the DRM management all devices will have to integrate will certainly be proprietary and can therefore not be implemented into open source software. You'll find the full draft of the Act on Cryptome. If it ever was time to get up and fight for your rights now is the time. Or you'll soon wake up one day and have the FBI knocking down your door for making a (now illegal) copy of a CD / DVD you own and have paid for.

And on another note: does anybody else feel that the latest THG article on sound cards lacks an important detail? What about SBLive's problems on many platforms? Admittedly it could be that THG has never had such problems but the sheer number of people having experienced this kind or problems should ensure that this rather important fact should be mentioned. Even Gamespot put it into their recent Audigy card test.

How many of you already got an new box with XP on it? For those who don't know, yesterday marked the official OEM release of Windows XP, from now on you can buy computers with pre-installed XP. If you just want the OS you still have to wait for another month. I've only tested the OS for a week but so far it looks rather promising and in the coming weeks we can expect to see many XP compatible drivers coming out. Coincidence? nForce, NVidia's integrated chipset. Check Anandtech for some test results. If prices are right I'm gonna get me one of these boards. No more VIA trouble. And talking of hardware problems, Creative still hasn't been able to solve the problems their soundcards (including the new Audigy series) have on VIA based boards. It may not be entirely Creative's fault, but the fact that these problems also arise on non-VIA board should be a pretty strong indicator that something is off. A soundcard that's often mentioned as an alternative is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, but according to VIAHardware there's some problems with DX8 and that card (games quitting after 10 minutes, and my average gaming session definitely is longer than that) and I have not been able to find an adaptor to get optical in/out for that card. If anybody can comment on these issues please do so in the hardware forum.

Okay, enough from the hardware side and I'll spare you my rants I had planned for today ;) DVD Decrypter 3.0.0.4 that fixes some yet unidentified bugs, saves window positions, includes logging and multiangle processing. XMpeg 4.1c is a pure bugfix release. Let's hope it works better than the last release and that Xis finally lives up to his promise to release the source. I'm getting tired of waiting.

HeadAC3he pre11 has changed GUI fonts and size which makes it usable in lower resolutions. IFO Edit is an IFO editing tool that allows you (among other things) to change sector offsets. Useful for people stripping movies of certain stuff and burning the remaining data on DVD-Rs as you now can adjust the IFO so that the new disc still works properly.

I've updated all guides using lame&azid, now the new GUI is in and the batch encoding mode is used. I've also updated the GKnot guide a bit. I still haven't put in subs and IVTC and 3 pass encoding but that will be done when the new GKnot is released. And as you may notice the new screenshots look a bit different. That's because they've been made under Windows XP. I've been using that OS for a week now, so far without any serious problems. There was an issue with bbMPEG but a workaround has been identified and been put in the guide.

DVDx 1.4b adds AVI output and fixes some bugs concerning the use of the CCE plugin. Morphix 0.71a adds file size estimation based on the logfile, fixed some memory problems in W9x/ME, some calculation errors and an mp3 encoding bug. There's a new VobSub release out that comes with an multiplexer that allows you to add srt files directly into the AVI. Playback is based on dvobsub as usual.

I'm currently working on updating some guides but the updates will be less comprehensive than initially planned. I already got a new beta of GKnot so I see no sense in spending a lot of time adding subs and stuff to the old version when we'll soon have a new one that makes things much easier. And as for XMpeg I'm really not satisfied with its stability so I think I'm going to wait for a really stable version before I start changing that guide.

VCDImager Easy 1.0.0 comes with full CDRDAO integration, some CD image formats have been added, LeadOutPause, TrackPreGap, Trackfront Margin and Track Rear margin burning options have been added and the two missing buttons are back. Scavenger Region Set 1.4 should now support all drives. AviReset is a registry patch that should fix problems with creating corrupt AVIs or AVIOutput errors you might have. WMA2WAV adds a WAV header to WMA files so that yuo can mux them in VirtualDub. Note that PowerDivX NG seems to be the only player that can keep synch with these kind of files and that I do not consider using WMA a good option. Rather stick with VBR MP3.

Talking about VBR: In the early days of that "format" I never liked it much since I sometimes got severe synch errors. That was using a P3-550. Ever since I upgraded my computer these kind of problems have disappeared. Therefore it's likely that VBR MP3s in AVIs take more processing power than the old comp could properly handle. Everything from a 800 Duron up worked fine for me though.

And something completely different: Tom's Hardware Guide has an interesting article about CPU Temperatures. A big thumbs up to Intel for ther thermal solutions, that's how it should be done. If you ever wanted to see a CPU roast to death go to that page and download the video ;)

And yet another thing: Under no circumstances should you allow any readme.exe attachments to mails to be run. It's yet another dangerous internet work. I already received two copies of that virus. For more info visit this page. I'd like to take the opportunity to once again strongly suggest to each and everyone reading this to get a virus scanner, to update it regularly, to NOT execute any programs you receive from parties unknown or about which you have the slightest doubt and last but not least get a firewall. One of the best firewalls, ZoneAlarm, is completely free and very easy to set up as well and it works in all Windows operating systems (yes, including XP).

Gordian Knot 0.17beta now calculates bitrates for both DivX3 and Divx4, contains a streamlist maker and fixes the interchanged soft/sharp bicubic settings when saving the avs. TSCV 0.72rel9 adds CDRDAO support, menus can now have up to 99 selection references, a menugenerator and some bugfixes. DivX4Calculator 1.8 adds support for AC3 files. I've also replaced the old mpeg2dec by dividee's modified version that includes a smoother filter, deinterlacing and a few other useful features.

Still hard to believe the headlines of all the newspapers I saw this morning...

There's a new DVD Decrypter 3 version that fixes the threading bug and now shows the completion percentage in the task bar. Then there's SmartRipper 2.35 which adds working LPCM extraction (though the output is always stereo). And last but not least HeadAC3he pre6 which adds a normalize option.

BTW, if somebody cares, now I seriously believe my MB is broken. Put in some DDR266 ram and the computer wouldn't even start properly anymore, also running the cpu at 100MHz FSB (of course in DDR mode so the FSB is 200MHz which equals 900MHz clock speed when using the fixed multiplier) while leaving the RAM at 133x2 leads to serious trashing. But that's going to be ugly, exchanging the board...
After a bit more testing I think I finally got it down: Running CPU @ 266 and RAM @ 200 creates data corruption and crackling sound. CPU @ 200 & Ram @ 200 with standard multiplyer (9x) works fine (3 days now), CPU @ 266 & RAM @ 266 crashes upon entering the graphical mode of W2K. CPU @ 200 (9x) & RAM @ 266 crashes uncontrollably after starting W2K, windows doesn't crash really, but all programs do. And last but not least the configuration I'm using now: CPU & RAM @ 200 but CPU multiplier to 12x (like the B class T-birds). Seems to work so far. Damnit, I don't want to exchange the board. And who knows if they'll replace it immediately and I absolutely need a PC. And getting a new one for the time just to sell it afterwards is a loss of money (though not much) and as both nForce and KT266a boards will soon come out that makes me very reluctant. Maybe I just take the box there and demo the effects. Damnit. Almost 3 weeks and that piece of s*** still doesn't work properly.

Some good news and some bad news today: Let's start with the good news: vStrip 0.8d2_css has improved ETA and no longer crashes when you access the contents of a chapter. DivX4Calculator 1.7 supports WMA, saving and loading settings and some bugfixes. WaveBooster CLI is an experimental wav normalization and dynamic compression tool. It supports various input mode besides the regular 16bit wavs (up to 32bit integer wavs, and high precision IEEE flloating point WAVs). Keep in mind that's in experimental stage. I've updated DVD Decrypter 3, it has imrpoved ASPI reading which should speed up ripping considerably. Power DivX Next Gen 3.1 supports large fonts, LFE and compression mode for AC3 audio streams, subtitle conversion, custom pan&scan settins will be preserved when switching to full screen mode, error 76 has been fixed and a lot of bugs have been fixed. And last but not least there's the first public release of HeadAC3he. It does AC3 cutting, decodes AC3s to AC3 WAVs (for AC3 audio CDs) and decodes AC3 to WAV using several intelligent 2 pass modes. By request of the author it's only available at the official homepage. Subrip 0.97b adds a feature to correct the timecode resetting on certain titles, a speedier redrawing of the list in the character matrix editor, a stay on top option in the character matrix editor window and a few bugfixes.

And for some open source infos: Maybe you've heard of On2's VP3 codec which is now being released under the Mozilla license (actually has been released a while back). I haven't had the time to test it so far but I thought you could be interested. I'm just wondering why there's a VP3.2 that's free and a VP3 for which you have to pay. Anybody knows? Then there's also a new project based on the OpenDivX codec.

And now for the bad news: I received an email from Pro-G Group, the guys who eventually want to make money out of TMPG. They told me I was in violation of their license because I'm distributing their application. While a talented copyright lawyer would argue that paragraph 1 of the license could be interpreted differently I don't think it's worth making a statement and playing stubborn so I have removed the program. This also means that the SVCD rippack is temporarily offline until I come up with a solution for the missing program. Anybdoy knows if the TMPG12/12a license prevents free distribution as well?

Slow news week-end with lost of email server troubles but now the good stuff is coming in again: VCD Imager Easy 0.9.9 adds VCDImager 0.7.10 support, parsing the entire mpg file now, adds VCDxRip control to the GUI, and the CDRDAO integration has been started. DVD Decoder 0.3 adds UDF parsing (1.00 GB files), IFO parsing and improved ASPI code. Then there's the latest Graphedit version but I don't have a changelog for that. DVDx 1.4 fixes some K6 bugs, contains Athlon optimizations, better filtering, multipass encoding support (for TMPG only atm) and automatic a/v synching.

Is there anybody having a KT266 board that uses DDR RAM at a speed asynch to the CPU bus (DDR200 RAM but having a CPU running at 266FSB). If so, have you ever had any problems (like data corruption, crackling sound (not using SBLive))?

I'm back from the future, right to our missing day 9 of the month ;)

I'm sure the author will release a new version just a few hours after I post this but anyways: DVD2SVCD 1.02b12 fixes some more CCE related bugs and a bug in the access paths of the audio files. And the latest version of DivX4Calculator properly calculates the audio bitrate (1k = 1000 for audio) and truncates the bitrate. Vidomi 0.360 adds custom range selection and saving profiles, adds low space check and DivX4 support and last but not least luma correction.

No system problems today ;) Well, finding 24x CD-Rs is pretty hard atm, the fastest I've seen so far at the usual places are 16x CDs but I guess that's just a matter of time. Of course, you need a burner to burn that fast and in my case that's a 24x Plex. We'll soon see if their warranty is really as good as they claim when the broken drive goes back.

I've added the latest version of Eugene's DVD player along with Eugene's Audio player, and audio player that will use the SPDIF output of your H+. Now if somebody can combine these two and throw DivXPlus in the mix he'd make a lot of people very happy. The latest DivX4Calculator now also supports DivX3 and entering the length of the movie in seconds. As many people have asked for a way to install DivX4 without the playa I added the plain DivX4.01 codec. Then we have FUBatch 0.6 adds AC3 support, merged AVIs will contain the session number and compatibility with non-English windows Versions has been improved. cladDVD fans might also like the latest version (now called cladMdec) which is based on vStrip and should therefore be a lot better than the old versions.

And to get on your nerves again, I'm tired of having a working system with a crap GFX card so tomorow I'll get a card which allows scrolling without freezing the PC. And I bid farewell to my 12x Plex which decided to stop working today. Guess I burned one too many CDs with it. And I must say, 2 years of warranty sure come in handy in this situation ;)

Those who are regulars in my forum already know: I ran a HD check (IBM Drive fitness) and the tool wanted to format my whole 60GB disc so I let it. Needless to say it took some time to save al the data and get back running. I also removed the SBLive and GFX card with the fan about to die. Current GFX is a piece of crap but will do (good thing TFTs don't need more than 60Hz) and onboard sound works so far. It will of course take some time to determine with certainity that all problems are gone, then I'll put in a new GFX card (GF3 with DVI output sounds great). I'd have made that update yesterday but we had a power outage at 11pm and when power came back I was already in bed.

The 2nd server is finally running properly again so no more old news ;)

But let's get back to business now: TSCV 0.72b7 is mainly a bugfix release and AzidLame GUI 0.1 is the combination of DD's Azid and Lame GUIs.

And some sad new: PX3 has left us for good. There will be no more mpeg2avi versions by him.

TFM Audio filter 1.04 adds a graphic equalizer.

And to continue ranting: Now the GFX card works but as before I'm getting some crackling sound.. SBLive sucks big time. Why I never had a single problem using the old SBLive Value on a KT133a board is beyond me. Oh yeah, and I'm getting strange errors in my encoded AVIs, looks like freeze-frames except that it isn't, it's some sort of data corruption. I wonder if the day my computer will work problem free will ever come before I throw it all out and get a completely new one (without an SBLive.. ).

And keep this in mind: if suddenly you should see an old version of this page, that's due to the ftp service being down on one of the two servers I use (you cannot see on which server you're on except when you ping it, I'm using round robin). Unfortunately it's not up to me when this is working properly again.

As there was not much in terms of new software today I took the opportunity to write a few guides: I have added two new DivX4 guides, one based on Xmpeg and one on DVD2AVI&Avisynth. Since one guide deals with Xmpeg I've also added Xmpeg 4.0b. I'll have to test if Xmpeg can also be used for the other plugins and eventually updated all FlaskMpeg based guides in due time. I've decided to split up the DivX section into two section, one dedicated to DivX3 encoding and one dedicated to DivX4. Furthermore I've brought many guides up to speed witht he latest versions and streamlined some audio guides (many guides are now using Nandub as it's become an allround solution and offers very good audio and cutting capabilities). This streamlining also included the software archive where I removed some old codecs, and some VirtualDub versions.

And a personal rant: I hate GFX cards that do not even support 32bit, DirectShow acceleration and 3d acceleration. Can't wait to get this piece of crap out of my machine again.

Another VobSub version as the last version didn't work properly. Azid GUI 0.7e fixes the problems reported to my audio forum. A note about yesterday's lame GUI: Delete all profiles before you copy it over the old version or it won't work (you'll get a runtime 79 error). TSCV 0.72b6 fixes many bugs and adds a menu generator for still and motion menus.

If you're wondering when you sometimes get the news from last month when you visit this site: Currently one of the servers I'm using has FTP down so I cannot upload the latest version. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

And some news from the hardware front: I'm running the 1.2 T-bird again, just with a crap SIS GFX card. If you're intrigued to solve a particular hairy hardware problem check this.

Lots of software again today: The latest VobSub fixes the "colored noise" bugs, adds basic support for smi files, auto-loading of subs in a predefined path and picture flipping is now accessible via the language menu. DVobSub in the package has also some bugs fixed and the pack also contains subresynch. VCDImager Easy 0.79 includes MPEG file analyzing, saving options via ini file, dynamic language selection, auto update, improved performance and handling of large file collections. And while we're at it I've also added the latest VCDImager. Then there's lame GUI 0.3 which adds more ATH and PSY options and fixes small bugs. TMPG 12j fixes some problems with the OpenDML input support and the motion search precision should be better if you set it to high. Don't forget the VFP plugin.

I'm still fighting with my T-bird and files that suddenly turn corrupt. I'm fearing there's something wrong with my hd as well now. Will these problems ever stop?