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Date:	Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:02:18 PDT7
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	Tom Brown <thombrown@san.rr.com > , scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Re: DVD newbie troubles

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Tom Brown wrote:

> I posted this to the SCOUG-Help list, probably during the time you were
> having severe computer problems.

Hi Tom. Yes, I probably lost a certain quantity of messages. Computer
problems not over yet, but haven't manifested like that ever since I took
the side and front panels off. I intend to try to clone the drives, before
I close the box up again.

> I have also posted to the Warpvision
> support forum. No response either place.

Whether it's a matter of the developers' available time, their degree of
interest, or their discomfort with English, that forum is of very limited
use. I've averaged about one reply (extremely terse) to every 5 or 6
queries posted. Is there any coverage on WV at Yahoo Groups ? Or the
multimedia newsgroups ?

> Can you give me any suggestions or point me to a How-to? I am totally
> out of ideas.
>
> *********************

Willing to take a shot at it, but just keep repeating to yourself: "He's
just an empiricist. He doesn't even begin to understand this stuff ! "

I hope you don't mind my echoing this to the List -- someone else may have
comments or find it of some interest. I also hope that Jerry does not mind
my pasting in some stuff from his recent email to me, which could be
relevant. (Nothing personal or proprietary quoted, so I don't see a
problem.) CAUTION: This is apt to be a lengthy post.

> I have a new Plextor PX-708A DVD/CD writer attached to my test system,
> but I can't make it work under eCS. It works under W2K.

Supposed to be one of the better units on the market, I think. And that
situation is common. Jerry tells me that _one_ reason most of the
multimedia stuff works so smoothly and transparently on Windoze is that the
Win architecture (for I/O ?) is based heavily on DMA xfer, whereas OS/2 is
extremely interrupt driven. (I don't pretend to grasp what that really
means, but it's clear they have a relatively easy time with certain things
we seem to struggle over.)

> It is on the secondary IDE channel as Master. I'm using DANIS506.ADD
> (2-29-04) and I have dvdcss.dll (13595 version) in the WarpVision (24
> Mar 2004) directory.

So far, it sounds quite similar to my setup on the small XPC box, except
for the brand & model of DVD drive. (I still don't have DVD on the tower
desktop.)

> When I start WarpVision, RMB and select
> DVD/VCD/CDDA to open the dvd drive, I get an error popup:
>
> Error while opening file [OK}
>
> Clicking OK then pops up:
>
> Error starting play DVD/VCD. Check DVD/VCD settings and make sure that
> you have DVD/VCD disk in drive. [OK]

I think there are more than one possible cause for this. I believe I saw
it a lot while I had a cheapo Sony DVD-ROM drive in the XPC. That drive
had a serious timing issue, which gave us fits when Steven was installing
the two eCS 1.1 boot partitions from the install cd set. By "timing
issue", I mean how long it took to spin up and be able to read the cd or
dvd in the drive. This was more like too slow and too inconsistent -- but
very fast once it did engage. Anyway, this caused a lot of timeouts and
miscues, per whatever was scripted into those install CDs. WV did not much
like it either. This sort of problem essentially went away after I swapped
in the Pioneer DVD burner. Its spin-up | disk read cycle has been quick,
smooth, and consistent. Makes me reluctant to swap in a different drive,
even though I know there are supposedly better ones around.

There are also possible issues regarding recognition of DVDs, which has to
do with driver versions (such as OS2CDROM), and their ability to coexist
and work together. Go back several weeks into the List messages, and you
should find a post on this subject, where I attached a zipped collection of
messages on this subject that I had pulled off of the eCS newsgroups. If
you can't find it, I'm sure it is here somewhere, and I can repost it. The
UDF driver (essential for DVD) has been kind of a disaster area. (*I'm*
not saying this -- Jerry will tell you this.) But apparently ver. 214 is
-- finally -- beginning to make some significant improvements. See email
excerpts, towards the end of this.

> WarpVision settings are:
>
> Video:
> Use WO if present (it is), DIVE dithering
> Decode as: YUV422

You were at the demo last month, right ? Some of my settings may be
different (I can check this and get back to you), and I did get DVDs to be
recognized and accessed, but all I got on the domestic samples was a very
rapid stream of video / audio garbage. The only thing I ever got to play
properly was the trailer from the foreign (PAL, Region 2) DVD (!), which we
did not show for reasons of time, and because of the drive Region Counter
issue. {Actually, in preparatory tests leading up to the demo, I did
manage to play segments of some VCDs, and maybe even a couple of domestic
DVDs -- but they were NOT commercially released movies. So -- NO
encryption, NO Macrovision to contend with.}

> DVD/VCD:
> Drive: S Drive speed: DNT
> VCT Track: 0
> Title: 0 Angle: 1 Chapter: 1
> Audio lang: Eng/Am Title Lang: Eng/Am

If you make several attempts in succession, is this result consistent ?
When I got the "Make sure you have DVD disk in drive" error, I think there
were a few attempts intermixed when it *did* access the DVD. That was
likely the timing issue at work.

> What am I missing or doing wrong?

I'm not sure, and will need more experimentation to even hazard a guess. I
will let you know, if / when I achieve success. Right off the top, I would
imagine some driver-related issue. But something could be off in the WV
settings notebook. The next thing I intend to do is to try out UDF 214.
(This is available to registered eCS users, at the EComStation website, or
via SWC.) Also, you may recall Jerry's mention at the demo that sometimes
you have to go after *different* Tracks / Chapters than the starting or
default ones, which you might have expected.

From my recent note to Jerry:

> Have you had a chance to try out UDF-214 yet ? (I haven't.) I'm
wondering If / When
> they may finally get it right . . . . Also wondering if one *really*
needs to purchase
> one of the approved makes & models of drive, to have any real prospect of
DVD burner
> operation on our platform. (I have the Pioneer A06, installed in the
XPC, and an
> NEC 2510 waiting in the wings for some future assignment. Neither, of
course, happen
> to be on that list.) I'd like to NOT be wasting my time, trying to get
this to work.
>
> Also, I'd like to actually get USB working for OS/2 one of these days, on

> one box or another.

Incidentally, Tom, wasn't it you who told me that USB *should* work for us
-- just peruse the USB pages at OS2WORLD.be, with particular attention to
the Tools & Utilities section ? Well . . . Been There, Done That. And it
*still* doesn't work for me. I've updated every USB driver, and it makes
no difference. The USB Resource Mgr. can apparently see (and identify) the
devices; there just ain't any I/O happening. No How, No Way. I've tried 4
different multi-card readers, but now I feel a bit better, because Jerry
tells me he has about 4 different ones also, none of which work. Or maybe
one of them sort of works, but *only* for CF. (Hey, I'd settle for that.)
Bottom Line: it seems you need to be using a particular brand & model of
USB device that has been tested and confirmed to work, as mentioned in
their database. Because a **great many** USB devices on the market just
aren't going to work for us, period. Maybe some of that applies to certain
DVD issues, too.

Jerry replied to me:
>
> 2.1.4 seemed to fix most of the problems I was having with CD and DVD-+RW

> disks. I was never able to get anything reliable other than DVD reading
and CD-RW
> on Combo Drives to work with the driver.

> There is one real iritating problem still loose in the product. If you
> boot the machine with no media in the DVD Drive or have a CD, You are
> unable to format DVD-+RW media until you reboot the machine with a
> DVD or Blank DVD RW Media in the DVD Drive and get this. If you boot
> with a DVD in the drive, All of the formats work and can be interchanged
> in the same WPS session. CD-RW, DVD-RW and DVD+RW work. The most
> important thing to remember when using CD or DVD-+RW you must use the
> eject feature in the drives view to close the disc or otherwise it
could be toast
> using the eject button on the DVD unit. System shutdown handles it
correctly
> if you leave the disc in.

[JF: I never would have even guessed as to something like this.]

Hope this has been of some value, but I'll keep plugging away at it.

Jordan

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