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I'm Back! AnyDVD HD issues with 'The Long Shot' Part 2

JeffQ

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Let me start out with some background. I have done software tech support for 20+ years. I use a system whose sole purpose is rip and shrink movies. No extraneous processes are running. It is a 3rd gen i7 with 8g of Ram and an a GTX 1060 graphics card using a clean, fresh Windows 10 pro install. This system is only connected to the internet to update AnyDVD HD. After further testing and review, I can only conclude that the issue lies with AnyDVD HD software.

Don't think that this is basically an issue with money. I have contributed to several freeware/shareware projects when I felt their product serves my purpose (including Handbrake and VLC tested here). I believe that people should be paid for their efforts. That said, I don't think it is right to buy another product from a company to resolve an issue with an existing product.

Before you say that my testing is apples to oranges - you are right. I am testing what works to what doesn't. And what works is a newer, longer release.

Bottom Line:
I will put my testing data down below but for those who want to cut to the chase: AnyDVD HD does not catch all the copy protections issues on 'The Long Shot' and does not generate any errors.This needs to addressed and resolved. CloneBD is not adequate replacement for Handbrake in my testing.

My Testing:
Comparison of testing with 'Avengers Endgame' with 'The Long Shot'.

AnyDVD HD works 'correctly' (plays nice) with Handbrake and VLC.
Inserting the'Avengers Endgame' disc it is scanned properly,
recognized and the protections stripped. VLC will then automatically
fire up and begin to play it. I use AndDVD HD to rip the file to disk.
Handbrake will take less than 5 minutes to scan and then handbrake
will spend the next 2 hours shrinking themovie to a 2.9gb Mp4 file at
a 2000kbps setting. This results in a viewing experience that provides
almost zero pixelation and an overall pleasant viewing experience on
both a laptop AND a 55in 1080p screen.

AnyDVD HD does not 'play nice' when it comes to 'The Long Shot' Disk.
Insert the Disk and AnyDVD HD begins to do it's thing. After AnyDVD HD
finishes (without any error) VLC pops up. Here is where thing start to
go sideways. VLC cannon play the disk. It gives an error of a file
problem. I then use AndDVD HD to rip the file to disk. An older
version of Handbrake will take over 2 hours to scan the resulting file
and error out. The latest version of Handbrake will also take about 2
hours to scan and complete the scan without error. Try to process the
file and then it throws an error concerning file issues.

CloneBD - this was suggested as a 'fix' to my issue. Did it
functionally work? Yes. Does it work as well as handbrake? NO!
I run CloneBD on Avengers Endgame and it takes almost 4hours and 45 minutes to render a the movie. Where Handbrake was processing about 40-45 frames per
second, CloneBD was running at a solid 6fps. Setting the processing
to 2000kbps gave a file size approximately the same in Mp4. But the
resulting picture was moderately to heavily pixelated.
CloneBD managed 15fps at a glance with 'The Long Short'

So I ran another Clone BD test at 3000kbs. Another 4 hours and 45
minutes go by. The resulting video quality was still not as good as
the 2000kbps file from Handbrake.

I have no problem putting money down for an equivalent product if it
resolves my issues. I have contributed to both the VLC and Handbrake
projects because I found them valuable. Now I am told I need to spend
another $120+ for software that is inferior to what I currently have
if AnyDVD HD worked as expected.

Is Redfox moving to business model where you have to use
all their software to get the desired output? I don't know. If CloneBD
worked as well as Handbrake I would probably take the path of least
resistance and buy it. But it doesn't so I'm not buying - yet.

If VLC would play the BluRay after AnyDVD HD did it's thing, I would
feel that issue lies with Handbrake. But if a bluray player can't play
the movie after decrypting due to file issues - that I have to put on
AnyDVD HD. There is an issue here. If the logs don't show an error
then there is a logging issue as well.
 
I run CloneBD on Avengers Endgame and it takes almost 4hours and 45 minutes to render a the movie.
Please try to make your posts as short and concise as possible. I don't mind a rant every now and then, but please also keep that brief - more likely to reach a larger audience that way.
That much text is painful to read and doesn't convey more information than a few lines with the facts.

Now - with a GTX 1060 CloneBD should process at somewhere between 150 and 300 fps depending on the source. With software transcoding it depends on your CPU, I can't say for your case (my i7/6700 does around 80fps).
So if you're seeing 15 fps, something is going wrong.

Please provide an AnyDVD log file and a CloneBD log file, then we can see a lot more of what is going on.

Note though, that I can say confidently, that none of the issues you're mentioning is because Anydvd didn't remove a protection correctly.
And the reason you've been asked to try CloneBD was to rule out Handbrake as the cause - which we're simply not competent to troubleshoot.
If handbrake can't handle it, it's a problem with Handbrake.

Playback problems after copying can be caused by unhandled Screenpass, but that requires log files.
 
Last edited:
Sorry about the length. I wanted to make sure that full info was available.

Something strange happen when getting CloneBD logs. I restarted my machine and CloneBD processed the file in about 10 minutes - albeit with poor visual quality. It was running at around 280 fps. I then restarted my machine and ran the Endgame file again - no change 15fps. I am not sure what is going on regarding the CloneBD processing speed difference on one of the movies but it does not change what is going on with AnyDVD HD.

I have provided the requested logs.
 

Attachments

  • AnyDVD_8.3.8.0_Info_H_LONG_SHOT_EA6B8BC3_8c1c5793.ziplog
    1.3 MB · Views: 4
  • CloneBD.1.2.5.0.Long Shotlog.cbdlog
    306.1 KB · Views: 2
  • CloneBD.1.2.5.0.Marvel’s Avengers - Endgame2.cbdlog
    553.4 KB · Views: 2
Thanks for the logs.

Something strange happen when getting CloneBD logs. I restarted my machine and CloneBD processed the file in about 10 minutes - albeit with poor visual quality.
I don't know how you're converting with Handbrake and to what format - maybe some Handbrake log would be helpful, If you have one.
But an AVC video with 1080p and 2mbps is an insanely low bit rate. I'd expect poor results - DVDs have a higher effective bit rate than that, even after compensating for MPEG2 vs. AVC.

If your player supports it (VLC does), I'd choose HEVC instead, that should improve quality a lot. If you're doing HEVC (h.265) with Handbrake (I sort of assume so), then that would also explain the difference in quality.

Also important to know: hardware accelerated encoding (Intel/nVidia/AMD) always results in worse quality when encoding very low bit rates. That is known and simply a limitation that comes with the hardware encoders, they're not as good as software libx264.

I can only conclude that the issue lies with AnyDVD HD software.
I don't see that.
I'll try to bring some order into this: we're actually talking about at least 2 issues, right?
  1. VLC won't play Long Shot
  2. Both movies (Avengers and Long Shot) sometimes (?) take long to copy? It's a bit confusing, because your original post was about Handbrake being slow, now it's CloneBD but not Handbrake.
Number 2 is clearly not an AnyDVD problem, as AnyDVD is already out of the picture - you're transcoding files right off the disk.
I am curious what may cause the slowness, though, especially since it seems to come and go. You're reading from and writing to an SSD disk, so it's unlikely to be that.
CloneBD (no, I'm not trying to convince you to stick with CloneBD, but it's much better for troubleshooting) displays some bars on the right side while processing. These bars can help identify the bottleneck.
When CloneBD is going at 15fps or so, maybe just make a screen-shot of the whole application then.

Number 1:
It gives an error of a file
problem.
You, having a 20+ years background of tech support, must know how frustrating it is to deal with vague errors like "an error of a file problem" ;)
I'm sure that wasn't the text on the message box.
What would be even better, I guess, would be to press "Ctrl+M" before VLC starts playback and select "Verbosity Debug", then launch the movie.
Copy the messages and post them as text attachment here.

And I think you also wrote that Handbrake fails to copy with "unknown error" - another reason why a Handbrake log of that process would be helpful, maybe there are some extra warnings leading up the the error.
 
I am not sure where to go with this. Everytime I need to run a test I have to re-rent the disk. When I do I get slightly different results. Here is the latest:

If I rip the file to disk, the latest version of Handbrake still won't process the file and takes forever to scan the file. It does not want to give me a verbose log that I can post here. It seems to populate the text file but then wipes it clean when the process fails. I need to pursue this with Handbrake - not here in this forum. Yes, I did follow the direction to a T.

Here is what's different - after Anydvd HD has scanned the disk - handbrake WILL process the disc after a 2+ hour scanning process and a 3+ hour encoding process IF I run the process from the disk itself and not the ripped file.

I will be going over my system setup and configuration but other blu-ray discs don't have this issue. I still think there is a problem with AnyDVD HD and this title but I am having difficulty providing the details to troubleshoot this. If I have to rent this title again, I could have bought it used in 6 months for less.

I wish Clone BD worked better as it could have been a solution to this issue (path of least resistance) but not at much longer encoding times with double the file size for equivalent video quality. I am sure many other people are not having my issues but as long as I am I need to find the proper solution.

I want to close by thanking everyone for their attention in this - especially Pete who gave me some really good direction.
Many Thanks!
 
I am not sure where to go with this. Everytime I need to run a test I have to re-rent the disk.
There's an important hint, then: simply use AnyDVD to create an ISO with "keep protection" ticked.
For all further testing, that is the equivalent of the original disc.
Use Virtual Clone Drive to mount the ISO, then let AnyDVD process it as many times as you like.
Safest way to redo all types of decryption or processing tasks - no need to rerent.

About CloneBD: allegedly slow,bad quality: according to your log file from above, CloneBD processed your movie in 10 minutes. That's not slow. And I'm still assuming, you let Handbrake encode HEVC while CloneBD created AVC. HEVC produces far better quality at the same size as AVC. CloneBD can do HEVC just as well.
It's OK if you want to stick with Handbrake. But if CloneBD handles your disc fine, while Handbrake doesn't, it's a clear indication, that Handbrake is the problem.
AnyDVD doesn't do anything favouring CloneBD. It just decrypts the disc.
 
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