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Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion |
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Dual-layer Blu-ray discs vs. actual data pressed |
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| Author |
Message |
| Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Posts: 1,279 |
| | Posted: | | | | I agree with Katatonia's interpretation, it clearly states 2 layers of data, I can't see how an empty layer fits that description. | | | | IVS Registered: January 2, 2002 |
| | Registered: May 29, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 3,475 |
| | Posted: | | | | I have no idea how to figure out what you are talking about.
I look at the disc to see how many layers they are and then put the disc in my computer and let it determine if it is a dual layer or not. | | | | Last edited: by Kathy |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  | | Posts: 3,321 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Lithurge: Quote:
...it clearly states 2 layers of data, I can't see how an empty layer fits that description. And now we enter into an exact interpretation vs a useful interpretation. The rule could certainly be read that it must be two layers of "data" (I'm not saying that's *MY* interpretation of course). But to what end? That makes things more complicated and for what? So someone can see that it's single layered and know that there's 25GB or less on the disc? Again, that's a horribly non-intuitive method to discover that information and if that's the data people are interested in, I think we'd be better served simply asking for a spot to enter that value. If we did go this other way, I think I'd want to see more evidence that the second layer is in fact empty. DVDs I know. Blu-rays not so much (the physical structure on the disc). I only have the word of the people in this thread that layer 2 remains empty until layer 1 is full (makes sense, but I'd still like some sources cited). Additionally, how do we know that there's NOT data there? Perhaps it's inaccessible, but still present? Could it be a deluxe edition with all the goodies, but it was crippled for rental / re-release / cheaper version, etc? I don't really know. I only know people here claim that the second layer is empty, but no actual evidence to back that up. Not that I doubt all this of course. But I would need to hard evidence before I could even consider such a change (and probably not then). My personal opinion is that dual-layered should be ticked when there's two layers. I personally don't care how much of that second layer is used, if any. It wants to know if it's dual-layered or not. It's not asking us to enter how much data is there. And for the record, you might say "Why would anyone care if it's dual-layered or not?" You might even say that that information is far less useful than knowing how much data is on the disc. And to that I'd say, not every player out there handles dual-layered discs correctly and this could be extremely useful information to have (regardless of if "data" is present or not). If people want to take the "data" part from the rules and make a big deal of it, I'm all for that. But I'd support clarifying the rule to remove the "data" portion, not asking users to figure out how many layers are used by looking at a large number and determining if that's over some threshold or not. | | | Get the CSVExport and Database Query plug-ins here.
Create fake parent profiles to organize your collection. |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 20,111 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Mark Harrison: Quote:
If people want to take the "data" part from the rules and make a big deal of it, I'm all for that. But I'd support clarifying the rule to remove the "data" portion, not asking users to figure out how many layers are used by looking at a large number and determining if that's over some threshold or not. Yes, I would support the rule being clarified also. If Ken could chime in here it would certainly solve it. But as it currently stands, I do view the "data" part as a deliberate entry into that part of the rule. And there is probably that reason why Ken set up the program to read these types of discs as Single-Layer as far as the "data" decoding goes. | | | | Corey |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Posts: 1,279 |
| | Posted: | | | | I've got to be honest I'm playing devils advocate on this one. Personally I wouldn't go to the trouble of using 3rd party programs to verify the amount of data. But I don't see this as anything different to those other fields we use external means to verify the data.
As for the point about some players not working correctly, my own experience is that Sony's firmware updates can break the PS3 quite often (my 'fat' PS3 broke when I installed the last update), but I don't see them breaking the functionality of a small number of PS3's as a reason to record it as dual layer on the current wording of the rule. What's not known is the exact cause of their fault, it could be a faulty player, it could be the firmware didn't install correctly, or it could be a bug in the firmware release. Not an ongoing or large scale issue.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that their issue is a fault not a design feature of the player.
Besides is it any more valid to say we should record it as dual layer for people interested for this reason, or the actual data for those interested in the likely effect of compression on quality? | | | | IVS Registered: January 2, 2002 | | | | Last edited: by Lithurge |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | Reputation:  |  Posts: 3,197 |
| | Posted: | | | | Old players (lasers) typically fail on picking up the second layer. I've had two players end up in a state like that and could only be used for playing SL discs. So the information can be somewhat useful, but I would not miss it much if it was removed from the program. | | | | First registered: February 15, 2002 |
| | Registered: October 30, 2011 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 1,870 |
| | Posted: | | | | Personally I think the disc info section should be only submitted as the program reads it, keep it simple.
"Dual-Layered - Discs with two layers of data presented on the selected side. (i.e. RSDL)"
That rule is clear that it is data related and that appears the way that DVDP does it.
IMO To do it differently would require Ken to speak up and say so and no one here can alter that.
Being forced to use a third party program to read the disc specification is a bad idea. First of all only those that had the program could vote properly. Secondly people could in fact vote NO to a person submitting disc info as DVDP read it.
DVDP reads and populates those fields for us based on how Ken wants it (and how the rules state). It cannot get easier
Personally I fail to see the value in needing to know if it is a physical dual layer disc or not versus a disc that is using two layers. We need to look at the value of the data being asked for here, as well as the added complexity to have to use a third party tool to properly vote and contribute.
Some questions have to be asked
Other than just being picky how does this affect the user base actually using this data?
How much of the user base is affected negatively by the way the program does it today?
IMO to determine Dual Layer differently would require a rule change and should be in the rules forum and not here.
Now as for some players not handling dual layers correctly, should we really be altering this because of a few poorly designed players or players that are so old they should be replaced anyway? | | | | Last edited: by Scooter1836 |
| | Registered: March 13, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 20,111 |
| | Posted: | | | | ^^ That's a good post Scooter, and I fully agree with it.  | | | | Corey |
| | Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | As one who has seen (and modifed) the code inside DVDInfo and BDInfo to determine "layers," here is my 2 cents: (1) The designation of layers is correlated to the capacity of a disc, not how much data is actually on it. The technology solution for achieving the various capacities is based on using lasers to read / write data at one or more depths or layers. Thus, the SL, DL, XL, etc. designation of a disc is based on how much data the disc can potentially hold. It is possible to create and accurately detect a SL, DL, or XL disc with only 1 byte of actual data. Here is an article from which I have used as a guide for some of my programming. (2) Application and even system software is typically not aware of exactly which layer the data is written to. It is possible to determine, but usually only DVD playing or authoring software would actually need to do it. I would be stunned to find out that DVDP goes to this level. I seriously doubt it. Here is an article that has some information about layers and layer switching determination. I don't even see code like this in DVDInfo. Most of the information comes from the IFOs, which are encoded by the the DVD author, and yes - can even have mistakes - it's just programming after all. So, everybody calm down. No more foaming at the mouth. It is really quite simple: determine the capacity of the media by asking the device driver, and based on that number as well as type of media, the number of layers can be deduced, due to the industry standard that correlates capacity to layers, based on the technology used to achieve the capacity in the first place. For any body interested, I have pasted my modified DVDInfo code that I use in DVDPca to determine the layer designation of a disc:
Quote:
switch (disctype)
{
case VideoDiscType.DVD:
#region
discinfo.MediaType = "DVD";
if (drive.TotalSize == 0)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += (drive.VolumeLabel != null) ? drive.VolumeLabel : "Unknown Disc ";
layers = Layers.UnknownLayers;
discinfo.Layers = "Unknown";
}
else if (drive.TotalSize > 4700372992)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is DL ";
layers = Layers.DualLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "DL";
}
else if (drive.TotalSize <= 4707319808)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is SL ";
layers = Layers.SingleLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "SL";
}
else if ((drive.TotalSize > 4707319808) & (drive.TotalSize < 4700372992))
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is DL if +R, otherwise SL ";
layers = Layers.UnknownLayers;
discinfo.Layers = "Unknown";
}
#endregion
break;
case VideoDiscType.Bluray:
#region
discinfo.MediaType = "BD";
if (drive.TotalSize == 0)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += (drive.VolumeLabel != null) ? drive.VolumeLabel : "Unknown Disc ";
layers = Layers.UnknownLayers;
discinfo.Layers = "Unknown";
}
else if ((drive.TotalSize > (long)25 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024) & (drive.TotalSize <= (long)50 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024))
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is DL ";
layers = Layers.DualLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "DL";
}
else if (drive.TotalSize <= (long)25 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is SL ";
layers = Layers.SingleLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "SL";
}
else if (drive.TotalSize > (long)50 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is Triple layer ";
layers = Layers.TripleLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "XL";
}
#endregion
break;
case VideoDiscType.HDDVD:
#region
discinfo.MediaType = "HDDVD";
if (drive.TotalSize == 0)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += (drive.VolumeLabel != null) ? drive.VolumeLabel : "Unknown Disc ";
layers = Layers.UnknownLayers;
discinfo.Layers = "Unknown";
}
else if ((drive.TotalSize > (long)15 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024) & (drive.TotalSize <= (long)30 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024))
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is DL ";
layers = Layers.DualLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "DL";
}
else if (drive.TotalSize <= (long)15 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024)
{
this.richTextBox1.Text += "Disc is SL ";
layers = Layers.SingleLayer;
discinfo.Layers = "SL";
}
#endregion
break;
default:
this.richTextBox1.Text += (drive.VolumeLabel != null) ? drive.VolumeLabel : "Unknown Disc ";
layers = Layers.UnknownLayers;
break;
}
| | | Thanks for your support.
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Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
| | Registered: May 29, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 3,475 |
| | Posted: | | | | I have no idea what in the world you are talking about...nor do I want to!  | | | | Last edited: by Kathy |
| | Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | That's OK Kathy. But then why quote the whole post? I would really appreciate if you didn't, since you are not commenting on the specifics of the content. Thanks. The bottom line of all that is stated in the first sentence of item (1). That's it. (Thanks for fixing your post - you are Tops, as usual!  ) | | | Thanks for your support.
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Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
| | Registered: May 29, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 3,475 |
| | | Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | Ok, I am going to beat the programmers to the punch here - I see the glaring error in my code that I pasted. In fact, what that code is doing is measuring the data size (drive.TotalSize), not capacity! My discussion was correct, but my code doesn't reflect it, so I could fix it. I have some other code in a different tool that actually detects the capacity - it reports correctly even for a blank disc. So I guess this discussion has a benefit (for me) after all! Now I do wonder which method DVDP uses: I can code it either way. Anybody know? I could update DVDPca as soon as I can get the code ported over and tested, as soon as I get the answer. I will make it to be consistent with DVDP. | | | Thanks for your support.
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Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
| | Registered: May 8, 2007 | | Posts: 824 |
| | Posted: | | | | Again, my jaw is on the floor over a multi page thread with huge, long posts, over something that should have no discussion.
If the data on the disc is equal to or less than 12,219,392 sectors, it's single layer. If it's more, it's dual layer.
Is DVD Profiler not able to do that simple thing? If so, what exactly is the discussion? | | | | 99.9% of all cat plans consist only of "Step 1." |
| | Registered: March 18, 2007 | | Reputation: | | Posts: 6,463 |
| | Posted: | | | | Quoting Grendell: Quote:
Again, my jaw is on the floor over a multi page thread with huge, long posts, over something that should have no discussion.
If the data on the disc is equal to or less than 12,219,392 sectors, it's single layer. If it's more, it's dual layer.
Is DVD Profiler not able to do that simple thing? If so, what exactly is the discussion? The discussion precedes your post. And your oversimplification does not invalidate any of it. | | | Thanks for your support.
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Advanced plugins available here.
Hey, new product!!! BDPFrog. | | | | Last edited: by mediadogg |
| | Registered: May 8, 2007 | | Posts: 824 |
| | Posted: | | | | What oversimplification?
How is a disc not single layer if it's less than 12,219,392 sectors, or dual layer if it's greater? | | | | 99.9% of all cat plans consist only of "Step 1." |
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Invelos Forums->DVD Profiler: Contribution Discussion |
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