FMV framerate and quality?

[Tindo@heart]

Could you do a 'surface scan test' on the CDs to verify the data accuracy? Such as programs found with Nero like "CDspeed?"

It seems you could just burn 2 CDs; One at 4X and one at MaxX, for me that is 24X, and then run a "surface scan" to checks its integrity. OR, do 'surface scan' test "re-read" bad data, which I've learned is something the SegaCD drive skips during FMV.

 

[gameboy900]

Originally posted by Tindo@heart@May 4, 2003 @ 11:19 PM

Could you do a 'surface scan test' on the CDs to verify the data accuracy? Such as programs found with Nero like "CDspeed?"

It seems you could just burn 2 CDs; One at 4X and one at MaxX, for me that is 24X, and then run a "surface scan" to checks its integrity. OR, do 'surface scan' test "re-read" bad data, which I've learned is something the SegaCD drive skips during FMV.

A surface test wouldn't tell you anything really since a cd drive is designed to mask the quality of the pits and groves on a cd from you. As far as the pc would be concerned the data is either there ok or it's bad. You can't really measure the quality of the burn without using some very expensive tools. See the thing with these games that are burned at fast speeds that don't work on a SCD is that there really isn't any BAD data as such but the SCD isn't good enough to read the disc because the data that is written on it is just inaccurate enough for the SCD's drive to get confused and not be able to read the data. It needs some virtual glasses to be able to read the fuzzy data on the disc. Something obviously that doesn't exist.

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by gameboy900+May 5, 2003 @ 01:21 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gameboy900 @ May 5, 2003 @ 01:21 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-Alexvrb@May 4, 2003 @ 06:43 PM

Thats not entirely true. A good burner with good media can write at high speeds without screwing it up real bad. The Sega CD has a pretty ancient drive and can often read CDs written at high speeds no problem. If you find that with your burner and CDRs you cannot burn at high speeds, dont. I've recently burned at 24X, and my friend burns his SCD games at 40X. Last I checked those drives weren't designed with this in mind.

Like you said a good burner and good media make a difrence only because they increase the quality of a high speed burn to levels that the SCD can tolerate. If you used crap media that tolerance is increased and you have a higher chance of getting a "bad" burn. In general modern drives have gotten to a point where with moderate quality media (not the bottom of the barrel crap stuff) the discs will play fine in all drives regardless of speed. It's mostly the older 4x to 16x drives that hadn't improved their quality enough at the high speeds for these older drives to read properly. [/b][/quote]

Well you made it sound like (in your previous post) that only newer drives can read burns done at high speed, and the SCD certainly has an ancient CD drive. But by your reply I see you understand that the high speed alone doesnt mean that your burn will be difficult for the SCD to read.

 

[Spartikcus]

I have just burned at 48 speed, Disk at Once, and the game works beautifully! Have any of you had any errors doing this?

 

[Taelon]

A lot of good points have been made except one: Burnproof (buffer underrun protection) technology.

See, when you burn a disc faster than your computer can actually supply the data to the recorder, it will pause, wait for the buffer to refill and then resume writing. Sounds nice in theory, but in practice that leaves a TINY gap of sorts right at the pause/resume point. Small enough to have generally no effect on audio CDs and mode-1 data CDs (with the full error correction present on the disc).

I wonder if the occurrence of such a buffer underrun while writing an FMV stream to disc - usually a mode-2 data track using 2336 bytes/sector - wouldn't have an adverse effect. It's entirely possible that those who burn at high speed with no problems, like Spartikcus, are just lucky enough in having their PCs supply the data quickly enough.

At 48x, your recorder expects a peak 7200KB/sec of data, and that's no easy feat in a multitasking environment, especially if you have a slow harddisk and/or fragmented image file...

 

[Alexvrb]

Adjustable buffer. In Nero this is called "Ultrabuffer". File -> preferences -> ultrabuffer. Besides, if your PC is terribly stressed by 7-8 MB/sec average transfers (doesnt even have to be constant with the buffer), you've got other issues. So mostly it comes down to the other things discussed, like burner quality, media quality, and the system that is going to be reading the disc.

 

[BooBoo02]

Originally posted by Tindo@heart@May 2, 2003 @ 02:26 PM

Does burn speeds affect FMV quality?

Another thing that may screw framerate and audio (only happens in some games with FMV) is if you convert an NTSC game to Pal like i have had to do in the past. The audio goes out of syc and stutters , the video is somewhat choppy or slow. No matter how slow you burn the cd you will always have this trouble because of timing isues between ntsc(60Hz) and pal(50Hz).

 

[Taelon]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@May 26, 2003 @ 01:01 AM

Adjustable buffer. In Nero this is called "Ultrabuffer". File -> preferences -> ultrabuffer. Besides, if your PC is terribly stressed by 7-8 MB/sec average transfers (doesnt even have to be constant with the buffer), you've got other issues.

Your point?

Don't you think the buffer underrun situation is a valid point? Care to comment on that, please? Not everyone has a fast computer to go with a fast burner, or has the knowledge to ensure nothing is running in the background that slows things down.

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by Taelon+May 26, 2003 @ 03:49 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Taelon @ May 26, 2003 @ 03:49 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-Alexvrb@May 26, 2003 @ 01:01 AM

Adjustable buffer. In Nero this is called "Ultrabuffer". File -> preferences -> ultrabuffer. Besides, if your PC is terribly stressed by 7-8 MB/sec average transfers (doesnt even have to be constant with the buffer), you've got other issues.

Your point?

Don't you think the buffer underrun situation is a valid point? Care to comment on that, please? Not everyone has a fast computer to go with a fast burner, or has the knowledge to ensure nothing is running in the background that slows things down. [/b][/quote]

Valid, sure, if it happened. You don't need a modern machine to do it. What I'm saying is that all the other points are more likely. The rare burnproof hiccup shouldn't cause consistant degredation of FMV quality, whereas burning on cheap media with a shoddy burner at high speed might very well (or just make it unreadable to the console).