Happy halloween ;)

VobSub 2.02 contains some additional fixes for 16bbp desktops and zoomplayer.

SubCreator 1.0 is a subtitle creation/editing tool with online preview. Azid/Lame GUI 0.3b13 fixes tooLame's quick mode switch to -q, adds batch mode suppot to expert mode, changed the profile saving method, all comman lines are saved in the profile file and command line parsing for loading new profiles has been added. The IVTC plugin for avisynth v2.10 adds a decimate function, fixes some bugs in the IVTC code and the deinterlace should be more reliable now. Compact Disc Autorun 2.1 is UPX compressed, the exe optimized for low size and some tooltips have been fixed.

DigitalInsanity has a nice test of the various DivX players out there.

Well, this time Creative delivered on time. XP drivers for SBLive and Audigy cards are out now. It's good to see that they've improved since the W2K driver disaster.

About my hardware: I got many suggestions, but suggesting all kind of different things. I went with dvd2svcd's suggestion: Re-assemble everything, starting with re-seating the CPU and the RAM modules and then adding component by component. That took many TV breaks to let the PC cool off, but I have it down to one still not attached case fan, otherwise it's working so far.

VobSub 2.00 has its own installer, completely rewritten buffer code (should work on W9x.. but smart users don't use that kind of OS;), you can turn on OSD statistics of the state of this buffer, transparency of shadows in SSA is supported, scaling of subs can be adjusted for both directions separately and the missing last line bug was fixed. VCDImager 0.7.11 fixes a subheader bug, is more tolerant when ripping faulty PBCs, has a leadout pregap option andt the libxml2 external entity loader has been fixed (and if you're wondering what the hell that means you're in good company). DVD2SVCD 1.0.3 build 5 adds support for ripping single chapters from the DVD, fixed the CD overlapping bug when using 2 audio streams, it's possible to select upper field first and progressive in CCE, the GOP sequence has changed for PAL titles and madplay is used for mp2 to wav (for DVDs containing mp2 audio.. and PVA stuff). The Newbie Reference and Advanced Reference for the program has also been updated. TSCV 0.74rel2 has a direct burn function, Mplex functions are tested and working, the menu generator can make slideshows, select chapter menus, select chapter zoom in menus, chapters can be placed onto several menu pages, there's a preview for the motion menu generator, the motion menu generator has preview and other new functions, a dummy frame is appended to motion menus to prevent playback problems on some players and the design has changed a bit. What hasn't changed is that they still don't put the changelog into the readme file :(

Now on a personal note: Anybody has any idea why after transporting my pc from place A to B, when the PC hasn't been on for a while I start it, once Windows is started the pc makes a low volume high pitch noise, and after a few minutes the PC freezes. If I simply restart the PC again before it freezes everything works. Reinstalling OS and re-assembling the PC didn't help.. Has anybody ever experienced a similar thing? I thought I'd ask before I start switching part for part again.

All I have for you today is a bugfix for the avisynth IVTC plugin.

I've also made a few small changes to the XP article. Basically it concerns drivers (a lot of stuff was released yesterday) and a bit more about legacy hardware. There has been quite some confusion about my hardware suggestion. Many people were assuming that XP requires a 1GHz CPU to run properly which is not accurate. All the hardware talk in the XP article is for a good ripping machine and that has nothing to do with operating systems. XP works perfectly well on a CPU below 1 GHz.

Zoom Player 2.1 adds support for older operating systems (NT4, etc), has improved playlists, manual filter insertion capabilities, per-media definition files, better installer and much more. FuBatch 0.9 changes the way FuBatch moves from screen to screen to prevent freezes, adds a sleep option to the Nandub section, adds some more information to the log file, changed the button options to not be required in the FU section and fixed a big with the nandub comments.

Since today is the day where Windows XP is officially released and I've tested the new OS for the last 2 months I wrote an article about whether you should consider upgrading. It also contains some advice if you plan on getting a new system. That doesn't mean that I'll do the job of hardware sites in the future, just a few general recommendations.

Finally. I'm out of bed for good (hopefully, feeling awfully tired after an 8h school day) and the power cut has been resolved. People, respect your power companies, if they threaten to cut the power pay your bills... or you'll be in for a candles and flashlight session as we were last night. Strangely enough nobody can remember having seen any reminders to pay that 2 year old bill...

MaestroSBT 1.0.1.4 changed the bitmapt output to always give even witdths, some rederning dialog checkboxes have been corrected and the about box displays the correct version now. There's a new build of the DivX 4.02 codec which now plays videos not having a width that's a multiple of 16. Then there's the new IVTC plugin for Avisynth: It doesn't need the doubleweave command anymore, it detects reversed field orders and a deinterlace function that only matches fields and doesn't change the framerate has been added.

Azid/lame GUI 0.3 b12 uses the target drive to save the info for "find max gain" and adds an option to delete the temporary wave file when doing ac3 -> mp2/3.

Also.. don't forget about yesterday's late addition: DivX 4.02.

DVDx 1.6 adds chapter support, integrated AVI multiplexer, support for audio codecs and easier splitting by size. As many people keep asking about how to play back mpeg2 files I've added the Elecard MPEG Video decoder filters. These are trial codecs which have a small logo in the right corner but that should be enough to preview your SVCDS.

And along with the lastest DVDx I have written a DVDx guide. At the moment it covers VCD and SVCD creation using the built-in encoder. AVI encoding (please give is some better resizing and cropping..) and the use of premiere plugins will be covered at a later date.

DivX 4.02 contains many DivX3 playback related fixes, better post processing algorithms resulting in better looking edges and last but not least it's up to 20% faster than the previous release so it should now definitely be at least up to par with DivX3 when it comes to encoding speed.

Just lost a bunch of emails when the PC crashed just after I had downloaded all new mails. After the reset the mails were gone for good :( So basically everything you sent my way within the last 12 hours or so are gone..

Then I have a couple AMD optimized iDCT plugins for FlaskMpeg. I don't know if they bring any speed increase (don't use flask anymore) but you may want to try them out.

MaestroSBT 1.0.1.3 adds support for I-Author, changed the bitmap file format from 8bit to 4bit, added a fixed width option, changed the bitmap palette to match expected colors when parsing for I-Author, added support for different bitmap resolutions.

We still have more than 100 people in the waiting list for forum account activation. Check your inboxes, I should've sent out an activation email to everyone.

DVD2SVCD 1.0.3build4 fixes the broken IVTC, Y position of the subs, random chapte selection when using vcdxbuild and a bug in the video info procedure when using PVA streams. Internal d2v creation has been disabled (not stable) and NTSC2PAL no longer uses TMPG.

On the forum side we have more good news: The auto-emailer works again and I sent out the activation emails to all the users who didn't get it manually. So, check your inboxes ;)

And finally, after replacing some bad ram and running the d-base fix again we now have a working board. You can reach it via the forum link on the left side. Unfortunately I can't change the forum.doom9.net redirect, for some reasons Namezero (they host the domain doom9.net) won't accept me putting http://rilanparty.com/vbb in the forward for forum.doom9.net, it will rather forward to the main page of rilanparty.com which isn't really the point.

Azid/lame GUI 3b8 adds a manual command line textbox. HeadAC3he 0.14pre adds basic CLI support, multiple .ini file suport and multichannel output.

Still no working board. I'm beginning to regret having spent money on vbb. At first sight it looked good but now I have problems without end.

Azid/Lame GUI 0.3b7 includes an SSRC GUI, WaveBooster GUI, tooLame GUI, the batch mode supports the use of the new programs and has improved batch mode setup. I've also added the latest build of the Ogg ACM, though I have no changelog there as I don't speak Japanese.

No new software today but some good news: We have a new forum. It can be reached via the old URLs, the old forum is still available via forum2.doom9.net but I suggest you use the new one as it's much nicer. We have all the old posts, no ads whatsoever, no popups, and a lot of nice new features. Many thanks to all the people involved, especially all those willing to setup the forum and to provide the hosting. IMPORTANT UPDATE: ATM the board is shut off. We're re-indexing everything in order to have the search function work properly and if you have the board running during a re-indexing you get database inconsistencies resulting in these mysql errors some of you have already gotten. The forum will be back online as soon as the re-index is done (takes a while though I'm afraid, I hope you can live without the board for so long).

To those who already made a contribution: The new forum is just an example of your money well spent, wouldn't you agree? And to those who haven't... keep in mind that the forum wasn't free, neither is the 2 year domain hosting extension I'm about to get.

And, a few computer hardware news again. Finally after all these months the hardware I got is working as it's supposed to. When I called the store and told them about my problem the only told me to call the $3/min helpline and so despite my dislike of these kind of rip-off services I called and guess what, took them like 2 questions to figure out what was wrong. It turns out that there's an incompatibility between the board and the memory modules I had (or rather.. the chips on the modules). It works if you have 1 module, but not if you have 2, though if you only run them at 200mhz it works just fine. So I went back to the store and got 2 new modules with other chips on them and now it works just fine. And while I was there I also picked up a Pioneer DVD-116. Finally I can rip faster. And the Pioneer DVD tool they have on the firmware page is really nice, I was able to flash the drive without any reboot or changing any settings.

Programmers must have been watching CNN all day today as we don't have much news: There's a new DivX4 Bitrate calc that has a reorganized GUI, it's now possible to enter the audio size and all settings are saved in an ini file. Then I've added 2 DVD2SVCD references which describe all the options in DVD2SVCD that are configurable, so if you don't see why a particular value has to be like described in the guide you might give it a shot. There's the newbie version and the advanced version, pick whichever better fits your needs.

After spending another $210 for things related to this page I think the time has come to kick off the contribution page. It's getting increasingly difficult to run this page when I have to pay for everything on my own. If on one single day every person to visit this page would make a donation I'd be set for a long while. If you think I'm just being greedy please check out the contribution page and then make up your mind. Thanks in advance.

Wow.. contributions are coming in already. Thanks a lot guys. There's been some concern about Kagi and people have suggested to use Paypal instead. There's several people I know using Kagi and they didn't have any problems with the service. Furthermore, I do have a Paypal account, but the problem is, you can either use the money sent to your Paypal account for sites associated with Paypal (and there's no online shop I use which works together with Paypal) or wire the money to an US bank account. Now as you can imagine it's a bit hard to get an US bank account if you can't go there and don't have an US social security number. I got a Paypal account before I got the Kagi account only to find out that there was no way for me to actually get to the money so I went to Kagi instead. If Paypal ever revises their ways of transfer money I'll make Paypal an alternative option. Sorry for the inconvenience.

DVDx 1.5a fixes the crackling audio bug when using premiere plugins and adds a dolby surround downmix flag. FUBatch 0.8 has a html helpfile, its own logfile and it uses ssrc for better sampling rate conversion.

DVD Decrypter 3.0.0.8 adds vob merging, splitting, program settings will be preserved in new versions, duration has been added to the log and timekeeping within the program is more accurate. Smart Ripper 2.36 fixes the cannot change visible in onshow or onhide bug. WaveBooster 0.21 waits a sec to let you read error messages and is now officially called WaveBooster (without the CLI;). DVD2SVCD 1.03b3 fixes the bugs in the bitrate table, fixes the titlepicture/changeCD picture not showing bug, adds support for reversed field order DVDs, manually editing avs should now work properly, adds temporal smoother support, crash recovery now recovers the pictures and subs and stream number discrepancies between VOBs and IFOs have been resolved.

And another thing: Blacksun needs some help coordinating the French translation as he's quite busy with his player. Any volunteers?

MaestroSBT is a tool that converts ssa scripts to bitmaps and a subtitle script that can be used in Maestro. Which reminds me that I have no Maestro guide. Anybody up for the task? BSPlayer 0.84RC4 has so many changes that I won't even start to list them.

And btw, sorry about the confusion in yesterday's news. Of course you do not have to use Xmpeg to use the video server plugin, it works with any flask version.

Subviewer is an AVI player that plays pretty much every subtitle format there is. Kmdvdrun is another MDVDP laucher that automatically checks for installed MDVDP and codecs.

I've been working with Xmpeg a bit more and have found a solution for yesterday's problem. I have now updated all the Flask based (S)VCD encoding guides that use a standalone encoder. Using Xmpeg and the new videoserver plugin you can even use CCE 2.62 now, but only when your decoder is Xmpeg. The FlaskMpeg plugin based (S)VCD guides will be updated as soon as I have some more time. The TMPG guide is also based on the latest TMPG release. I've also resurrected the SVCD pack. As you undoubtedly know by now I can no longer distribute TMPG on the site so the rippack requires that you get TMPG separately. I apologize for the inconvenience but there's nothing I can do, the license bars anyone from offering TMPG on their site.

Last but not least we have DVD Decrypter 3.0.0.6 which includes some more stability fixes (basically Lightning tries everything to make the prog crash and then tries to prevent this from happening ;), the source device selection is now saved, there are some minor GUI changes and other bugfixes.