DV-Tool Help

DV-Tool
by CM of the Muscle Soft Crew
This document was last updated 29^th May 2000. « Contents

What is DVtool?
Functions
Version history, what's new
Legal stuff and how to contact the author.

« What is DVtool?

DVtool is a program coded by me primarily for me. I decided to release it to the DVD community because I felt it might also be useful to others.
In the process of dealing with video files, DVDs, video capturing and other stuff I had to face some tasks that were either very complicated to do or even impossible with the software equipment I had.
So I implemented DVtool, which should help me with these tasks. The program is multithreaded and uses a ring buffer for file-io. This should make it VERY FAST.

« What functions does DVtool provide?

show information about an inserted DVD

DVtool shows the size of the files and chapters of a DVD and how many CDs you would need if you wanted to rip them.

support for single files from anywhere or DVD discs either in your drive or copied to a harddisc

analyses VOB files for

audio and video streams
video dimensions, aspect ratio, frame rate, CSS & Macrovision protection and region codes

This module has been rewritten and extended to analyse .vob files.

calculate necessary video data rates

When you want to capture or convert a video you need to know what data rate you must use in order for the video to fit on your storage medium. There is also a ratio calculator that you can use to experiment with cropping but keep an aspect ratio like 16:9.

DVtool's data rate calculator lets you input

the size of your output medium (more than one disc per video or more than one video per disc is also possible)
the audio data rate you wish to use (uncompressed PCM or compressed formats like MP3)
the length of the film material
other optional settings in advanced mode

After that it calculates every needed parameter for AVI (e.g. MPEG4 codec) or MPEG output like

video data rate and system data rate in Kbit and kByte, per second and per frame
the resulting bitstream sizes for audio, video and system streams
the film length converted between PAL, NTSC and Cinema

This module has again been redesigned for much easier use but it still contains and advanced mode for experienced users.

truncate, clone, split and merge files

You can truncate a large file at a given size so it fits on a storage medium.

You can clone any part of a file (e.g. 10 MB of a 100 MB file starting at offset 50 MB) to another file

You can split a large file into many small ones of a size that you select. So you can fit a large file on multiple storage media.

You can merge any files together into one file. These files can be ones you previously split or you could for instance concatenate hundreds of .html files to print them out as one document.

You can merge and split files in one go, e.g. if you have 5 files you could split them into 3 files of a different size, without the temporary storage you would need if you first merged and then splitted them

All functions are now DVD aware, i.e. you can split DVD .vob files at legal place so they are still playable

All functions use a ring buffer and should thus be very fast.

During copying there is a benchmark telling you the throughput speed and the time remaining.

All functions now support CRC32 calculation.

This feature has been redesigned for version 0.11 and has been widely extended since then.

execute user configured (commandline) tools

This module provides a solution for commandline tool you often use and that require many and/or cryptic parameters.

In the user tools module you can create profiles for such tools and do the following:

give any parameter a name describing its function
make parameters optional or require them, on execution you can enable/disable them at the click of a button
comfortably browse for filenames you want to use as parameters
set default values for all parameters, so you don't have to input the same stuff over and over again

users can submit their favourite profiles to me so I might include them in newer versions

currently in pre-alpha state and still not ready for public testing

automatic shutdown

I often use a computer to do tasks that take a very long time, sometimes days. Now sometimes I can only work at the computer one day a week. When there is a task that only takes about 48 hours I would like to shut the machine down after it has finished. So I wrote a program that monitors the computer and when CPU load is below a certain percentage for a certain amount of time it switches the machine off.

There is an easy to use one-button mode, but you can also click the advanced tab to have exact control over testing intervals, required idle time and other parameters

This feature has been implemented. It is not perfect, but it has been confirmed to work.

« Version history

What is to come ?

user tools module will be implemented

online help is implemented but needs contents

program settings will be remembered

more modules might be included

Version 0.21

(public release, 30th May 2000)

I fixed some bugs all over the proggy and tried to unify colors, font faces and sizes. Thanks for pointing some nasty stuff out, Diamond!

Data rate calculator

some new graphics and rearranged some panels
fixed silly exceptions in advanced mode (e.g. when clicking MP3/WAV radio buttons)
added support for multilanguage AVIs (multiple audio tracks)
added cool PAL/NTSC/Cinema film length computation!
added compression ratio display

File Processor

CRC32 computation is finally implemented, there is a new radio button for just calculating this checksum and it is available as an option for every processing function
file processing display in status line is now kept after processing is finished, CRC32 is also displayed there
fixed and improved some other issues here and there...

DVD backup

replaced the old cheesy DVDinfo module by a new powerful DVD analyser and backup module
provides all functions the old DVDinfo did and more
support for single files from anywhere or DVD discs either in your drive or copied to a harddisc
analyses VOB files for
- audio and video streams
- video dimensions, aspect ratio, frame rate, CSS & Macrovision protection and region codes
nice graphics illustrate the number of discs required to backup a title

online help is now implemented but it still lacks the texts. Would you like to help me?

Version 0.19b2 (public alpha version, 02nd May 2000)

I cleaned several things up but this is still an alpha version since many features I have planned are still not implemented. I decided to release it since the last release was almost 4 months ago and there are so many users who ask me about a new release. Please comment on this release!!!

User tools module has been disabled due to its pre-alpha status

CRC calculation has been disabled since it's awfully buggy

WWW links have been updated to my new homepage and mail address (old ones are still valid, though)

Version 0.19bx (internal development version, 03rd Apr 2000)

data rate calculator has again been redesigned from scratch but 0.18 version is still available as additional information text for experienced users

the new data rate calculator introduces the following:

as few input fields as possible in order to be easy to use
powerful features can be accessed by clicking the advanced sliderbar
movie length hours input has gone, use minutes instead
more destination media defaults such as VideoCDs, different CD-Rs, ...
huge output of computer bitrate, color coded (red = too low .. green = good)
graphical display of video and audio stream and how they each contribute to the file size
more audio encoding formats, seperated by compressed / uncompressed in advanced mode
PAL and NTSC framerate mode (advanced settings)
AVI / MPEG mode (advanced settings)

the file processor has been tuned

performance has again been increased
number of buffers and buffer sizes have been further optimized
reduced HDD head movement in non-parallel mode increases throughput on some systems
there are still improvements to be made

shutdown module fully working
- There was a silly bug in the shutdown module where DVtool wouldn't shut the PC down but only log off. This has been fixed. Thanks to all of you who wrote me emails about the bug.
- On shutdown exit animation and testing thread are switched off as they could cause strange behaviour if testing interval is very small.

Version 0.18bx (internal development version, 23rd Jan 2000)

output of data rate calculator has been fully redesigned

no misleading seperation between AVI and MPEG output anymore
should be much easier to understand now
total sizes of video, audio and system stream are computed

the file processor has been improved

CRC32 computation added (see features section for an explanation)
LEDs for read/write have been redesigned and a CRC computation dot has been added
you can now also enter values in KB, MB or GB (enter number and press multiply button)
remaining time estimation has finally been fixed and should now work correctly
you can disable parallel I/O, i.e. reading and writing at the same time, which might be faster if you have only one harddisk
starting offsets >2GB now work for cloning (seek function doesn't support it, so I have to read ahead when above 2GB)
DVD splitting function has been verified to work so warning message could be removed, when you have problems you should increase/decrease the starting offset a little bit

reviewed and fixed tools tips and tabulator behaviour all over the program

Version 0.17b3 (public alpha and bugfix release, 12th Jan 2000)

This version is alpha and contains much new and unfinished stuff. I released it only for two reasons:

Version 0.11 had a small bug: It sometimes doesn't automatically insert "?" wildcards in the output filename for splitting which are needed as placeholders for the files being created.
I have to stop development of DVtool in favour of other projects for about 6 weeks and I don't want to leave you alone with the bug above. Thanks to all users who sent me mail pointing the issue out!

The textline with the weblinks has been replaced by some nifty buttons.

You can display online help, but there is no content, yet. This function is implemented by now.

try the context menu (right mouse click) which is also alternatively accessible via the "other tools" button

A new module "USER TOOLS" was introduced which allows to execute custom commandline tools. You can set parameters, give them names, descriptions, default values,... When you have pre-configured a tools you can re-use the profile over and over again and change dynamic settings with a few mouse clicks. Wonder where it is? It's pre-alpha quality so I haven't included it.

some bug fixes and improvements have been made in the file processor

There are several ways to display progress now (2 different graphical displays, 1 text-only)
Status line now displays required parameters if they are not sufficient.
The correct number of wildcards ("?") is automatically inserted into the output filemask if there is more than 1 output file (splitting mode)
Speed was increased dramatically by optimizations, extensive tests and a smart load ballancing algorithm. As a side effect you can no longer configure process priority yourself.
There is now a stop button which allows you to cancel file processing.
You can now exit the program during file processing. You will be asked if you want to proceed and then the processes will be terminated.
There are now some small LEDs shining through the start/stop button. The green one is on during reading, the red one signals writing.
There is a known bug: there might be a floatingpoint error in the status function. I will fix this in the next version.

There is a lame fade out effect on program exit.

the shutdown module has been improved here and there

Version 0.11 (public release)

I finally redesigned the file processing GUI from scratch, it should be much easier to use now

some minor design improvements and bug fixes in all modules

you can now split & merge DVD files (.vob) at legal place

you can now split & merge files in one go, e.g. if you have 8 files of 1 GB each and you want 13 files of 700 MB each in the end

great effort has been undertaken to make sure DVtool can deal with files >2GB

Known bug: graphical progress bar flickers badly. Contact me if you know how to fix this.

Version 0.10ßx (several internal alpha releases)

silly NT "ignore" issue still exists but doesn't happen at program start

files >2 GB are now properly handled (some controls couldn't handle 64bit numbers)

you can now process files directly from DVD or other write protected drives

you can set the process priority for all actions

remaining time is now calculated more accurately

there are some nifty new graphics

Version 0.09ß (public beta release)

all modules were revised and extended, everything should be much easier to use now

fixed issue that made you click "Ignore" upon program startup for every empty drive on Windows NT

DVD-info has been redesigned

destination media size can be chosen
you can now browse for video files
hard disks can be excluded from search
several other improvements

data rate calculator has been fully redesigned

input controls have been grouped to make their function more evident
you can change fps
now takes into account that video data rate has to be slightly below (system - audio) for MPEG

benchmarking and other improvements for truncate, clone, join and split functions

shutdown function fully implemented

executable size was reduced

Version 0.05 (internal beta)

extended data rate calculator

fixed a serious bug in splitting function

truncate, clone, join and split functions fully working

video player made invisible because of its early status

about-Panel removed

this html help file was introduced

web links available for easy access to local help and my homepage

Version 0.04 (public alpha release)

data rate calculator was extended

you can use truncate and clone functions

split function is made available but has bugs

join function not available

video player visible but not usable

Version 0.02 (internal alpha)

first version of the data rate calculator is working

rudimentary DVD info is available

« Legal stuff and how to contact the author

My homepage
I have a new homepage at our own Musclesoft site now. The URL is http://www.musclesoft.de/~combatman/. You will now find updates of DVtool there more frequently. If you like you can still visit my old pages at http://privat.schlund.de/m/muscle. They haven't been updated for some time but you might find interesting source code, some software, a nice Java Tutorial and other stuff there. Check it out!

How to contact me per email
If you want to report bugs, contribute anything to the DVtool project or have something else interesting to say feel free to send me an e-mail to cm@musclesoft.de. Please don't care about style, I am a very easy-going person. You can (of course) write in German or English.

Legal Disclaimer
You may use this program as written in the license provided below, if you accept the following legal statement.
I will not be liable for any damage caused by this program. As it deals also with file processing, data loss is theoretically possible, although not intended by me.
You may not use this program for illegal stuff. This program can, as a side effect, be very useful e.g. for processing files from a DVD, which is illegal if you don't have the permission to process these files. If you do something illegal, that's not my fault.
The program itself does nothing illegal, nor does it decode CSS decryption or other such stuff.

License
This program is donationware, i.e. it is uncrippled and free as long as you don't use it in a commercial way. If you like the program, use it often, want it to be developed and extended further or use it commercially then I ask you to send me a donation of any kind. This might be some money or a copy of a software you are developing. Please contact me via e-mail to cm@musclesoft.de.