DVDFab (UI/General) Two instances compete with each other...

[jwmcmann]

Today, for the first time, I have been ripping DVD's using two drives and two instances of the software. What I don't like is that both copies interfere with each other, when they start to automatically scan drives and then even though the second instance is in the middle of copying the disc, the first instance begins to scan that same disc. It slows down the copy process and even though I press cancel it takes a while to respond.

What I want is for you to add an option where it will read/scan only the current drive rather than all drives.

I also would like the ability to click a button and have it read the disc rather than having to wait for it to find it automatically. While not a long wait 20-30 seconds can seem like a long time... Maybe you wouldn't have to do this it DVD-Fab scanned just the one drive more often.

Just in case you would like to know I am a registered user and would really appreciate this as I have 300+ more discs to go...

Thanks for you attention and I really do like your software!

James McMann

[Complication]

+1 from me.

I now have 3 drives and the cancel thing is annoying. I'd rather have three different icons where the source drive is specified on the command line.

[W&B]

+1 here also. I would prefer having the option to disable autoscan and then selecting the source dropdown for the optical drive.

[jwmcmann]

Here Here

Excellent. I appreciate y'all seconding my request.

Jim McMann

[Joe Fission]

+1!!!

I know this is an old post already from a few months back, but rather than create a brand new thread on the subject, I must add my wholehearted support for this feature request.

I am also in the middle of backing up my DVD collection by using DVDFab to copy each disc to an ISO currently using 2 DVD drives. I, too, would like to see a feature that would lock an instance in to the currently selected source drive within that instance. I could then set one instance to use DVD drive #1 exclusively and a second instance to use DVD drive #2 exclusively. As it stands, I currently have to wait until both drives are completed reading their respective DVDs before swapping them out with others because it makes it extremely inconvenient when any new dvd inserted into any drive is automatically scanned by all open instances. I would like to add more drives to my system to be able to speed up copying my massive DVD collection (1400+ currently), but without a feature as outlined above, the inconvenience factor alone makes it not worthwhile.

I was hoping that maybe, by some coincidence, there might have been enough call for such a feature that it might have made it into version 8, but I guess not at this point.

[camparks]

Agreed - I love the fact I can run multiple instances. But, I have had to train myself to NOT select 'OK' when the "Process Completed Successfully" box pops up on one while the other is still going - otherwise the finished Fab window accesses the one still in process via autoscan of the drives.

I don't know how much, if any, that access while in process messes up the current backup, but I play it safe and just start that one over - I don't want anything out of sync or green boxes all over my screen for part of the movie...

[signals]

Don't know if it will help, but try setting one instance for ASPI, the other for SPTI I/O in Common Settings. It may not allow this, I've never tried it.

[Joe Fission]

I just tried to implement your solution Signals and DVDFab seems to really dislike me setting it to ASPI mode as it no longer wants to start up.... hrm... guess I'll have to try to revert it somehow.

EDIT: Uninstalling and reinstalling DVDFab works to reset the read mode. And as for setting one instance to ASPI and another to SPTI, while I was able to set an instance to SPTI, setting another to ASPI makes it not want to start up again (and changing the I/O setting prompts you to restart DVDFab for the new setting to take effect.... so there's no getting around restarting it).

However what I have tried that has worked in the past was running each instance of DVDFab in a separate virtual machine that is given access to only a specific DVD drive. I used VirtualBox mainly because it's free for home use and just created a few Windows XP VMs. Each was assigned access to a specific physical DVD drive so it only knew about the drive it was given and would not attempt to read any others.

The problem with this method is that it's much more inefficient and taxing on the system than simply running multiple instances of DVDFab... which is ultimately why I stopped doing it that way.

However, I've still got my fingers crossed that a more elegant solution might be able to be implemented in DVDFab in some future patch.

[TomSawyer999]

Yes. I agree. I was just wondering about this tonight.

Being a new user to DVDFab (under a year) and having burned about 100+ movies, I began to get the feel of it. I only recently changed over to Imgburn. This is good info., stuff I didn't even know about the way to do this (4 burners, soon to swap two to Blu Ray). I hope that the implementation to fix this feature will also apply to mix and match DVD formats (i.e., burining a blu Ray and DL at the same time). Right now it's 8.0.6.8 and I don't see any change yet (?). The scanning the drives part is justa bit long. Pentium IV.

Thanks so much. U guys rock!

Tom Sawyer Rickenbacker 99

[signals]

Joe
Does ASPI work if you have only a single instance? You may need an ASPI driver.

[maineman]

Firstly, this is a great feature requests and I'd love to see it implemented.

@signals
My recollection may be wrong, but when running Fab with I/O setting ASPI
and running with Win 7 64-bit, Fab will crash and fail to restart.
There is no way to change the SPTI/ASPI setting, without uninstalling and reinstalling the software; at least not that I could determine.

I'm not certain if this crash is reproduced with Win 7 32-bit

[Complication]

Being a new user to DVDFab (under a year) and having burned about 100+ movies, I began to get the feel of it. I only recently changed over to Imgburn. This is good info., stuff I didn't even know about the way to do this (4 burners, soon to swap two to Blu Ray). I hope that the implementation to fix this feature will also apply to mix and match DVD formats (i.e., burining a blu Ray and DL at the same time). Right now it's 8.0.6.8 and I don't see any change yet (?). The scanning the drives part is justa bit long. Pentium IV.

Just to be clear. I have only ever heard of someone trying to use multiple instances on the copy step from disc to the hard drive. Since you mentioned Imgburn, it sounds like you want multiple instances to burn a disc at the same time. Compressing and/or burning of a actual disc is still something that should be done single instance. Copying multiple discs to the hard drive makes it easy to setup a Ripper queue across multiple discs and save ware on the optical drives during compression.

[Blurayfan]

Firstly, this is a great feature requests and I'd love to see it implemented.

@signals
My recollection may be wrong, but when running Fab with I/O setting ASPI
and running with Win 7 64-bit, Fab will crash and fail to restart.
There is no way to change the SPTI/ASPI setting, without uninstalling and reinstalling the software; at least not that I could determine.

I'm not certain if this crash is reproduced with Win 7 32-bit

This can be chaged in the registry, by setting the IOType Key yourself with the included reg files. After renaming them by deleting the .txt from the files.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DVDFab\V8\DVD]

IOType = 00000000 is Auto
IOType = 00000002 is SPTI
IOType = 00000003 is ASPI