Searching for Sherlock Holmes - Consulting Detective CDTV - Page 5

viddi · 03 April 2007, 16:25

Okay. I hope we´ll find a solution...

musashi5150 · 03 April 2007, 17:01

If I could borrow an original I'd be quite happy to try and extract all the datafiles using a CDTV and then rebuild an imagefriendly disc.

thor · 03 April 2007, 17:19

I could lend you mine (as long as I get it back in the same condition

) Would save me trying to image it over a sernet cable.

musashi5150 · 03 April 2007, 17:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by thor

Would save me trying to image it over a sernet cable.

That's exactly what I was going to do

But I'd still be happy to do it if you don't fancy the job.

thor · 03 April 2007, 17:36

Ah, ok

HD equipped one would be better, but as I indeed don't fancy to do that myself, feel free to do so. Maybe you could investigate on the cause of the problem while you have it. PM your address, I will send it later this week.

viddi · 03 April 2007, 17:38

Hey, sounds great. Thanks and good luck

musashi5150 · 03 April 2007, 18:49

Fingers crossed

fisken uno · 03 April 2007, 19:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by thor

I could lend you mine (as long as I get it back in the same condition

) Would save me trying to image it over a sernet cable.

Sounds like a good idea. I will, however, take a look at the image with Isobuster when the download is finished (in a few minutes) because I still think that there MUST be a way to fix it... But if there isn't then imaging the disc or extracting the data on a real CDTV/CD32 is the only way I guess (and a foolproof one at that).

BTW I think you can safely say that the problem must be the one Toni suggested: Master errors that weren't discovered because the CDTV drive ignores them.

fisken uno · 03 April 2007, 21:43

Just thought I'd let y'all know that after having burnt the image with the "protected game" profile of Alcohol 120% it SEEMS to work on my CD32. It certainly gets by the ICOM logo and onto the main menu. However, it only works with a mouse (or so the game tells me when using the joypad!) and I still ain't got one (will hopefully receive an Amiga rollerball tomorrow) so I'm afraid I can't test it much further but it certainly does look hopeful! Perhaps the "unreadable" tracks are in some strange format that Windoes doesn't understand how to make sense of, but the CD32/CDTV drive does? CDRWin tells me they're in CDXA format but it cannot extract them. But who cares, if it works on the real thing this way?

viddi · 03 April 2007, 21:52

Please tell me where I can find this "protected game" profile setting.

fisken uno · 03 April 2007, 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by viddi

Please tell me where I can find this "protected game" profile setting.

First of all, I'm not even sure if you have to use the "protected game" profile... But what it does is basically to ignore read errors so I thought it'd be best to use it. Step by step instructions:

1) Launch Alcohol 120% (Duh!

)
2) Select the Image Burning Wizard from File menu (or press Ctrl+B)
3) Browse for the Sherlock mds file
4) From the dropdown menu on the bottom of the dialog (called Data Type) select General Protected CD.
5) Set Write Speed to as low as possible.
6) Press Start and wait for the burning session to finish.
7) Try it on your CD32!

fisken uno · 03 April 2007, 22:27

Hmms, while abusing the CD32 pad in the mouse port (lol!) I finally managed to click the introduction button - and I'm not sure if this is due to standard AGA incompatibility but on the next screen I get graphics corruption and weird colours. Apart from that, it seems to "work".

EDIT: Well, after having managed to click one of the chapters I can safely (and sadly) say that there indeed seems to be a major problem reading the CDXL animations... Don't know about the rest of the chapters but the drive just keeps reading the disc for the first chapter's animation. Bummer.

retrosale.co.uk · 04 April 2007, 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by fisken uno

I can safely (and sadly) say that there indeed seems to be a major problem reading the CDXL animations...

Sorry folks, though I wasn't particularly optimistic about it working tbh ...

fisken uno · 04 April 2007, 02:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by retrosale.co.uk

Sorry folks, though I wasn't particularly optimistic about it working tbh ...

Well, it's funny because I don't believe ICOM had any intentions to put a copy protection on this disc (since people didn't have burners at home back then) but somehow this seems to work just like modern Audio CD protections the way I see it. In case you didn't know there are these funny little protections called Cactus Data Shield (CDS) and the like that confuse PC drives because of mastered errors on the discs that make the TOCs appear all messed up on some drives. Some drives handle them a lot better though. What makes me mention this is because I noticed that the first of the two audio track seems to report read errors at the start. If you ignore these errors the audio data is all there. So, the data at the beginning is probably the end of the last video track - and it reports as errors because the drive tries to understand it as audio data.

Mastering errors or simply non-standard layout of the disc... I'm not sure. But I do know that the first track (the data track) seems perfectly usable and so do the audio tracks (except for the read errors in the first of them, but these are easily ignored). The PROBLEM is the CDXL video tracks... Now, is there any soft for the Amiga that lets you extract several tracks and create a TOC (cue) file? This MAY be the only option to make this game work. Or perhaps an old PC CD drive? Some older drives can actually rip the protected Audio CDs I mentioned earlier because they won't be disturbed by the errors.

Back to square one I guess? *sigh*

musashi5150 · 04 April 2007, 09:14

Video tracks... Yuch... that could be a problem. Still, I'll do my best with it when thor's disc arrives. Meanwhile if you guys all want to keep your thinking caps on then that'd be good.

fisken uno · 04 April 2007, 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by musashi5150

Video tracks... Yuch... that could be a problem. Still, I'll do my best with it when thor's disc arrives. Meanwhile if you guys all want to keep your thinking caps on then that'd be good.

After some reading up on the net I can only assume that the problem must be the CD-XA tracks, yes. It seems that CD-XA is some "extended" standard (called green book instead of red book?) and combines data with video/audio data. Now, iirc Cannon Fodder also contains a CD-XA track but perhaps the reason this disc gives us trouble is because it combines 1 Mode1 Data Track, 3 Mode2 (CD-XA) Extended Tracks and 2 Standard Audio Tracks? I know for sure that non-standard order of different tracktypes can confuse drives. For example if you'd put an audio track BEFORE a data track your PC drive would get very confused - but such discs exist and work on some drives.

thor · 07 April 2007, 13:57

Have sent the game to musashi today.

viddi · 07 April 2007, 16:07

Danke, thor!

musashi5150 · 07 April 2007, 16:36

I'll do my best

viddi · 07 April 2007, 16:49

...and thanks, musashi5150

03 April 2007, 22:27	#92
fisken uno Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Sweden Age: 43 Posts: 716	Hmms, while abusing the CD32 pad in the mouse port (lol!) I finally managed to click the introduction button - and I'm not sure if this is due to standard AGA incompatibility but on the next screen I get graphics corruption and weird colours. Apart from that, it seems to "work". EDIT: Well, after having managed to click one of the chapters I can safely (and sadly) say that there indeed seems to be a major problem reading the CDXL animations... Don't know about the rest of the chapters but the drive just keeps reading the disc for the first chapter's animation. Bummer. Last edited by fisken uno; 03 April 2007 at 22:41.

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03 April 2007, 16:25	#81
viddi Moderator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Age: 44 Posts: 4,007	Okay. I hope we´ll find a solution...

03 April 2007, 17:01	#82
musashi5150 move.w #$4489,$dff07e Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Norfolk, UK Age: 42 Posts: 2,351	If I could borrow an original I'd be quite happy to try and extract all the datafiles using a CDTV and then rebuild an imagefriendly disc.

03 April 2007, 17:19	#83
thor Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 899	I could lend you mine (as long as I get it back in the same condition ) Would save me trying to image it over a sernet cable.

03 April 2007, 17:36	#85
thor Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 899	Ah, ok HD equipped one would be better, but as I indeed don't fancy to do that myself, feel free to do so. Maybe you could investigate on the cause of the problem while you have it. PM your address, I will send it later this week.

03 April 2007, 17:38	#86
viddi Moderator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Age: 44 Posts: 4,007	Hey, sounds great. Thanks and good luck

03 April 2007, 18:49	#87
musashi5150 move.w #$4489,$dff07e Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Norfolk, UK Age: 42 Posts: 2,351	Fingers crossed

03 April 2007, 21:43	#89
fisken uno Zone Friend Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Sweden Age: 43 Posts: 716	Just thought I'd let y'all know that after having burnt the image with the "protected game" profile of Alcohol 120% it SEEMS to work on my CD32. It certainly gets by the ICOM logo and onto the main menu. However, it only works with a mouse (or so the game tells me when using the joypad!) and I still ain't got one (will hopefully receive an Amiga rollerball tomorrow) so I'm afraid I can't test it much further but it certainly does look hopeful! Perhaps the "unreadable" tracks are in some strange format that Windoes doesn't understand how to make sense of, but the CD32/CDTV drive does? CDRWin tells me they're in CDXA format but it cannot extract them. But who cares, if it works on the real thing this way?

03 April 2007, 21:52	#90
viddi Moderator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Age: 44 Posts: 4,007	Please tell me where I can find this "protected game" profile setting.

04 April 2007, 09:14	#95
musashi5150 move.w #$4489,$dff07e Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Norfolk, UK Age: 42 Posts: 2,351	Video tracks... Yuch... that could be a problem. Still, I'll do my best with it when thor's disc arrives. Meanwhile if you guys all want to keep your thinking caps on then that'd be good.

07 April 2007, 13:57	#97
thor Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 899	Have sent the game to musashi today.

07 April 2007, 16:07	#98
viddi Moderator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Age: 44 Posts: 4,007	Danke, thor!

07 April 2007, 16:36	#99
musashi5150 move.w #$4489,$dff07e Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Norfolk, UK Age: 42 Posts: 2,351	I'll do my best

07 April 2007, 16:49	#100
viddi Moderator Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Germany Age: 44 Posts: 4,007	...and thanks, musashi5150

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