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Old 2005-04-09, 10:12 AM
wazoo2u wazoo2u is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Re: PAR2 File Creation Options

Quote:
Originally Posted by RainDawg
You do not need to .rar these. Back in the days of par1, dealing with files of varying sizes was very poor, and so people were forced to make multivolume .rar files to make everything the same size. This is no longer needed.
Either I'm missing something here, or you misunderstood my point. My premise is that PAR files (of any flavor) need to be AT LEAST as large as the data set they are replacing. PAR1 had a disadvantage because you needed PAR files that were AT LEAST the size of the biggest file in the set. PAR2 requires that you only need to replace the data that is missing.

Unfortunately, If you have a bad DVD, and your reader cannot extract a certain file AT ALL, then you will need enough PAR blocks to re-create the entire file. Since .VOB files are generally over 1 gigabyte, then you are instantly forcing yourself to create (assuming 4+gig DVD total) a 25% redundancy, just to recreate a missing VOB. If we were downloading this from Usenet, we could assemble a partial file, and possibly only require a few PAR2 blocks, but in a "bad sector read" scenario, we MIGHT need much more. I'll agree that a damaged VOB MIGHT be partially recoverable using programs like CDRoller or CDExtract, in which case you might need less blocks.

So the reason I recommended RAR archives was an attempt to minimize the potential data loss if there was damaged and unrecoverable files. Given the fact that you would need to create far less PAR2 blocks, the creation of the RAR set shouldn't be a huge difference in the time it would take to create the total archive (I think). BTW, I do NONE of this. I simply burn a backup DVD and hope for the best. If I lose it, it's a rock and roll show... not a member of my family... (thank goodness).

It makes sense to me, now tell me why I'm wrong
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