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General discussion

My answer to why Photo's get corrupted (verified)

Jun 26, 2010 3:02AM PDT

Test systems:
HP8100e AMD Athlon X64 dual core Vista Ultimate32 bit (SP2)
HP551w Intel P4 1.6Ghz XP Home SP2
HP8662C AMD Athlon 550Mhz Win 98 SE
Cameras: All Canon's model 620,720, 102IS, SX20IS

1)All camera's connected to computer via same USB cable
2)All pictures downloaded with ZoomBrowserEX (furnished by Canon)
3)All pictures with ZoomBrowser EX. Did not view them large scale. The pictures on the screen visually showed no corruption.
4)All pictures then viewed with Microsoft Picture Viewer
5)Step 4 repeated at least 5 times.

Results:
Corruption only happened with Vista. Corruption is permanent.
Although random, either the picture was overlayed with a masking color of either(blue/red/green). The mask was like you'd layered a tint wheel over parts of the picture. The second problem was shifting mid way, the right portion shifted down 2-3 pixels.
This corruption also happened to pictures dated as far back as 2001. I had attached an external drive (saved under Win98SE and XP) to the Vista machine to view my grandkids pictures.
Luckily most of those are on CD, so I can restore them.

This has been discussed on Microsoft's homepage as well.

Possible solution with Vista: Will experiment with Fileaze, thinking that changing the file attribute to "Read Only) immediately after the loadload process (Not viewing them) should stop the re-write.
Why I say re-write? Because when the files are copied to a test CD with Roxio Creator (Basic) the verify process denoted file corruption. I suspect the re-read comparison feature (reading the base file and comparing it to the written CD is again a Vista OS "read" of the file. And, on this read the file gets corrupt on the hard drive, not the CD.

Discussion is locked

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Links please.
Jun 26, 2010 3:12AM PDT
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How is Picture corruption related to PPI
Jul 24, 2010 1:48AM PDT

I know it's policy to continually reference other posts. What insults intelligence is the logic one profess to the masses, when the commentary is speculation.
How can Microsoft deny a problem, blame NVidia series 5x GeForce cards, (when onboard GeForce430) or add-on GeForce series 8 cards are being discussed with the problem.
I have 1000's of jpegs at 3048 x 2052 that were on an external drive saved on an XP machine. Taking that drive to a Vista machine was a disaster. I have lost too many jpegs, unrecoverable.

Mr. R. Proffitt, if you would read the attached link, and then comment, it might help me understand your previous answer. Please try to use layman's terms, it's apparent your vast knowledge exceeds my abilities. That was not a "harpoon". Just an observation on style.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistadeployment/thread/6ffcb5b7-ac72-49ab-9a89-77e730db75b2/

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Harpoon or fork?
Jul 24, 2010 2:00AM PDT

"
I have the same problem and I realized that the pictures looks corrupt in windows VISTA.
This means that if you look at them in windows XP they are OK!!!
"

You can ask if you want but I can't answer why Microsoft doesn't supply fixes to such things. But let's back up a second. That corruption is a visual rendering issue and not file corruption.

I BET THAT IF YOU TRIED "IRFANVIEW" it may look ok. If not IRFANVIEW then try VLC PLAYER (does pictures too.)

Remember we can't fix Microsoft. And this OS is now conveniently being forgotten as 7 is now out.

-->> Sorry I do not have a fix for you. I can only find where Vista would get wonky and fail. So let's not use Vista's viewer?
Bob

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Direct answer to "How is Picture corruption related to PPI?"
Jul 24, 2010 2:02AM PDT

That question would have to be told by MSFT. Here I can only find that MSFT's app for rendering the image appears to be confused if the PPI is too far out.

Sorry for the non answer.
Bob

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did a test of irfanview
Jul 24, 2010 4:25AM PDT

Downloaded per your suggestion.
I viewed a folder repeatedly, and no distortions. Viewed a folder with jpegs that showed corruption with Windows Live Photo Gallery, saved these to a special folder. Viewed these with Irfanview, and all were still corrupt.

You insight is deeply appreciated about Microsoft. I can only hope that Win 7 doe not have this problem. I am getting a Win 7 upgrade DVD ($150) this week and will see what happens with a test of 200 "new" images. Plan on using one of my cloned Vista drives for the test.
What is your opinion of the upgrade vs full retail Win 7 ($319)?

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Ahh that's a new twist.
Jul 24, 2010 9:57PM PDT

I didn't know that Windows Live Photo Gallery was in play here. I read above it was "the OS."

Now we find there is an APPLICATION being used. If there is a bug in an application that's one thing. But today I fear folk don't differentiate the OS from applications.

If Live Photo screws up in Vista it will likely screw up in 7.

About 7, that's what I use. No more XP or Vista machines since 7 nails it.
Bob

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I have added Picasa 3 to the list of viewers
Jul 26, 2010 6:19AM PDT

I can now add Picasa 3 to the viewer list. This is strange.
The file contained 42 jpegs. Three were known to be A-OK.
First, the pictures started loading 100% clear, without defects. As the last few pictures loaded into view, the page finalized.
Next, all the corrupt pictures started to evolve, changing colors, shifting pixels, and finally settled down. Fully corrupt.
In the mix were three pictures that were "TEST A-OK" , and these three remained "perfect". No distortion.

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This is starting to sound like a video driver bug.
Jul 26, 2010 7:11AM PDT

I wonder. Can you boot Ubuntu (that's a Live CD with no install required that can look at jpegs without us installing that OS) and see if the corrupting is on the drive or just when Windows Live does it thing?

Bob

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Thanking you for your help with jpeg corruption
Jul 27, 2010 3:56AM PDT

I did find out that using "Device Manager" update driver function did not locate a better driver. But, going directly to Nvidia homepage located a newer driver package, which I did install. After this I as follows:
Viewed them only in Picasa3. (I have a backup on another drive).Have deleted all corrupt jpegs from my drive.
Will view them now through another viewer in a continous loop. If any now get corrupted, I will install a different graphic card. There now seems to be a correlation with AMD processors and certain GeForce cards, namely integrated GeForce430, and PCI-E 5x and 8x series cards.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/itprovistadeployment/thread/6ffcb5b7-ac72-49ab-9a89-77e730db75b2/

Thanking you for your help with jpeg corruption. Your guidance and suggestions were helpful. As a sidenote, I had reinstall Vista Ultimate, and Windows Photo Gallery viewer was the first program used. That is where I did originally notice corruption.

My only hope it to either stumble onto a solution, or try Win 7 Ultimate. Would you suggest (Ultimate) Win7 upgrade or a full retail?

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That is a pocketbook (cash) question.
Jul 27, 2010 4:02AM PDT

While I love the full retail version since it makes my life easy for the reasons you can guess, you pay more and get the same features.

All I can offer is that I went to 7 Pro 64 bit and have had no reason to look at ultimate.

Call me almost satisfied.
Bob