Is this copyright protection?

[silverboy]

I've been ripping movies (legally purchased, of course) onto my harddrive for sometime using DVD Shrink, and these are the only three movies I've had problems with: Office Space, Phone Booth and The Girl Next Door. Now, these movies are all 20th Century Fox, so I'm wondering if the problem I'm having is some sort of copyright protection that Fox is using.

Here's what happens...I open the movie in DVD Shrink or DVD Decryptor and it only registers as a single layer, and the preview image says that the disc isn't formatted for my region. BUT, the disc plays find in both my DVD player and my computer, and it's obviously double layered. I've never had this problem with non-Fox movies, and I don't know how to fix it.

I've tried all the normal troubleshooting methods, nothing's working on these three flicks. Help?

[adam]

I can't speak for girl next door but I have the region 1 DVDs for office space and phone booth. I had no trouble ripping them and yes they are both single layer. If DVD decryptor reports a disk as single layer you can definitely rely on that.

I don't know specifically what troubleshooting methods you have tried, so I'll just re-mention the most common ones. Of course try to clean the disk as best as you can. Try playing the DVD in a software dvd player before ripping it. Finally, try a few more ripping programs. Rip in file mode so you can see specifically which file it is having difficulty reading. Set your ripper to retry many times on errors, like 99 times. I'm sure this isn't protection.

[silverboy]

I can't speak for girl next door but I have the region 1 DVDs for office space and phone booth. I had no trouble ripping them and yes they are both single layer. If DVD decryptor reports a disk as single layer you can definitely rely on that.

I don't know specifically what troubleshooting methods you have tried, so I'll just re-mention the most common ones. Of course try to clean the disk as best as you can. Try playing the DVD in a software dvd player before ripping it. Finally, try a few more ripping programs. Rip in file mode so you can see specifically which file it is having difficulty reading. Set your ripper to retry many times on errors, like 99 times. I'm sure this isn't protection.

The DVDs play fine, and there aren't any problems while ripping. The problem is that after they've been ripped/burned, they claim that the're not formatted for this region. This is only a problem on Fox movies, which has got me wondering.

[adam]

It could be two things. You may inadvertantly be changing the region coding of the disk to something other then your region. I assume you are in region 1? Make sure you have your ripping software set to remove region protection and make sure that DVD Shrink, or whatever you are using, isn't changing the region to anything else.

Another option is that these DVDs have RCE protection. What this does is lock out DVDs whose region protection has been removed all together. DVD Decryptor can remove RCE protection or you can just specifically set the region according to what your player supports, again I'm assuming this is region 1.

If we are talking about region 1 releases then I can assure you that this is not protection, at least for office space and phonebooth. I had no problem with those.

[silverboy]

Aw, yes, they were RCE protected. How exactly to I change that in DVD Decryptor, if you don't mind?

[adam]

Well I guess I mispoke. You don't remove the RCE protection, you simply set the DVD to a specific region rather then remove region protection altogether. In DVD Decryptor hit tools/settings/general and under RCE protection region set it to whatever region you are in. When you insert the DVD it will give you an RCE warning and ask you to select the region you want.

If you are subsequently processing these through DVD Shrink make sure you set it to the specific region you need. Don't leave it set to region free or the RCE will kick in when you play the DVD.