The Black Book

[Mallorca]

Anyone succeeded in copying "The Black Book" (the Dutch film by Paul Verhoeven) DVD9-->DVD5. DVDSHRINK will not read the disk. The latest DVDFAB will process it but produces an output that, strangely, fails when either DVDFAB or NERO tries to burn it.

[Baldrick]

what happens when you try burn the video_ts folder with dvdfab or nero? any error msg?

[Mallorca]

DVDFAB processes the DVD then starts to burn the result. It gets about 1/2 way into the burn and fails with a generic message saying "Operation Failed". Nero does not even start the burn, it starts to organise the output files from DVDFAB, ready for burning, and aborts with a message along the lines of "Cannot reconcile Video files". So it appears that DVDFAB is producing a bum output. Previous versions of DVDFAB would not even process the DVD, the latest at least does but produces, it would appear, a bad output.
So DVDSHRINK will not read the DVD, DVDFAB will read it and process it, but produces an output that cannot be burned.

[t0nee1]

Before you burn, process the VIDEO_TS folder that FAB creates with FixVTS, then open with shrink,see what happens....But perhaps you have a bad original, does it have all proper files, VOB'S, IFO'S, BUP'S?... have you played all the way through with PC and standalone player?

[DereX888]

Great movie, I loved the actress playing Ellie

I don't know which release version of the DVD you have problem with, but I have backed up my imported from europe PAL disc few months ago without any problems.
Maybe what t0nee1 said applies in your case?

[mazinz]

I also had no issue in backing up the disc using an older version of dvdfabdecrypter. I used dvd shrink to fit it on a regular disc and burned all with no issues. Perhaps as previously stated, your original copy is bad

[JohnnyBob]

I normally use RipIt4Me to tell me whether a movie is protected. I seldom use it to rip anymore, although occasionally it's still the only one that will work. After a quick initial analysis, the latest version of RipIt4Me says whether a movie is protected and therefore requires special ripping software (such as RipIt4Me itself, or DVDFab HD Decrypter), or whether it will rip with DVD Shrink. If it says DVD Shrink will work, it does so with rare exceptions.

In this case with "The Black Book", RipIt4Me told me that the disc was unprotected and should rip OK with DVD Shrink. So I clicked that button, DVD Shrink opened, recognized and processed the disc, allowed me to edit as usual, and then ripped it without any apparent problems. I'm just starting to watch the movie copy and it appears to be playing OK.

Possible exception: There's the slight possibility of something peculiar when cycling through the Subtitle options, which went to the disc menu instead, the first time I tried it. But I couldn't reproduce it. It has worked OK on subsequent tries. So that could very well have been caused by my quirky Coby DVD-755 player (part of a poor man's home theater system).

I used a Lite-On LH-20A1P for ripping. Could it be that certain other models/brands won't work as well?

I used a LG GSA-H55N (1.02 patched to remove riplock) and ImgBurn to burn. I can't imagine using anything other than ImgBurn to burn

P.S. I didn't try the DVD9 -> DVD5 compression. I burned to a Verbatim DVD+R DL, and it worked OK despite the blank disc being manufactured in India.

[Mallorca]

The DVD plays OK on my Toshiba player, the only complaint I have is that the package states Dutch/English/German dialogue but there is only Dutch with English subs.
DVDDecrypter crashes when it tries to read it, so that's DVDDecrypter, DVDShrink, DVDFab and NERO all fail to process it in one way or another. However, it's not all bad news, RipIt4Me successfully processed it and I was able to burn it.
RipIt4Me reported that it had excluded a bunch of VTS files because they were "unreferenced", it then called DVDDecrypter which reported "suspect sectors, blanks inserted" but then successfully ripped it to disk. RipIt4Me then cleaned up a bunch of VOB files, because of "secure spots", before calling DVDShrink which condensed it OK. I then burned it with Nero.
Thanks for all the help.