Need advice on ripping Region 2 Lost Highway DVD please.

[jwnulife]

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if someone out there would be Mac savvy enough to help me out with a frustrating problem I've had with ripping a PAL Region 2 Lost Highway DVD put out by MK2. It's a two disc special edition with dolby and DTS tracks, including special features. I have to rip the region 2 dvds to remove the region code lock so that I can play them on my Panasonic dvd player. I have had success with ripping region 2 dvds before using Mac the Ripper but this one keeps turning up "bad sectors" when I use Mac the Ripper. I used both Mac the Ripper v.2 and v.3 with no success. I also tried ripping in both "Full Disc" and "Main Feature Extraction Only" mode and it still did not work. I have included the following screen shots to give you a better idea of the problems I am having. I am currently running OS X 10.4.11 (Leopard).

I am wondering if there are some settings in Mac the Ripper that I can tweak or if I should try a different ripper program to resolve the issue. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I have included some screenshots of the various software programs I am using. Hope this is helpful.

Thank you!

lost%20highway2.png

[DereX888]

Use a PC to rip it to a region free iso images (or files) and burn them there, or move the ripped disc images or files to your Mac and do whatcha wanna do...

I have ripped probably the same R2 set few years ago exactly for the same reason, to get rid of region.
I don't know Macs, but I can tell you there were no "surprises" on this dvd set AFAIR, so the problem lies either in your ripping software's settings or in the disc itself (from your screencap it *may* look like the disc has error in that particular spot, i.e. scratch, manufacturing mastering error, etc).

[jwnulife]

Thanks, can you recommend a good (maybe free) dvd ripping program for a PC? I can try doing it on my sister's PC and see what happens. Hopefully a manufacturing or bad mastering issue is not the case. Did you say you did rip the same exact 2 disc set? I included a picture of the set for verification.

[tomlee59]

Try DVD Shrink (which rips and shrinks) and/or DVD Fab Decrypter (which rips, and removes region limitations, etc.). They are free, and work well. If the disc has elaborate copy protection, sometimes the use of VOB Blanker will enable you to finish the task, nonetheless. The combination of these free tools will get you pretty far along.

Good luck!

[budz]

Try DVD Shrink (which rips and shrinks) and/or DVD Fab Decrypter (which rips, and removes region limitations, etc.). They are free, and work well. If the disc has elaborate copy protection, sometimes the use of VOB Blanker will enable you to finish the task, nonetheless. The combination of these free tools will get you pretty far along.

Good luck!

DVD SHRINK is NOT a RIPPING TOOL. DVD SHRINK is no longer updated therefore you need to use a ripping program that is updated frequently to by pass the copy encryptions on newer released dvd discs. If there is no copy encryption on a disc you can just use DVD DECRYPTER to rip the files.

For ripping dvd files use the latest version of DVDFAB HD DECRYPTER.

[jwnulife]

thanks guys. I'll check out that software!

[jman98]

You need to use DVDFAB HD Decrypter as budz suggests, but you'll have to run it under Windows. If the bad sectors are actually part of a copy protection scheme, it will know how to deal with them.

Note that some DVD players sold in the USA are incapable of playing back PAL DVDs, even without region coding, so I hope you know for a fact that your player will be able to play this disc once you rip it and burn it.

[jwnulife]

jman98,

you bring up an interesting point. I should mention that I was able to rip and burn the second disc which contains the bonus materials with no problem, and it played back just fine in my cheap, 30 dollar RCA dvd player. Is it a big leap to assume that I will have no problem playing back the first (main feature) disc once I can successfully rip and burn it?

[tomlee59]

DVD SHRINK is NOT a RIPPING TOOL. DVD SHRINK is no longer updated therefore you need to use a ripping program that is updated frequently to by pass the copy encryptions on newer released dvd discs. If there is no copy encryption on a disc you can just use DVD DECRYPTER to rip the files.

For ripping dvd files use the latest version of DVDFAB HD DECRYPTER.

OF COURSE DVD Shrink has a ripping engine embedded within it. It's not up to date, but that's a different statement.

[jman98]

jwnulife - If a rip and burn of the 2nd disc worked fine, it should work fine of the 1st disc. However, we still don't know if your Panasonic DVD player supports playing PAL discs, but disc 1 will be OK for your RCA player for sure.
The Panasonic may play it fine, but you'll have to test it. Test disc 2 on the Panasonic and if it fails, it won't play disc 1 either.

[jwnulife]

jman98,

Well I took your advice and tested the 2nd disc on my Panasonic and it worked fine. That's good news. Now if I can only rip and burn the first disc! Thanks!

[Seeker47]

jman98,
Well I took your advice and tested the 2nd disc on my Panasonic and it worked fine. That's good news. Now if I can only rip and burn the first disc! Thanks!

I'm not at all sure about this, but I could've sworn I've seen some commercial DVD sets where it looks like they did not bother protecting the Extras material . . . .

[DereX888]

Thanks, can you recommend a good (maybe free) dvd ripping program for a PC? I can try doing it on my sister's PC and see what happens. Hopefully a manufacturing or bad mastering issue is not the case. Did you say you did rip the same exact 2 disc set? I included a picture of the set for verification.

Yes thats exactly the same one R2 set by Cinema Club from UK sold in a double-thick stupid box (I hate those when they use it for just 2 discs, wtf).

If you are just going to get rid of region, rip it with anything to your hard disk, DVD Fab as guys suggested, or whatever suits your needs/budget (even old freebies like dvd shrink or dvd decrypter should work fine because its not any new protected-with-f*ckedup-solutions disc). I'm pretty sure I haven't used anything fancy to make my backup copies couple years ago, most likely I have used just plain old dvd decrypter as I used to use it for long time.
So, if you want to copy it to DVD9 then simply rip it as iso image with region lock removed (set this option in dvd decrypter) and thats basically it, next just burn the iso... but if you want to 'play' with it (edit in any way, i.e. "shrink" it to DVD5) then of course rip it in file mode and move to your Mac and fire up your Popcorn (I don't recommend dvd shrink for this, youre better of with your Mac's popcorn; unless you really want to "shrink it" best way, then use your sister's PC and install i.e. Cinema Craft Encoder and DVD ReBuilder for this purpose).

BTW if youre a fan of this old flick, keep your dvd set.
IMHO so far it is probably the best release out there, even though it has damn PAL speed-up.
I have bought Universal's release recently and believe me: it is complete crap, mainly because it so dark (you really can't see many details in many scenes).

[jwnulife]

hey thanks for the tips. Yeah, I'm well aware of the new R1 version. I heard it sucks and that is why I went ahead and purchased this set. I hear that the picture quality and the DTS track on the R2 blows the R1 away. The R1 doesn't have any extras either--not even a trailer (I don't think)---so much for waiting 13 years!

[DereX888]

hey thanks for the tips. Yeah, I'm well aware of the new R1 version. I heard it sucks and that is why I went ahead and purchased this set. I hear that the picture quality and the DTS track on the R2 blows the R1 away. The R1 doesn't have any extras either--not even a trailer (I don't think)---so much for waiting 13 years!

You should see the very first canadian dvd release I have too (just to name few "features": FS P&S transfer off of a VHS -- I swear! --, plain stereo...)
Certainly, for some mysterious reason, there is no love in Hollywood for this picture

[jwnulife]

I've seen it. I picked it up about 4 or 5 years ago and almost puked when I saw it--truly a wretched transfer.

[DereX888]

Yeah, "wretched" is the proper description.

Have you ripped the disc 1 on your sis' PC yet?

[jwnulife]

Nope, not yet. I should go ahead and download one of the PC-based ripper programs while I'm waiting though.