Ripped A DVD With DVDFab But ISO/Copy Plays Horribly. Please Help.

[Blacker]

I've been trying to backup these two DVDs using DVDFab 8.0.8.5 but they are protected in a way that I've never seen before. In my experience, you can either rip the DVD or you can't. If you can't, you'll be given an error message and the process will be aborted. But what's happening here is different.

The ripping process actually completes successfully using both the "Full Movie" option and the "Clone" option. But then the resulting ISO will not play smoothly. You'll be able to get to the main menu just fine but when trying to play the main movie or jump to a scene you'll just see a skipping, glitchy, pixilated mess on the screen. This happens when playing the ISO on my PC with a program like VLC and when burning the ISO to disc and playing on a standalone player.

The titles for the DVDs are Una Mirada A Nueva York and Una Mirada A Puerto Rico. The labels "WLIW" and "Vme" can be found on the face of the discs.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Anyone ever seen anything like this before? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated because I am completely baffled. How do a couple of television documentaries have a more complex protection than the latest blockbuster movies from companies like Paramount, Disney, Tristar etc?

I have included the DVDFab info for one of the discs below in case it helps. Thanks so much in advance.


Info for drive [D:\] (DVDFab 8.0.8.5)
Vendor: PIONEER
Product: DVD-RW DVR-115D
Revision: 1.18
Vendor specific: 08/01/11 PIONEER
Drive region control: RPC II
Drive region: 1
User changes left: 4
Vendor resets left: 4

Disc media: DVD
Disc type: DVD-Video
Disc region: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Volume name: UNA_MIRADA_A_PUERTO_RICO
Video standard: NTSC

CSS (Content Scramble System) protection is removed!
RC (Region Code) protection is not found.
RCE (Region Code Enhancement) protection is not found.
APS (Analog Protection System) protection is removed!
UOPs (User Operation Prohibitions) protection is removed!

Invalid PTTs protection is not found.
Invalid PGCIs protection is not found.
Invalid PGCs protection is not found.
Invalid TMAPs protection is not found.
Invalid CELLs protection is removed!
Invalid VOBUs protection is removed!
Fake vts protection is not found!
Potential bad sector (vts:1 title begin:0 end:1295) is removed!
Potential bad sector (vts:1 title begin:1328 end:2623) is removed!
Potential bad sector (vts:2 title begin:0 end:1295) is removed!
Potential bad sector (vts:2 title begin:1312 end:2623) is removed!
4 potential bad sector protections are removed!
Structure protection (ARccOS, RipGuard, etc.) is removed!

PathPlayer is enabled!
Unplayable cell (vts:1 title pgc:1 cell:3) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:1 title pgc:1 cell:5) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:1 title pgc:1 cell:6) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:2 title pgc:1 cell:2) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:2 title pgc:1 cell:3) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:2 title pgc:1 cell:5) is removed!
Unplayable cell (vts:2 title pgc:1 cell:6) is removed!
7 unplayable cells are removed!

[jman98]

My best guess...
It's a variation on the "bad sector" copy protection methods like ARCCOS. Those titles are pretty obscure. Amazon.com knows nothing about them. They are possibly out of print, never released in the USA, or only available via a very small supplier. If I'm right about this they can't be ripped because DVDFab doesn't have an example disc due to its obscurity so they can't examine it and update their program to handle it.

[filmboss80]

jman98's "best guess" would also be mine; however, there is a slight chance that there could be an issue with the way that PathPlayer in DVDFab is interpreting shorter cells. Try disabling PathPlayer and ripping again. Couldn't hurt.

More info here: http://www.dvdfab.com/manual/settings/PathPlayer

[Blacker]

Thank you for the very speedy responses. I have an update. I turned the Pathplayer off on DVDFab and was unable to copy the disc with "Clone" or "Full Movie." Both times I got an error message stating "Error While Reading."

Here's another observation on the lower part of the DVDFab window of the "Full Movie" section.

Pathplayer enabled:

DVD 5 - Quality 100% - 4108MB > 4108MB

Pathplayer disabled:

DVD 5 - Quality 13% - 32.299GB > 4GB

I don't know why that's happening. Why is DVDFab recognizing a standard 4GB DVD as a 32GB disc?

Something else to note is that when DVDFab tries to scan either disc, it will crash my PC about 2 out of 3 times. I open up DVDFab, put the disc in the drive, DVDFab begins scanning the media, my computer restarts. If it was just happening with one disc, I would assume that the disc was damaged or defective or something. But it's happening with both.

[jman98]

I don't know why that's happening. Why is DVDFab recognizing a standard 4GB DVD as a 32GB disc?

Something else to note is that when DVDFab tries to scan either disc, it will crash my PC about 2 out of 3 times. I open up DVDFab, put the disc in the drive, DVDFab begins scanning the media, my computer restarts. If it was just happening with one disc, I would assume that the disc was damaged or defective or something. But it's happening with both.

The "32 GB on a 4GB disc" is precisely because of the bad sector copy protection I mentioned earlier.

Both discs probably have the same type of protection. Those are pretty darn obscure videos to have such complicated protection on them. Even some of the major Hollywood studios won't pay for that kind of protection to be added to their discs. Crap, whoever made those REALLY doesn't want them to be copied.

[Blacker]

Okay here's another update and it's bitter sweet. I was finally able to copy those two DVDs which is great but I'm not sure how?

I used the exact same computer. Exact same Pioneer DVD burner. Same program: DVDFab 8.0.8.5. I successfully made the copies using the "Clone" function which didn't work for me before. And I had the Pathplayer enabled which didn't help before.

There was just one unique difference and I have no explanation for why or how it happened. The successful cloning processes happened VERY VERY fast. Cloning or ripping a DVD usually takes my PC about 20-40 minutes. And that's how long the process would take during the unsuccessful clone and rip attempts for these discs.

But the successful clone process took just 5 minutes for one and 7 minutes for the other. How is that even possible? I started the clone process, walked away from my PC thinking I'd come back in a half hour or so. A few minutes later I hear DVDFab make the "Process Complete" sound. It was too fast to have cloned 4GB so I was sure something was wrong and that I was probably going to be left with some 500MB "premature" ISO file. But to my surprise it was the full 4GB. I tested it out and it played fine.

Any idea what happened here?

[Kerry56]

Your computer is learning as it works on problems. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[Noahtuck]

Cloning or ripping a DVD usually takes my PC about 20-40 minutes.

Umm... that sounds more like it is ripping it AND compressing it.

But the successful clone process took just 5 minutes for one and 7 minutes for the other.

That sounds about right for a straight RIP with NO compression.
The pixelation or blockiness you saw may be from it being compressed the first time.

I use DVDFab for ripping, but usually use something else for compression.

[fritzi93]

I agree 20-40 minutes is too long, that's more in line with the time it takes me to rip a Blu-ray.

OTOH, I don't see how one could make a mistake as to whether one used the Clone function, which does not compress (I use DVDFab from time to time).

Are you sure you did nothing else you haven't told us? Like, I dunno, reboot the computer, clean up a full and/or badly fragmented hard drive, clean the discs or player lens, re-install DVDFab, anything like that? This seems very odd indeed.