New DVD copy protection???

[Roderz]

I remember that clone cd had a setting 'inteligent bad sector skip' so I'd think theres hope.

[Sefy]

I Think the solution should be easier then that, since the DVD Player knows not to access those areas using the IFO information, then any DVD Ripping tool should know how to read and decode the VOB files using that same IFO information.

[Roderz]

I Think the solution should be easier then that, since the DVD Player knows not to access those areas using the IFO information, then any DVD Ripping tool should know how to read and decode the VOB files using that same IFO information.

Thats exactally what I was referring to in my previous post but from what petar said in his previous post it looks like DD just rips the disc blindly

[petar]

Well, actually it wasn't that easy to tell that the cell doesn't play. I didn't want to bore you with details of the DVD, so I just mentioned that the cell gets skipped.

However (I'll bore you now ) what really happens is that it does play but only for a second, before the bad sectors start. The cell physically (inside the VOB) is over 18,000 sectors big but "only" about 5,000 are bad and they start about 9,000 sectors after the start of the cell. The cell logically (inside the IFO file, as part of the PGC) is only 180 sectors after which executes a cell command to link to the 5th cell where the movie starts. So only the first 180 sectors of the cell are played.

The only clue to something being dodgy is that the cell logically was much shorter than physically. But apart from that the IFO structure was perfectly valid. Linking to another cell and skipping a range of other cells is not unusual. A ripper shouldn't discriminate on the basis of this because it may mess up a perfectly valid disc.

But if I was able to figure this out, I'm sure there are smarter programmers that can come up with a fix.

[Sefy]

I'm far from being a programmer myself
But I do suggest you contact the author of DVD Decrypter and Smart Ripper as they might know how to handle this issue

[ViRaL1]

Looks like they already have...

DVD Decrypter 3.2.3.0 (06/07/2004)
Added: Option to save the log on exit
Added: Additional debug code to IFO mode that shows 'skipping' of unwanted cells
Added: A log entry for the 'L0 Data zone Capacity' when burning DVD+R DL discs
Added: A new option to the 'ISO Write' page in the settings - 'Cycle Tray Before Verify'
Added: Crash recovery for 'Checking for RCE Protection' code - so corrupt IFO files shouldn't mean the disc can't be copied - as all other IFO parsing can be avoided if required
...

[petar]

Yeah it can skip unwanted cells but that won't do. The cell is still required for the first few hundred or so sectors and it needs to be the correct size otherwise the sector info for the movie cells afterwards will be all wrong. The workaround for ripping these discs I think would be to keep the cell but replace the bad sectors with dummy sectors and do some 'inteligent bad sector skip' as Roderz mentioned.

[Pepelepe]

Hi,

Anyone found that is impossible even to read or play the disc from the DVD drive?

Using Explorer, DVD Decrypter or any other soft, it looks like there's no disc inserted in the drive.

Discs are region 2 and happens with "Run for the Money" and "House of sand and fog". On the stand-alone DVD player, both are OK.

Me cachis en la mar!

Bye

[petar]

Yeah, it happens sometimes on one of my drives. Eject the disc and insert it again. If it doesn't read it, try again. At one point it will read it. However, on my other drives, it reads it fine every time.

Glad I'm not the only one that has discovered problems with these two movies in Spain (I assume you're in Spain by "me cachis en la mar"). I had sort of a hard time explaining people that I didn't have dirty or scratched discs.

Next one from the same distributor (Filmax) is Monster coming out on the 14 of July. I bet it will have the same "protection".

[knotnow]

Never had a problem playing a dvd before, but I just purchased on ebay a copy of elo zoom live tour (NTSC Mpeg-2 DVD-5). Plays fine in my Apex 1100w standalone dvd player, but when I put in it the computer drive, reading light stays on for about a minute, then nothing. Drive, Dvdshrink, and PowerDVD says no disc. Is this a form of new or not so new copy protection that I have encountered?
Maybe it has to do with region, since the disc is from Japan.

[petar]

Don't know. From what I have read on few other sites, this "protection" (I don't know if it's officially a new protection or some rogue studios decided to implement a workaround on their own) has only been seen on PAL DVDs.

Try a different drive if you can. Also try ejecting and re-inserting the disc. Is it a normal DVD, i.e. with the official DVD-Video logo on it?

[lordsmurf]

I've honestly not read anything here that doesn't scream "user error" or "hardware error " or "OS error". If that's copy protection, then so be it. If I can play it, I can rip it. End of story.

[petar]

I've honestly not read anything here that doesn't scream "user error" or "hardware error " or "OS error". If that's copy protection, then so be it. If I can play it, I can rip it. End of story.

Somebody is being full of himself here, I think. Did you read any of my posts?

OK, I'll summarise and I hope to avoid any more comments like this.

The discs have a large number of consecutive bad sectors. I can confirm this on 2 separate DVDs of House of Sand and Fog and 1 DVD of Hard Cash, all three brand new from the box. Both movies come from the same distributor here in Spain and are their last two released on DVD. A friend of mine had the same issue with House of Sand and Fog and I have found several reports on the cdfreaks and doom9 website of people having the same problem (including the author of CloneDVD).

Now, one can assume that something went horribly wrong with their replication plant. But if you look at the structure of the disc, all bad sectors are inside a single cell which only gets accessed by the player for the first few sectors which are OK. However, the amount of bad sectors is such that it's impossible for the ripping tool to rip the disc (for now, until they come up with a fix to skip the bad sectors and fill them with dummy data). Plus there is one dummy VTS with a corrupt IFO file which stopped all rippers (until the last DVD Decrypter version released yesterday or the day before) from even reading the structure. And if you read the post on the doom9 website (the link is in one of my previous posts) you'll see that one member reported the issue to the author of DVD Decrypter after which I imagine he put this fix.

At the end I did manage to rip the disc but by a lot of manual work. Now, I'm not trying to be full of myself, like others, but (and I could be wrong) I think my knowledge of the DVD structure is above that of the average user that rips DVDs and it took me quite some time to figure out what they have done with this disc.

Statements like "If I can play it, I can rip it", no offense, suggest to me that you don't really understand the issue here. Don't get me wrong, I've seen your guides on your website and I can tell that you know your stuff on video capturing and editing but, trust me, I know my stuff too and there is no "user error" or "hardware error" or "OS error" here.

[jimmalenko]

I've honestly not read anything here that doesn't scream "user error" or "hardware error " or "OS error". If that's copy protection, then so be it. If I can play it, I can rip it. End of story.

The best copy protection is the user, isn't it ?

Especially when there is serious doubt over the legality of copying a movie that you have purchased for the purposes of renting.

[lordsmurf]

I read what you said petar. But I think you're missing something. You've only been at this problem for a month now. That's not long. I think you're too quick to point the finger. I've had trouble with movies in the past myself. I just waited an retried on different hardware and tweaked softwares. I came out eventually. And none of it was protection.

[petar]

jimmalenko,
I will not give you the pleasure to respond to your comments so that you can turn this topic into a flame war. Those users interested in this topic would have read it from the beginning and will probably disregard your comments anyway.

lordsmurf
I was not claiming (and still am not) that I've discovered a new copy protection. If you look at the topic title, there are question marks. However, as you say, I started this topic about a month ago and have since discovered that I'm not the only one that has found it. I say again, the author of CloneDVD believes this is a new protection method based on a ring of unreadable sectors. Please read about it on the cdfreaks website. He suggests that you can overcome it with CloneDVD by quickly jumping chapter one when the copying starts (since there's nothing in it anyway, just bad sectors). And I'm sure this would work, however, CloneDVD cannot remove CSS. The discs he tried probably didn't have CSS (I think he's in Germany) however here in Spain they do.

But please look at the facts. I tried three, all brand new, different discs on three different drives. All report bad sectors. Then, look at the coincidence. All bad sectors (5,000 of them) are in a single cell. The cell only plays for about 200 sectors (which are OK) before linking to another cell where the actual movie starts. This bad cell is never again accessed. This happens on both House of Sand and Fog and Hard Cash, both released by the same distributor in the last month.

Since I started the topic I ripped many other DVDs (from other distributors - Warner, Columbia, Walt Disney, Paramount...). All OK.

Coincidence? Perhaps. As I said, one can assume this distributor's replication plant has a problem. But the same issue has been reported in UK and Germany. And what are the chances that a replication problem only affects part of the disc which is never accessed by the player (and what's that part doing there, to start with, if it's never accessed)?

These are the facts. You be the judge.

[smearbrick1]

Strange... very strange. I personally had no issues with House Of Sand and Fog (I haven't really seen it yet. I my have issues then as I am not a big Jennifer Connelly fan) Anywho, some interesting points a raised. Not only that, this could be the answer to all those "Are there any ways I could copy protect the second-rate wedding videos I sell to naive newlyweds so that they may not copy them and thus be forced to buy my over priced 3rd rate copies?" I just love those questions. Of course, this would mean you would have actually get into hex editing and purposely create bad sectors and insert the bad sector jumps in the IFO files as part of the PGC (I think I said that right). I just can't understand, for the life of me, why one person's copy would rip without event, and another person's would not. Do dvds of the same title come from the same authoring house? I don't believe dvds licensed for rental are any different are they? Wait a second, don't answer that. I think there was a huge discussion on the differences between dvds licensed for rental and dvds bought at wal-mart... big mess... nope, nevermind... I didn't say a word.

Also, is this an official "this is the big release version" of House of Sand and Fog, or just maybe a pre-release screener? Maybe an award screener? Maybe this question was already asked.

[ViRaL1]

I wouildn't think that all full-release versions of a single DVD for all regions are handled by one authoring house. Also, I don't think this would help people trying to protect their DVDs unless they actually encrypted them. If they're not encrypted, then a straight bit-for-bit copy with Nero, Roxio or any other disc copy utility wouldn't hiccup, since it's not ripped or read as video.

[lordsmurf]

lordsmurf
I was not claiming (and still am not) that I've discovered a new copy protection.

Fair enough. That's not how I read it, but you've clarified it further. I see.

[petar]

smearbrick1,
ViRaL1 is correct. The same movie in your country is often brought in mine by a different distributor. Distribution of a particular movie is done on a country per country basis. For example, Walt Disney distributes its movies in Spain via Buena Vista. In France, which is only across the border, it may be a completely different company.

So, the responsability of the DVD production is Spain (or any country) falls on the distributor. Hence the DVD of the same movie in different countries may be very different. The differences can range from small things, like what extras they contain, up to the actual movie (unedited in one country and with some scenes cut in another).

Rental DVDs are almost always different from their retail versions. Retail versions often contain more extras so that if you liked the movie you rented, you'll be more attracted to buy it (instead of pirating it ).

EDIT: Didn't see your last question. It's the rental version. As of January this year the movie distributors managed to pass a law that prohibits DVD rental stores from using other versions. I have to order the DVD from the distributor and they charge us an arm and a leg for it now (some are more than 50 euros).

[pneurosys]

Well Guys,

There is really a new copy protection made by Sony and one of the first protected titles is guess what! House of Sand and Fog, obviously not all releases are protected because i ripped one myself and i have no problem but it seems that certain regions are indeed protected. Read here http://www.cdfreaks.com/news2.php?ID=9360

I've read on some sites that this protection causes the same problems reported previously here and even causes problems on standalone players. So i think this dvd IS Copy protected.

[petar]

I just received today Monster, distributed by the same company here as the previous two movies, and again the same issue with a ring of bad sectors. Tried two different DVDs and both the same.

That makes it three of the last three releases from this distributor. I guess they are sticking to it.

In between, ripped all new DVD releases from all other distributors and they were all OK.

[Pepelepe]

Don't waste your time.

Is the new DVd protection system from SONY called ARccOS

[petar]

Actually, I did manage to rip them all at the end but it wasn't a one-tool solution. If anyone has the same problem, here's how I did it:

I ripped with DVD Decrypter 3.2.3.0 (earlier versions won't do) all files except the last two VTSs (they are dummy VTSs which have no use and are full of errors) and the VTS_01_1.VOB file. The latter is the one where the ring of bad sectors is (at least in my case, in all three movies). Don't try to rip it with DVD Decrypter, you won't get anywhere - there are thousands of bad sectors.

Then I ripped the VTS_01_1.VOB file with Sector Extractor. You have to rip it in two parts - before the bad sectors and after.

Start extracting it and when it reports the first bad sector, abort it but don't delete the file. Rename it to "Part 1".

Then change the start sector (start LBA) by adding some 5,000 sectors. Try ripping. If it's OK, cancel it and reduce the start sector. If not, increase it. Do it in steps of 500 sectors, then in steps of 100, then 10. Eventually you'll find the first good sector after the bad ring. Then you'll need to calculate the lenght you need to extract. It's easier if you change the mode to sectors than bytes. The lenght is the start sector of the VTS_02_1.VOB file minus one minus the first sector number after the bad ring. When you start extracting Sector Extractor will say something like "Extracting sector X to Y" - Y should be the sector number before the start of the VTS_02_1.VOB file. Rename this to "Part 3".

Then check the exact size of Part 1 plus Part 3 in bytes, then the exact size of the original VTS_01_1.VOB file. The difference is Part 2 which you can create with a hex editor (fill it with zeros to the exact size in bytes).

Last, with a file merger, create the VTS_01_1.VOB file by merging Part 1, 2 and 3.

So it can be done but it's a pain in the ass. I hope they automate this in a new release of one of the popular rippers.

[Gurm]

pneurosys and pepelepe:

This is NOT the new Sony protection. The new Sony protection is doing some kind of magical mangling of the IDCT data, in order to break transcoding engines. It is NOT physical protection, which SEEMS to be what petar is experiencing.

lordsmurf:

While I have great respect for you, it is clear that petar seems to know what he's doing. Additionally, he's in PAL Region 2 if I'm not mistaken. I can't personally verify what he's experiencing because I live in NTSC Region 1, but a bunch of people at CDFreaks and elsewhere have verified the problem. And last but not least, while I respect you... I respect Olli more. And if HE thinks it's new protection... I'm inclined to agree.

everyone:

It doesn't matter if it's an official protection, something stupid that distributor is doing, or what... it's good to find out about it, and hopefully we can get this information to the people who need it. Olli already has it, so one would assume he's tweaking AnyDVD (3 new releases in a week seems to indicate he's been fiddling with it!) and CloneDVD. The DVD Decryptor people seem to be on the case as well. Don't worry - like the physical protections for CD's, this will be beaten as well.

- Gurm

[ViRaL1]

Is there any software out there that allows you to change region codes before or after you've ripped a movie? If so, you might be better off getting hold of a Region 1 original.

[Gurm]

Viral:

Of course you can just rip the movie, remove the region coding entirely, and watch a Region 1 movie anywhere.

Problems:

- NTSC vs. PAL, this can be trivial or nontrivial depending on where you live and what equipment you have...

- In Petar's case, he's backing up movies that show up from his regional distributor. It is neither practical nor particularly useful for him to special order Region 1 NTSC discs, and virtually ALL of the PAL releases are now using this irritating 'protection'.

Gurm

[Pepelepe]

x Gurm

This IS the new Sony protection system. See at:

http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go

[LRD]

Wouldn't that be special if Petar found Sony's new copy protection and also found the way to defeat it? Thanks to Pepelepe for the Sony link. Now, can you smarter guys help us dumber guys with a one or two step workaround?

LRD

[CaptainVideo]

Been following this thread because it's very interesting.

Wouldn't that be special if Petar found Sony's new copy protection and also found the way to defeat it?

He hasn't. Sony's new copy protection is completely different from what petar is experiencing and it should be defeated quite easily. Sony's OTOH could be a problem and take a lot of time to break.