MacTheRipper ArccOS Copy Protection Progress Report

[WiseWeasel]

Just wanted to announce (especially to our friends in Europe) that we're making significant headway on defeating ArccOS copy protection on DVDs with MTR. This (relatively) new copy protection from Sony is now being used in Europe to protect new releases, using bad blocks to thwart DVD rippers. Thanks to a few users from Italy and Germany who have sent us some of the affected DVDs, Geezerbuttz has been able to work out solutions to backing up ArccOS-protected DVDs.

For now, we only have Title/Chapter mode making usable output, which then needs to be demuxed, mastered in DVDSP, and then shrunk with DVD2OneX or DVDRemaster if required. We have Full Disc mode working somewhat, but the output is not usable with DVD2OneX, and we don't have DVDRemaster to try it with (but I assume that won't work either). This is all well and good if you have a single-layer DVD you want to backup, or a dual-layer DVD burner, but we're trying to solve the problem by making output that DVD2OneX can handle. This might also be a solution to DVDs that have bad blocks due to damage or improper mastering (not just for Europeans anymore :P), though that isn't completely clear at this point. We have the interface changes sorted out, and are currently working on cleaning up the output from Full Disc mode. Stay tuned...

[waheed]

As far as i know, DVD Region +CSS Free can defeat ArccOS. see:

http://www.dvdidle.com/dvd-region-free.htm

Unfortunately, it cant be used on a Mac.

[WiseWeasel]

Yeah, the whole 'not being able to use on a Mac' thing would present a problem for, uh, those with Macs, such as those in this forum section...

[BernieR]

....
B

[the future]

Good news! Keep it up, boys!

[pusa]

This is so funny that I have to put this.
http://www.magicdvdripper.com/

It's a DVD ripper for windblows, but the looks of the program has the look of a Mac program. There's aqua thing going on there.

[WiseWeasel]

That's pretty funny looking, but totally off-topic.

[dnix71]

Sony's web site says ArccOS copy protection allows a unique key for each disc, I assume in addition to each css key. If the extra key isn't copied then the disc won't play. http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go

[WiseWeasel]

That's not the case, apparently, or the key gets copied as well or something. In any case, the backups we're making with our experimental version of MTR seem to work fine. Also, there are several utilities for Windows that allow you to back up ARccOS discs without problems. We will solve this one, I'm quite confident.

[thoughton]

Still waiting to run into one of these discs in England, but good work fellas!

[WiseWeasel]

They only appear to be in Germany and Italy at this point (at least they're the only ones we're aware of). It looks like they're spreading though, so be on guard, and keep us informed...

[dnix71]

Another post here said Sony's scheme maps bad blocks to a dummy title that is never actually played. If you replace the bad blocks with zeros using DVDDecrypter (an option under the file menu) then the rip will play. If there was a way to detect the dummy titles and skip them, then MTR should make a clean rip.

[WiseWeasel]

We're past that point, but unfortunately DVD2OneX doesn't like the output it makes. In Windows, you have to use an app called DVDWasher (or another called VOB-Cleaner) to process the VIDEO_TS folder afterwards, and fix it so that DVD2OneX will accept it. We're still working on a solution to that. We have title/chapter mode working perfectly, but the other modes still make output that DVD2OneX chokes on. We're trying to see if maybe we can solve the problem together with the DVD2One team...

[deadsierra]

It must feel nice to know that some idiot somewhere spent millions of dollars to create a problem that you are going to solve in your spare time. I know I would feel good.

[WiseWeasel]

Oh, it feels wonderful. It's not really quite that easy, and Geezerbuttz has been working pretty hard on it, but soon, his efforts will completely nullify the millions spent by Sony DADC. Hopefully, studios will see that their efforts were completely wasted, and won't waste their money licensing this garbage from Sony DADC.

[WiseWeasel]

UPDATE: We've gotten very close to a working solution to ARccOS copy protection. Already, we have TITLE/CHAPTER mode working perfectly (as previously mentioned); and now we have FULL DISC mode working with output that DVDRemaster can use (unforunately, the quality of DVDRemaster's compressions is pretty poor). We're working with the DVD2OneX team to hopefully get that working too. Stay tuned. As a side effect, MTR can now handle bad sectors on damaged DVDs. When it encounters a bad sector now, instead of choking and stopping the extraction, it will proceed, and a new LED light UI element (like the green/red one for RCE) will turn yellow, indicating that a bad sector was found. It's your choice whether to keep the output from a damaged disc (which might have some glitches during playback) or to throw it away and try to get another copy of the movie in question.