WMP11 works, VLC croaks... why?

[sionpriory]

So I have ripped my screener dvd of Defiance to ISO on my HDD for playback on my xbmc box. This is an uncommon DVD of course, so I don't expect people to have direct experience with it. However, maybe if I describe the problem someone can think of a reason why it might be happening...

If I play the ISO via the xbmc box, or directly on my PC via something like VLC or mplayer, it will play until exactly 9:00 minutes into the feature, then it quits. Not back to the menu, or start of the disc, it totally stops playing, as if you hit "stop".

However, if I play it on WMP11, it plays through the 9:00 minute mark no problem.

I currently have no other way to watch movies on my HT than to rip them and then play via xbmc (my dvd player is dead, and the xbmc box dvd drive is dead too.)

Any ideas why this is happening, and why WMP11 can handle it? I'm posting here, because since it happens with both VLC, mplayer, and XBMC, I'm guessing it's a problem with the FFMPEG/libmpeg codec suite(s)... but not sure.

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions...

[minidv2dvd]

what did you rip it with? it may have some weird protection scheme. try dvdfab decrypter or anydvd and rip movie only.

or you could upload it to a file sharing site and let us have a crack at it

welcome to the forum by the way

[PuzZLeR]

Although it's a great player, VLC is not perfect, and that includes playback of ISOs. It's that simple, regardless of the libraries mentioned. It should play most ISOs out there, but it will be buggy on some, choke on others or simply hang on them. If that's the case, just don't bother and use another tool instead. It's quite likely nothing wrong with the ISO either.

Keep in mind, VLC runs independently on its own set of internal decoders, so regardless of what you have installed on your system, or didn't install, it will still do the same thing no matter what a DirectShow decoder may be doing.

[sionpriory]

what did you rip it with? it may have some weird protection scheme. try dvdfab decrypter or anydvd and rip movie only.

I used RipIt4Me as a front-end to DVD Decrypter. I'll try a different ripper... but it's weird that it stops at EXACTLY 9 minutes. And if you scan past the point, it's fine, the rest of the disc (ISO) plays fine.
I prefer ISO rips, does it really matter to rip movie only?

or you could upload it to a file sharing site and let us have a crack at it

Sorry.

welcome to the forum by the way

Thanks! I've posted before, I think... long time ago. I lurk occasionally. But this place is so well documented, I hardly find reason to enter the forums!

[sionpriory]

Although it's a great player, VLC is not perfect, and that includes playback of ISOs. It's that simple, regardless of the libraries mentioned. It should play most ISOs out there, but it will be buggy on some, choke on others or simply hang on them. If that's the case, just don't bother and use another tool instead. It's quite likely nothing wrong with the ISO either.

Keep in mind, VLC runs independently on its own set of internal decoders, so regardless of what you have installed on your system, or didn't install, it will still do the same thing no matter what a DirectShow decoder may be doing.

Yes, but it wasn't only VLC. mplayer did it too, and so did XBMC's DVDPlayer. Also, I don't have the luxury to "just use another tool instead." If I want to watch a dvd on my HT (until I can afford a hardware upgrade) I have to rip it to my HDD and stream it to my xbmc box. Using another tool would let me play the movie on my PC, but that's not what I want. I already found that WMP11 ("another tool") would play it fine.

[dannyboy48888]

yes, vlc has its own is reader. so if the protection is in the iso , anydvd or ripit4me wont do you no good as it doesnt read the iso before vlc does, try making the iso with anydvd to get rid of any possible protection then drop the iso in vlc. or, to see if its interal to the iso , mount it virtually with daemon and see what anydvd says about it . if it removed some protection then you need to make a new 'clean' iso.

[sionpriory]

yes, vlc has its own is reader. so if the protection is in the iso , anydvd or ripit4me wont do you no good as it doesnt read the iso before vlc does, try making the iso with anydvd to get rid of any possible protection then drop the iso in vlc. or, to see if its interal to the iso , mount it virtually with daemon and see what anydvd says about it . if it removed some protection then you need to make a new 'clean' iso.

Hmm... not sure I follow you. AIUI, in order to rip a dvd to ISO, one must remove CSS protection at a minimum, and most ripping tools would also remove any other protection too, right? So, I used RipIt4Me and DVD Decrypter to rip to an ISO file.

Then, I mount the ISO file as a virtual disc drive, using Daemon Tools. Then, I open up VLC or WMP11, or mplayerc, or any number of players and play the mounted iso as if it were an actual disc.

So far, only WMP11 can play through the problem spot.

This procedure differs when I play it via XBMC, which does not require me to mount the iso image.

Anyway, How & why would I then make a "clean" iso, from the iso of my original rip? Isn't this redundant? Is there an explanatory article here on videohelp.com that would explain what you're talking about?

Thanks...

[minidv2dvd]

dvd decrypter is way too old and hasn't been updated in ages to take care of recent protection schemes. the only current ones are anydvd and dvdfab.

[sionpriory]

dvd decrypter is way too old and hasn't been updated in ages to take care of recent protection schemes. the only current ones are anydvd and dvdfab.

I thought that was the reason to use RipIt4Me on top of DVDDecrypter.

[minidv2dvd]

i'd give the free part of dvdfab a try. it's updated about every week.

[dannyboy48888]

anydvd is updated WAAAAY more often than ripit4me. so what i am saying is rip the iso with ANYDVD, mount it with daemon tools to see if it plays past 9 minutes. then try the iso itself in vlc. it the iso plays mounted as a virtual drive , but acts kooky as a iso then the problem lies in VLC's iso parser. but you need to mount the image to a virtual drive to test the vobs themselves so you can take the ISO parser out of the equation

[dannyboy48888]

oh and the reason i said mount the iso then put any-dvd on it was i did not know if you had acess to the DVD is all. it is possible to copy 'copy protection' so if it was present in the origional iso anydvd would of told you. but see's how you have the dvd you can skip this step

[PuzZLeR]

Some ISOs that don't play directly into VLC will play with VLC when mounted "as discs" from my experience. Personally, I've just accepted this from VLC. It will get better over time. Then again, I"m not much of a DvD ripper other than personally created content, so can't help here.

dvd decrypter is way too old and hasn't been updated in ages...

I say let's officially rename it to DvD Decrepit. :P

[Zen of Encoding]

PuzZLeR,

A humble request for your attention to the 3rd post from the bottom of page 28 on the
"Hard Drive upgrade for Pioneer DVR-520H" thread.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic253998-810.html

Zen

[sionpriory]

PuzZLeR,

A humble request for your attention to the 3rd post from the bottom of page 28 on the
"Hard Drive upgrade for Pioneer DVR-520H" thread.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic253998-810.html

Zen

Hmm... I don't think I've ever had a thread so obviously hijacked! LOL. :P

All:

thanks for the tips so far. I'll try re-ripping with another tool(s) when I get a chance.

One more question: would it be at all beneficial to rip the rip? Meaning, I've already ripped to ISO & eliminated SOME protections. Would it be better to re-rip from the original DVDs with a different tool, or try to rip the rip, just using a different tool on the second time round?

[PuzZLeR]

PuzZLeR,

A humble request for your attention to the 3rd post from the bottom of page 28 on the
"Hard Drive upgrade for Pioneer DVR-520H" thread.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic253998-810.html

Zen

Oh, it's coming my friend. And I will open a thread for it.

I have all the details anyone could need. I just wanted to do a bit of testing first to make sure. Gimme a couple more hours.

Thread resumed to normal programming.

[dannyboy48888]

rip from the original, that way you have a constant to compare results to Ive seen (veeeery rarely) parts of the movie missing when ripped twice with two different programs because what one dictates as normal (multiple PCG..) the other will take as protection and remove it. so if possible rip from the original

[sionpriory]

Okay, I re-ripped from the original discs (well only the first disc so far).

I first re-ripped with RipIt4Me & DVD Decrypter, but to a folder this time, instead of to ISO. I did this to have a direct comparison with DVDFab5, which can only rip to folder, no ISO. Anyway, I had the same problem, it stops playing at 9minutes.

I then ripped to folder with DVDFab5. Same problem.

I then ripped it to ISO with AnyDVD. Same problem.

So, I seriously doubt this is a copy protection issue.

I'm able to watch the movie, by scanning through the 9minute mark. Even if I stop at just 9:01, it plays fine.

But I still think it's weird that WMP11 can play though the problem section smoothly, while VLC and XBMC (my preferred player) both choke on it at the same spot.

[Midzuki]

sionpriory wrote:

But I still think it's weird that WMP11 can play though the problem section smoothly, while VLC and XBMC (my preferred player) both choke on it at the same spot.

Possibly because WMP uses different "stream splitters" than the ones used by
VLC, MPlayer et al.

Also, maybe VLC detects a "bitrate peak" at the 9-minute mark,
and decides to stall around it.

[sionpriory]

I was mistaken before. Mplayer plows through the trouble spot just like WMP11.

So it's just XBMC's "dvdplayer" and VLC that do this (of the media players I have, that is. I obviously haven't tested every player out there!)

I might bring this up on the XBMC boards... Like I said, it's not a huge problem, but it is a curiosity.

EDIT:
It just dawned on me to try playing the physical disc on my computer. I don't have XBMC installed on the PC, but I do have VLC. The physical disc choked in the same spot, just like the rip version. So it must be an error in the disc itself, one that WMP11, mediaplayerclassic, and mplayer can handle, but VLC and XBMC can not.

Weird.