What the hell is Warner doing to their Archive DVDRs?

[packard]

The problem is, nowhere on the box does it say it's a cheap ass non-universal dvd format that won't play on many drives.

[victoriabears]

Sorry if I missed it, has anyone tried dvd fab or even dvd shrink?

[16mmJunkie]

Yep...classic marketing! Just as with "Organic" it is important to realize(and one will over time) that your idea of something isn't actually what your getting. And to boost the supplier of product make it hard. Down on the bottom(yep not on the top where you could see it) WB site has media info for format. Low and behold Warner Archives is there. I have found the internet a value when looking to purchase from low amounts to large amounts. It took years for cigarette companies to put the warning on the label...

[djmasturbeat]

Especially when someone mentioned the concentric rings on some of these discs, to me it sounds similar to this thread i found (the explanation following is not mine. just sharing it, all credit goes to, Gloval, someone in a forum i am a part of):

Anti rip protection by TitleMatch found on "burn on demand" DVD-R discs from Imaginasian. How it designed and works. Protected disc easy loaded and played by DVD Player. Good, lets look it contents on PC. After first look on file tree on such disc we see enormous amount of VTS - 97!!! Most of vts are 1GB in size that gives approx 100Gb on 4.3Gb. Something really wrong here. If we try to rip this disc in iso mode very soon ripping will stop on unreadable sectors. But if look in this small iso, that have all file layout table, with iso editor that show LBA of files we can see the trick. Group of files share their locations. Each ifo have its own place, but in one LBA diapason lie up to 20 vobs. .bup also share place on disc. Big deal, we can rip any of this VTSes in file mode, or not? Not, vob rip immediately will fail on unreadable sector. Damn. But how they done such thing? Answer. Each main feature VTS_XX_01.Vob starts on unreadable sectors! You can see this unreadable rings on photo. But In one correct ifo for one vts in shared batch have written correct start position of first cell within the vob. Other ifos have first cell position on bad sectors. DVD player read correct ifo and starts play not from start of VOB And so not fail. Does anyone trust tales about 100 years dvd-r live? I'm not. So backup are needed.

for anyone interested in backing these up, it gets.... complicated. another thread, by the same guy, showing how to make a backup:

Rip and repair not "one button" task. You also need knowledge about dvd structures and commands, if you don't know that is VTS, VMGtitle, PGC, cell, ets.. this tutorial not help you. Used tools: DVDdecrypter, IfoEdit, DVDRemakePro. Lots of free HDD space are needed. First. They can't messed up VideoManager files, otherwise disc won't play. Switch DVDdecrypter to file mode and rip VIDEO_TS.IFO, VIDEO_TS.VOB, VIDEO_TS.BUP Load VIDEO_TS.IFO in ifoedit and search for PGC commands that have links to used titles or to VTS. Bingo, all 5 titles show up. Look on VMGtitle table to find corresponding VTS numbers. Second. We now have used VMGTitle numbers and their corresponding VTS numbers, write somewhere such table. (example) title VTS repair(Title&VTS) 41 4 1 42 28 2 43 52 3 44 76 4 45 97 5 We will use this table in rip and repair process. Third. To rip VOBs from disc, switch DVDDecrypter to ifo mode, go to VTS that we found and rip each of them. All must readed fine. switch DVDDecrypter to file mode and rip from good vts ifo, bup, and VTS_XX_0.VOBs to same folder. Remove unnecessary stream info files created by decrypter in ifo mode. Folder should look like this LAST. So we rip all data from disc, but current result are unplayable, we need to fix it. Best program to do it are DVDRemakePro. But it have some drawback, it can't import DVD with missed VTS. We need to create compliant dvd structure, take one VTS files (ifo, vob, bup), you can choose smalest VTS in row, and copy it to same directory, rename for another VTS number, repeat until all 97 VTS are present in folder. I know, this are BOOORING (Tried to use PGCEdit, but it give me shitload of warnings on load this folder, i lost patience closing it). Start DVDRemakePro and import our rip folder It starts importing, it will take some time. At end it will show some warning about errors, ignore it. By the way, DVDRemake fixed errors on our ifos on import. At last project was loaded, let call it 'donor'. (if project was not loaded, recheck project folder all 97VTS must be there). Make new project (our repair). Delete VTS_1 that was in here by default. Look for number of first correct VTS in our table, copy it from donor and add copied to repair project. Repeat for all remaining VTS in our table. In video manager create VMG titles for our new VTS. Next we need recreate video manager structure, Add Firstplay, Add LanguageUnit, Set it as English. Copy from donor video manager first play commands, and all menu PGCs. Now browse across all PGC in repair project and fix commands with incorrect linking, our table will help. If you not sure that all was fixed, run disc in debug mode and recheck again. Export repair project, now you have protection free disc rip, that can be easy burned. If you want repair another discs with such protection, don't delete donor folder. Next time you can simply copy paste new ripped VTS here and avoid boring copy rename task. Enjoy.