Ripping on iMac: Problems with copy protection?

[TangoOversway]

I'm fairly new to ripping DVDs and blu rays. I have an iMac and a Pioneer blu ray RW drive, but I also have a 2nd and older DVD player. I've tried a number of different programs that say they can crack Disney and other types of copy protection.

The issue is that I find a lot of DVDs unreadable. I don't know if this is because I'm ripping older DVDs that are bad (may are only a few years old), or if that is from copy protection. (Usually they play on my DVD/blu-ray player when I try to play them on that with a TV.) The ripping programs can't read those DVDs, but even if I just try to copy the DVD, the OS just reports some files as unreadable and stops.

I've found this never happens on the 1st DVD in a set. (Right now I'm ripping DVDs of a lot of old Saturday morning cartoons from the 60s and 70s, like Space Ghost or Scooby Doo.) It's almost always on the 2nd or last DVD in a series. (On the Flintstones DVDs, though, it can be on more than one DVD in a season.)

Is there any way to tell if this is from copy protection or bad DVDs? Is there a particular program that would work best on a Mac for ripping? (I also have an old Windows XP install on a VMWare virtual machine.)

[october262]

have you tried dvdfab for mac ?? - https://www.dvdfab.cn/dvd-copy-for-mac.htm
what programs are you currently using to copy your discs ??
it sounds like it either is copy protection or you have a failing DVD reader.

[TangoOversway]

The reason I don't think it's a failing reader is because when I have a problem reading a disk, it won't read in the blu-ray drive or in the older LiteScribe DVD drive.

I'll check into DVDFab. I haven't seen that. I have tried multiple programs that claim to handle CSS and Disney schemes and they've had issues. I've used RipIt, MacX DVD Converter Pro Pack, MacX Video Converter Pro (supposed to be better than their Pro Pack, but is more of a pain in the ass), iSkySoft iMedia Convert Deluxe (not useful for much), Handbrake (with libdvdcss - no help at all), AnyDVD Cloner Platinum, and PavTube BDMagic. All tend to be "halfway there." I can find about half the features I need in any one program.

In the past, I've searched for things like "dvd ripping mac" and variations of that. I never got anything that made me think, "This looks like a good program." All the links I've found through such searches felt like they were to small time independent software companies that may or may not know much about what they're doing.

I'll try to get DVDFab later today and start testing it.

[october262]

dvdfab & anydvd are the only 2 programs that'll remove copy protection
from your dvd / blu-ray collection. anydvd works on windows only and has no mac support.

[TangoOversway]

So the others, when they say they'll do it, are just - well, lying.

Got it. I'll try DVDFab. If that doesn't work, I'll see if AnyDVD will work on my old XP virtual machine.

I'll let you know how it goes.

[october262]

So the others, when they say they'll do it, are just - well, lying.

Got it. I'll try DVDFab. If that doesn't work, I'll see if AnyDVD will work on my old XP virtual machine.

I'll let you know how it goes.

the other programs may not be updated enough to support the newer copy protection schemes
and dvdfab and anydvd are always updated to support newer discs.

[johns0]

Thread moved to the mac forum where you can get more help.

[TangoOversway]

Thread moved to the mac forum where you can get more help.

Thank you!

Also, there's one other point I mentioned that I'm curious about. The 1st DVD never has issues in the sets I've bought. It's always the 2nd or last DVD that has issues. Is that normal?

I have DVDFab, the trial version. It's running now, but I don't know if it's doing anything. The progress bar in the small window just keeps bouncing back and forth and it hasn't generated any files after half an hour and the DVD is still being used (I can see the light on the drive flickering). Is that normal behavior while it's working on a protected DVD?

[october262]

Thread moved to the mac forum where you can get more help.

Thank you!

Also, there's one other point I mentioned that I'm curious about. The 1st DVD never has issues in the sets I've bought. It's always the 2nd or last DVD that has issues. Is that normal?

I have DVDFab, the trial version. It's running now, but I don't know if it's doing anything. The progress bar in the small window just keeps bouncing back and forth and it hasn't generated any files after half an hour and the DVD is still being used (I can see the light on the drive flickering). Is that normal behavior while it's working on a protected DVD?

is the disc not copying at all ??
that little window, does it say "opening disc" ??

[TangoOversway]

is the disc not copying at all ??
that little window, does it say "opening disc" ??

I went down and binged on a TV show with my wife for a few hours. When I got back up here, it had apparently analyzed the DVD. (Hey, this is my first time with this program, so I don't know what order it does things in or just what it's doing yet.) It had picked one title to rip, but there were 6 more episodes on the DVD, so I picked "Choose other titles," and picked the remaining 6 I want ripped.

It's working on Title 4 now, analyzing it.

I'm wondering if it would have been better to just copy the DVD. Wouldn't that have produced an image without any copy protection on it? Then I could just rip files from there. As it is, it took at least an hour to analyze the DVD and give me a choice of titles to rip. Once I picked what I wanted to rip, it seems to going back and, again, taking a long time to read the protected DVD. Wouldn't just copying the DVD have at least given me a clean copy to rip from?

[october262]

is the disc not copying at all ??
that little window, does it say "opening disc" ??

I went down and binged on a TV show with my wife for a few hours. When I got back up here, it had apparently analyzed the DVD. (Hey, this is my first time with this program, so I don't know what order it does things in or just what it's doing yet.) It had picked one title to rip, but there were 6 more episodes on the DVD, so I picked "Choose other titles," and picked the remaining 6 I want ripped.

It's working on Title 4 now, analyzing it.

I'm wondering if it would have been better to just copy the DVD. Wouldn't that have produced an image without any copy protection on it? Then I could just rip files from there. As it is, it took at least an hour to analyze the DVD and give me a choice of titles to rip. Once I picked what I wanted to rip, it seems to going back and, again, taking a long time to read the protected DVD. Wouldn't just copying the DVD have at least given me a clean copy to rip from?

just select "FULL DISC" if you want to copy the entire dvd
minus the copy protection. here's a short guide - https://www.dvdfab.cn/dvd-copy-for-mac.htm#guide

[TangoOversway]

I'm going to have to interrupt the process and restart. Errors on all files so far and this is after many hours of it running. Sadly, the trial is only 3 discs, since I want to try this one as I did (ripping), as a copy, and I also want to try it in my other drive. With this file, it's been at 58% done for over an hour.
[Attachment 50830 - Click to enlarge]

Maybe I should just buy the program, since, from what I'm reading here, it's the best I'm going to find on my Mac for ripping or copying.

I'm also thinking that I have a BD drive (even burns blu-ray discs) and an older DVD drive that was intended for being able to burn patterns on the label side of a DVD or CD. It's quite possible both of these drives are not good ones to use for ripping or copying copy protected material. At this point, I'd like to be able to determine whether I just have a lot of DVD sets with bad discs (and, again, odd that it's never Disc 1, always the 2nd or last one, sometimes, though, more than 1), protection, or even bad drives.

Are there USB DVD drives that are recommended for dealing with protected material?

Also, is the experience of a DVD playing in a desktop player (as in one that hooks up to your TV) and it not playing in a USB DVD drive I have hooked up to my computer something other people get? Or does that indicate disc damage?

[october262]

the read errors you are getting are the result of a dirty or scratched disc
and sometimes a defective disc. are the discs clean ??

[orsetto]

Ripping on Mac hasn't been the best way to go for some years now. The built-in slot-load "Superdrives" (on models that had them) weren't great for ripping, and even with an external drive the software hasn't performed as well as similar options available for Windows. I use my Macs for everything but video and disc work: that all gets done on cheap Windows boxes and laptops. Your VMware WinXP install may or may not work better with Windows decrypt/rip utilities than the native MacOS with Mac dvdfab (its still translating thru the Mac hardware). If it were me, I'd bring a couple of the most problematic discs to a cooperative friend with a Windows PC, ask them to install a Windows utility like dvdfab, and see if that doesn't work much better. An ordinary decrypt-and-rip session should not drag on for hours. My ancient version of AnyDVD with CloneDVD and ImgBurn will typically back up an entire dvd (rip+write) in under an hour, unless a lot of compression is invoked or the disc is seriously defective.

DVDs from multi-disc TV series sets are notoriously the most glitch-ridden discs of all: many sets will have at least one hopeless disc thats so bad it won't even play properly, never mind rip. Sometimes its a manufacturing error, sometimes atrocious authoring: either way, it can be difficult to find a better copy or to make a backup of what you have. ISObuster can help in some cases, but its very very slow (can take days to rip a buggy TV series disc) and payment is required to unlock its best recovery abilities.

[lingyi]

+1

I held back on recommending getting a Windows PC if you have a lot of discs to keep from being called a Mac hater, but as Orsetto stated, Windows is just so much better suited for ripping. As i discussed here https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/394781-Rip-Blu-ray-and-UHD-Movie, even my lowest powered PCs didn't even flinch at ripping DVDs (~10 min). You can get a used Win 7 PC (the newest versions of ripping software may not work on XP) for well less then $100.

[lingyi]

DVDFab stopped working on XP in 2016 with version 9.2.4.5: https://forum.dvdfab.cn/forum/software-support-english/dvdfab-dvd-copy/30171-says-xp-i...nger-supported

The newest version 11 with updates for the newest copy protections is for Win 7 and up only.

[TangoOversway]

So if I were to get a recent version of Windows to install as a VMWare VM, I still wouldn't get what I can if I am working on a "pure" Windows box?

At this point I have an old Mac Mini that's serving as a file server and DVR, but it's old enough I don't even have commercial detection enabled on the DVR. At some point I'll be getting a small form factor computer to replace it and running Linux on it. (It's free, I used to use it a lot when running my old data mining business, and I tend to run servers without a GUI to save on RAM and CPU power.) But a lot of the systems I've looked at come with Windows pre-installed, so I could probably use a utility and make it a dual-boot. That'd give me a Windows computer that would remain semi-recent for a while and let me handle ripping and such on it.

Interesting to know that TV show DVDs have issues. I may have to do something like finding images to download that would replace the bad ones, since some of these shows have been sitting around for a while. (I started collecting them a few years ago. They're great to have on in the background when I work, but I plan on sharing them with my grandson, so there are some I didn't check out early enough to return them.)

There does seem to be an issue with the DVD I'm working on now and it's copying, but at a slow speed. I also went back and checked the files that had read errors. They seem okay, but the files are 21 minutes long and I didn't watch the whole thing. I suppose a read error or two might effect only a frame or two and might not be noticeable. At least that's what I'd hope.

If DVDFab can read my DVDs now, I don't mind if it takes time to read them. I can just leave it running in the background. If I can't, I may have to just wait until I upgrade my server and can boot it under Windows for ripping.

[crjackson]

On my MacPro, for DVD's I use Mac DVDRipper Pro. I find it flawless/perfect for me... You can download and test the trial version. I've found it to be MUCH better than any DVDFab products (which I also own, but don't use anymore).

For Blu-Ray, I use MakeMKV to rip. Since I play most movies from a HDD, it's default of file container is fine for me. You can of course convert it to something else if you like.

Both of these will remove copy protections. I don't know if I've used either with disc's protected with Disney copy protection, but it's likely I have. MDRP is constantly updated to cover new protections.

[orsetto]

So if I were to get a recent version of Windows to install as a VMWare VM, I still wouldn't get what I can if I am working on a "pure" Windows box?

Maybe yes, maybe no: all I know is any task involving DVDs (authoring, ripping, backup, burning) works better on my Windows systems. Theres wider choice of paid, inexpensive or free software on that platform and the software is optimized for Windows first, then ported to Mac (if at all).

I've never run a Windows boot or emulator on any of my Macs because as lingyi said, if you just need a Windows box for simple tasks like ripping and burning, people will practically give you their Win7 PC when they buy another new PC with newest Windows. Even an ancient low-powered Celeron laptop will do fine for ripping/burning, you can get a recent generic Win7 laptop second hand for peanuts. Leaves the Mac free for what it does best: graphics, photo processing, some types of video editing & conversion, internet, etc.

MakeMKV is extremely popular because it decrypts and rips as a single utility, the only issue is it won't "clone" a DVD with menus etc intact. It will only take the video from the dvd and repackage it as 4GB or 8GB mkv video file, which you can either use as-is or convert to smaller mp4 files with other video utilities. This is perfect for viewing from a video server, or on portable devices (phones, tablets) but not good if you want to keep all the menus and special features of the physical disc.

dvdfab can be hit or miss: many love it, some find they can't figure out how to use it for best performance. I vastly prefer AnyDVD/CloneDVD, but thats gotten more expensive of late and is Windows-only. I haven't tried the most recent dvdfab Mac version, or dedicated Mac packages like Mac DVDRipper Pro. crjackson recommends giving the trial version a spin: it couldn't hurt. Tho I suspect part of their satisfaction comes from running it on a old silver Mac Pro, which is much closer in spirit to a Windows box than the usual Mac Mini or iMac. The old Mac Pros could house a standard full-size internal DVD drive, which is the most reliable configuration for ripping. External USB drive can multiply potential issues, a tower PC or laptop with tray drive is usually best. When my laptop internal drive failed, I had pretty good luck ripping with a cheap flimsy portable USB-powered LG dvd drive, but was happier after I replaced the internal.

[netmask56]

Have you tried MakeMKV for MAC? https://www.makemkv.com/download/

[lingyi]

Like orsetto, I don't have any experience running Windows in a VM other than playing out with XP in one.

As for external USB optical drives, they always run better with a USB Y adapter that provides additional power, even to USB 3.0 drives. I returned a single cable USB 3.0 external drive because it would constantly spin down while ripping. I got a USB 2.0 model with a Y adapter and *knock wood* no issue. The problem is that during ripping, the drive tries to go to max read speed vs the 1x speed required for normal playback.

[Cornucopia]

For ripping with Win-on-a-Mac, it has been my experience going dualboot (a la BootCamp) is preferable to a VM/Emulator, as the generic hardware abstraction can mess with efficiency/accuracy.

Scott