Video_TS folders from my disks aren't copying in full to my hard drive

[wjbraden]

Hi,

I have been transferring some of my old VHS tapes to DVD-R's recently with my Panasonic combo player. From there, I have been copying the contents of the disks onto my hard drive, by making a copies of the "Video_TS" folders. However, it appears that only some of these disks are copying correctly to my hard drive. Instead of being between 3-4gb (depending on how much VHS material was transferred onto the disk) as it should be, some of them are only 120-200mb large. That being said, I know that all the contents were copied over in the the latter's case, because the whole movie plays fine as long as I play it straight from the disk on my pc.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this? Could it have to do with something going wrong during the VHS to DVD transferring process? I have attached some screenshots to show the discrepancies in files sizes in the Video_TS folders (which I renamed to reflect the contents from the disks).

I also want to preface that I am extremely new to anything involving VHS transferring, burning and copying dvd's, so if possible, please use as little jargon/tech speak as possible. Thank you!

[johnmeyer]

The usual advice with anything involving a DVD recorder is that you have to "finalize" the disc before it will play in any regular player. This lack of finalization might also affect how it copies to your hard drive, especially if you are just "dragging and dropping" the VIDEO_TS folder.

Since you've had this recorder for awhile, I'm sure you know about finalization and how to do it. Is this disc finalized?

[wjbraden]

The usual advice with anything involving a DVD recorder is that you have to "finalize" the disc before it will play in any regular player. This lack of finalization might also affect how it copies to your hard drive, especially if you are just "dragging and dropping" the VIDEO_TS folder.

Since you've had this recorder for awhile, I'm sure you know about finalization and how to do it. Is this disc finalized?

Yes, all these disks have been finalized and transferred exactly the same way.

[davexnet]

Open an Explorer window in details view (showing the file sizes) of the optical disk video_ts folder
and post it here

[wjbraden]

Open an Explorer window in details view (showing the file sizes) of the optical disk video_ts folder
and post it here

Ok, this is one of the the affected disks that is not copying correctly. It is also is showing as being only 120mb, just as it is when I copy it to my hard drive. However, the full 2 hours of content of the disk are playing fine.

[davexnet]

I wanted to see the contents of the folder, but never mind

[wjbraden]

I wanted to see the contents of the folder, but never mind

Oh, I'm sorry. Here you are.

[davexnet]

If you attempt to play that 120 MB file by itself by double clicking on it or by dragging it to mpc-hc, mpc-be, VLC or similar player,
Does it play? Is it the movie? How many minutes long is it?
If that's not it, the only other thing I can think of is a possible second session on the disk that Explorer is
not showing.
You can use Isobuster (or Isopuzzle) to interrogate further

[wjbraden]

If you attempt to play that 120 MB file by itself by double clicking on it or by dragging it to mpc-hc, mpc-be, VLC or similar player,
Does it play? Is it the movie? How many minutes long is it?
If that's not it, the only other thing I can think of is a possible second session on the disk that Explorer is
not showing.
You can use Isobuster (or Isopuzzle) to interrogate further

No, it apparently only plays for about three minutes (I'm using VLC player as default by the way). However, when I first stick the disk in and it launches automatically (also from VLC player), the whole two hours of content are playable.

I also noticed from one of the the working copied Video_TS folders that there are files called VTS_01_2.VOB, VTS_01_3.VOB and VTS_01_4.VOB that are not present in the ones not working.

As it happens, I have tried using that isobuster program already and tried extracting the video_ts folder that way, but it also produces a 120mb copy. I have not tried isopuzzle yet, but I will try that.

[Nilzzon]

Have you tried any rippers? MakeMkv DvdFab etc.

[wjbraden]

Have you tried any rippers? MakeMkv DvdFab etc.

I actually have an unrelated issue with MakeMkv. It apparently doesn't want to read straight from the disk in any case (even on the disks where the 4gb show up) giving a "udf: UDF: BROKEN DIRECTORY ENTRY" error code (it also shows this when I use my external disk drive). However, if it's a disk where the 4gb video_ts folder copies over correctly to my harddrive, and I go to file>open files and put in the video_ts folder, it successfully makes .mkv files. I've attached screenshots.

I have not use dvdfab yet though.

I should have also mentioned that I was using a program called handbrake, and the whole disk seemed to transfer when I hit encode, but I was told not to use that program because it doesn't make an exact 1:1 copy as it would through makemkv or copying the video_ts straight from the disk drive. The quiailty of the encoded version is not bad, but as these are low quality recording to begin with, I would prefer not to lose anymore quality if I can help it, hence wanting to have a copy of the raw video_ts folders on my hard drive.

[Nilzzon]

There is old DVDDecrypter too, if you open it with AviDemux and choose copy on both audio and video does that work?
There are some topics about that on MakeMkv forum https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14836

[davexnet]

It would be interesting to see if Imgburn "sees" the whole disk.
You could use it to create an iso image, then right click the image in Explorer and mount it.

[wjbraden]

There is old DVDDecrypter too, if you open it with AviDemux and choose copy on both audio and video does that work?
There are some topics about that on MakeMkv forum https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14836

Thank you Nilzzon and davexnet, I will try those and report back.

EDIT: Ok, I'm trying avidemux, how do I import the video_ts folder into it?

[netmask56]

Try MakeMKV and take a look at the results

[wjbraden]

Try MakeMKV and take a look at the results

That unfortunately doesn't seem to be working with these (seemingly) corrupted video_ts folders, as I mentioned in my post above https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/398546-Video_TS-folders-from-my-disks-aren-t-copyi...ve#post2593023.

Also here's the results from the programs everyone suggested:

Isopuzzle didn't seem to work on pc, so I'm at a loss there.

DVDDecrypter only showed 120mb again.

Still can't figure out how to import the video_ts folder in Avidemux.

Imgburn may have worked, but I get an error saying "Sorry, using Read mode to create an image file from a multi-track DVD-ROM disc is not currently supported. Instead use Build mode to create a 'clean' image based on the contents of the disc". When I do use build mode, it also spits out a 120mb file though (screenshots attached).

The only thing I haven't tried yet is DVD fab, but I wanted to see if I could somehow get Imgburn to work before proceeding.

Maybe I'm 100% off-base here, but could the drive be thinking that it's has copyrighted protected material on the disks or something? I mean it I don't know how it would get that from being transfers of VHS television recordings, but is this a possibility?

[wjbraden]

Sorry to double post, but I think I finally resolved the issue. I went back into isobuster and tried extracting the video_ts folder via the "ifo" option, and that seems to have done the trick. A error prompt came up, but I selected "Replace with all zeroes", and it produced a copy of the video_ts folder in its fully glory. All 4gbs and a exact duplicate quality-wise. Thank you for all the recommendations and help everyone, hopefully this helps someone else one day.