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  1. I'm currently running a pioneer DVD player in my car but when a play a VCD that have the signal prohibiting copy the picture get stripes and blurs on my screen. After reading the manual it's said that the product is compatible with the copy guard analog copy protection system. That's why it's causing this. Is there a way to not have this code burn into a VCD when I burn my VCD? I use Stomp and Nero as my burning software. Is there certain switches to turn this off? or certain files to eliminate before I start my burning process? Please help thanks
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  2. Member adam's Avatar
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    I'm not sure what the copy guard analog copy protection system is but that definitely does not apply to vcds, as they are digital not analog and do not support any form of copy protection at all.

    I think your dvd player is just having trouble reading your media. Try using a different brand of cdr.
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  3. well I got that right out of the book. Besides I think it's that copy writed thingy where they put into our VCD so we can't pirate CDs. The other VCDs that I used are the same brand and they aren't having any problem. Even on the VCD that I've purchase do this not only burned VCD.
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  4. As what adam stated.

    VCDs don't support copy protection of any kind.

    There is either something wrong with your player/setup, or something wrong with your disc.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  5. Never say never

    There is copy protection for VCD, however mostly seen on East Asian
    commercial VCD's. It works by placing a dead space (a visable
    ring on the silver) where the ISO9660 track would normally be.
    This prevents any computer from reading the cd (cdrom's just spit
    them out) but VCD and DVD players of all generations usually
    play them with out trouble as they can & often skip this track
    to read the mpeg header direct.

    BTW u can make your own copy protected VCD's at home.

    (1) Include a large dummy file (anything will do) in the ISO directory
    of your VCD and burn DAO. (Disk at once burning is required so that
    there is a lead-in track at the begining of the cd)

    (2) On the underside, locate the blank ring (just outside the spindle
    ring) and carefully draw a circle (maybe use a template). The large
    ISO acts as a partial buffer so you are less likely to draw over
    the line into the mpeg file itself.

    (3) Now u should have a copy protected VCD. If it is still readable on
    your comp, simply thicken the circle (outwards) until the iso track
    is covered.
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  6. Member adam's Avatar
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    But this is far from actual copyright protection. This is simply a trick to make cd to cd copying more difficult, though it is far from fullproof. This is not the kind of protection dannieboiz is refferring to either as even one of these modified vcds should still play on his hardware vcd player. Vcds do not support any form of legitimate copy protection such as macrovision on vhs or file encryption on dvds.

    There are other little tricks like this also. For instance if you make that dummy file a vcd compliant video track and make less than 4 secs long than almost no burner will be able to make a cd to cd copy since very few burners can burn tracks less than 4 secs long. Also you can make a bin and cue of your disk and modify the TOC to make the video track longer than it actually is. It will still play fine on any hardware or software player but if you try to copy the dat file to your hard drive it will cause an error since it will continue trying to copy the file even when it is already finished.
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  7. Far from foolproof? If it is done correctly it should be as near
    to foolproof as you can get. The other tricks u mention all keep the ISO and therefore can easily be copied with any burner that can write raw.

    BTW I realise the "copy protection" refered to in this topic
    was the embeded analog kind (macrovision level 1) or similar,
    however I thought I'd add my 2cents about this Asian method
    as it is (semantics aside) "copyprotection" in the true sense
    of the term. If you can beat it I'd be dying to know how? 8)
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  8. Member
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    Are you sure the car player supports VCD and CD-R?
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  9. These discs usually don't work because your OS is trying to look for a filesystem then baulks when it can't find one.

    These, BTW, by definition make then non-standard VCDs though they would work on most standard alone players.

    To copy them would, I imagine, not be overly difficult. After all, the disc can't be so screwed up so that a CD-ROM drive can't read it (many stand-alone VCD players are based around a CD-ROM drive). You could always do a sector read of the entire disc and dump it as a CUE/BIN or ISO. Then, use a tool like VCDXRIP or VCDGear to extract the video data.

    As for "copy protection", I was referring to an official copy protection system. None exists for VCDs.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  10. You can't do a sector by sector read of the entire disc
    if there is no ISO and leadin. No ISO = no file allocation of sectors
    and no lead = no allowance for raw reading. In effect you
    have damaged the disc.
    You would have to reprogram
    cdr flash rom to ignore the iso track and then rewrite the eide
    bios (mainboard.) I'm sure panasonic (which owns the rom copyright)
    will sell you a copy of the bios and add a special modification
    for you for $10,000,000. Then you can use a SMT soldering
    machine ($5,000) to piggyback it to your mainboard (piggyback
    is required as your machine won't boot with the modified bios)

    This method (although not within legal specs and rather
    crude) will protect the disk from being copied directly.
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  11. Not correct.

    There must be a lead-in (which is where the TOC is) otherwise stand-alone players can't read the disc either (stand-alone players are often based on CD-ROM drives).

    There may be no filesystem BUT THIS IS NOT REQUIRED for the extraction of the video tracks.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  12. Gentlemen, forgive me for what I'm gonna say, but OF COURSE virtually ANY video signal CAN be copyright protected, with the Macrovision protection scheme. Commercial VHS tapes are, and so are some commercial VCDs, and almost every commercially made DVD.
    There are 3 different leves and 3 variations of it which you can apply to your video signal. The thing is just a scrambled signal superimposed onto your regular one. It doesn't bother when you are watching directly to your tv set, but when you try to record to something, the device cannot recognize your video signal as a good signal. You can still record it, but color and luminosity will fade away at intervals.
    It can also be digitally embbeded to any mpg stream, as anyone working with a pro dvd authoring system will tell.

    So if you are having problems with the signal probably you are passing it through another device before your monitor. The signal must get straight to it. If this is not the case, I suggest you to try a ripping tool. Smartripper (available in this site) can take an mpeg stream and remove the macrovision protection from it. After demuxing and remuxing your mpg files (they are called .dat on a vcd, btw) you can burn it on nero 5.5 and play it back on your player device. Try it.
    In this industry, Sadly, The future was yesterday.
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  13. Originally Posted by pacoreguenga
    Commercial VHS tapes are, and so are some commercial VCDs, and almost every commercially made DVD.
    VHS yes.

    VCD -- I have never seen a VCD with any sort of Macrovision protection (labels on the cover don't count).

    DVDs -- these don't actually intrinsically have the Macrovision signal! All there is is a flag in the MPEG stream that tells the player to put the Macrovision signal in. This is why Macrovision hacks (which forces the player to ignore that flag) work at all.

    There are 3 different leves and 3 variations of it which you can apply to your video signal. The thing is just a scrambled signal superimposed onto your regular one. It doesn't bother when you are watching directly to your tv set, but when you try to record to something, the device cannot recognize your video signal as a good signal. You can still record it, but color and luminosity will fade away at intervals.
    Actually, the Macrovision signal is inherently harmless. This is why it doesn't matter when you watch it on TV. All newer VCR machines though, have additional circuitry that picks up the Macrovision signal and makes it work. If you have an old VCR, you can record away even if there is the macrovision signal.

    Smartripper (available in this site) can take an mpeg stream and remove the macrovision protection from it. After demuxing and remuxing your mpg files (they are called .dat on a vcd, btw) you can burn it on nero 5.5 and play it back on your player device. Try it.
    As before. This is a commonly spread myth. The macrovision signal that is removed by SmartRipper is the FLAG. It doesn't do anything else to the video. If you are making S/VCDs or DivX, it makes absolutely no difference whether you "remove Macrovision" or not. The only time it may matter is if you play to reauthor the decrypted VOB files as a DVD.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  14. Considering your last points:

    Originally Posted by vitualis
    There may be no filesystem BUT THIS IS NOT REQUIRED for the extraction of the video tracks.
    My point exactly! Without the TOC you can't make a bit copy. No PC or mastering system can copy what is on the disc without a TOC period!
    But you can play the mpeg stream & headers. It is just that you can't copy it in digital form.

    Originally Posted by vitualis
    There must be a lead-in (which is where the TOC is) otherwise stand-alone players can't read the disc either
    No.. the leadin can be missing or damaged without
    any difference to the standalone (which was my original point.)

    Originally Posted by vitualis
    stand-alone players are often based on CD-ROM drives).
    Of course they are.. lol What is your point here? I mentioned
    in a previous post that it is the IDE rom controller chip that runs the
    show in this regard, nuttin to do with the drive itself within a stand alone
    player.

    You can't make a digital copy of a vcd disc if the TOC is not
    present.
    However, you can play it in a standalone. If you place
    it in a mastering machine or even a simple PC cdrom drive .. neither
    will be able to read it.
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  15. Offline,

    You're agreeing with Vitualis that standalone players are based on CD-ROM drives. You say that standalone players can work without a TOC, yet you then go on to say that a PC CD-ROM drive will not be able to read the disc as there is no TOC.

    Surely this doesn't add up!?!
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  16. Is there a total idiots guide to stop someone making copies of a disc you may burn for them? I collect movies and have been giving copies to a friend who is distributing them all over town. I'd just like to stop him making copies of it and harming the local cinema which believe it or not he is actually doing as they had half the turn out for Spiderman they were expecting. Any advice pointers etc would be very helpful.
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  17. Originally Posted by offline
    My point exactly! Without the TOC you can't make a bit copy. No PC or mastering system can copy what is on the disc without a TOC period!
    But you can play the mpeg stream & headers. It is just that you can't copy it in digital form.
    Without a TOC (table of contents), a CD cannot be read at all (some minor caveat for un-finalised CD-R discs in a CD-R/W drive). You are right, it can't be copied, but it ALSO CANNOT BE READ.

    The table of contents tells the CD drive where tracks begin and end. Without this, it wouldn't even know WHERE to look for the data.

    No.. the leadin can be missing or damaged without
    any difference to the standalone (which was my original point.)
    Incorrect. The TOC must exist for a stand-alone player to be able to play a VCD. This resides in the lead-in. The lead-in may be damaged, but it can't be so damaged that an ordinary drive can't find the TOC.

    You are confusing the difference between the TOC, lead-in and the filesystem. Calling it an "ISO" already indicates this.

    A stand-alone player doesn't need the filesystem to play a VCD. It directly accesses predetermined sectors for certain info (e.g., the info in the PBC is in predetermined sectors -- read the VCDImager manual for more details). This is generally how those Asian discs work. They omit or mangle the filesystem and this will confuse most people on a PC because the OS looks for the filesystem.

    However, for a stand-alone player, it MUST at least read the TOC of a disc before it can even recognise it as a disc at all.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  18. Originally Posted by bluesxman
    Offline,

    You're agreeing with Vitualis that standalone players are based on CD-ROM drives. You say that standalone players can work without a TOC, yet you then go on to say that a PC CD-ROM drive will not be able to read the disc as there is no TOC.

    Surely this doesn't add up!?!
    It does

    A PC looks for an iso9660 track, a standalone looks for the mpeg
    track if it can't find the toc. Take an Apex/Hiteker standalone DVD player which has a standard computer DSL-600/700 dvdrom drive. It will play an "Asian" copy protected disk BUT when connected to a PC, that
    same DVD drive will spit out the disc. This is due to the differing EIDE bios rom instructions on the mainboard.
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  19. vitualis,

    <sound of glove slapping face>

    I hereby challenge you to a duel. I will send you one
    Asian copy protected VCD by snail mail and you will send
    me back a digital duplicate at fifty paces. You will also report what happens when you try to play the cd on both PC and standalone units.

    Do my terms suit, or do you back down?

    Faithfully yours,

    Offline.
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  20. Not a problem. This site is about information.

    However, since you own the disc, how about we go through step-by-step what happens when you try to extract stuff off the disc (you could start another thread)?

    It is entirely possible that the Asian stampers have don't something tricky to the disc, but I am also certain of my theory. The TOC must exist. Otherwise, if I say I put a CD upside-down in my player (no toc readable) it should still try to read the disc.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  21. Originally Posted by offline
    A PC looks for an iso9660 track, a standalone looks for the mpeg track if it can't find the toc. Take an Apex/Hiteker standalone DVD player which has a standard computer DSL-600/700 dvdrom drive. It will play an "Asian" copy protected disk BUT when connected to a PC, that
    same DVD drive will spit out the disc. This is due to the differing EIDE bios rom instructions on the mainboard.
    Do you know this or are you guessing?

    A stand-alone player cannot look for the MPEG track if it can't find the TOC. The TOC tells the player where the mpeg tracks start and end.

    If it can't find a TOC, then the player would most probably assume that you haven't put in a CD in the drive (e.g., if I put a CD in upside down or put a DVD into a stand-alone VCD player) and stop.

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  22. This topic is of great interest to me.
    I have some Asian VCD discs that I tried to copy with CloneCD, but would get spitted out when placed in a CD-RW burner to read. I have tried on eleven different burners and same results. First thought was that there is a new protection system placed on these VCDs. These VCDs will work fine in VCD machine players.
    Finally I defeated that so called protection by using an old fashion CD-ROM in my old computer to read and copy made with CloneCD.
    Funny thing is the copies will now be read easily in any CD-RW burner.
    Any technically minded person please explain?
    Also, Offline, try reading your protected VCDs on a plain old fashion CD-ROM and see it will read them.
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  23. Very interesting indeed!

    Regards.
    Michael Tam
    w: Morsels of Evidence
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  24. How exactly can one remove the File System from a BIN image file?
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  25. I tryed Iso Buster, but it says in the docs it does not modify/edit images. Could you maybe explain how exactly one can delete the file system from an image?
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  26. Originally Posted by crazed burner
    Finally I defeated that so called protection by using an old fashion CD-ROM in my old computer to read and copy made with CloneCD.
    How old fashioned? Do you mean something like a 2x speed ?
    Tried that.. spat it out.

    Do you remember if the recorded layer of your discs had any visable
    differences compared to a normal silver cd?
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  27. Originally Posted by Pauliewallnuts
    Is there a total idiots guide to stop someone making copies of a disc you may burn for them? I collect movies and have been giving copies to a friend who is distributing them all over town.
    If he is a friend, ask him not to do this. A friend should respect your wishes. Otherwise, the best way to prevent him from copying is to NOT give him anything to copy. Abstinance ALWAYS prevents pregnancies.
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  28. Does anyone else here know how to remove the File System from a bin image? If you use Iso Buster, how exactly do you go about doing so?
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  29. TO Offline,

    You asked: "How old fashioned? Do you mean something like a 2x speed ?"
    Answer: I used a 4 years old Diamond Data 40X CDROM drive that has a Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) speed of only 3.17 times.

    You said: "Tried that.. spat it out."
    Question: What CDROM did you use?

    You asked: "Do you remember if the recorded layer of your discs had any visable differences compared to a normal silver cd?"
    Answer: I don't have the original Karaoke VCDs at the moment. There were only a couple out of many different brands that has this problem. I thought the disc probably was not closed or has a missing lead in or something that did not comform to the VCD specifications. From memory, the disc is very bright silver with a 5 mm width ring band of a duller silver on the outter edge. I will try to locate this unique VCD from my friend.

    You could try reading your VCD in various other CDROM drives.

    My experience is that fast DAE drives have problems reading poorly produced VCDs and results with heaps of errors reported by CloneCD, and different drive has different capability in producing a good back up image file. But this is the only situation that a VCD gets spitted out in every CD-RW drive.
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