jgf Posted April 26, 2010 Posted April 26, 2010 I wanted to back up a six disk DVD set onto three disks. These disks play fine from my standalone players/burners to my TV. I have only one DVD player for my computer that would play them, and it takes 30 minutes or so to load one disk (normally takes about five minutes). Any other players load 2-12% then just sit there. DVDShrink will load 1% and sit there, then crash when I click "cancel". Attempting to rip with any software, including imgburn, eventually elicits the message "Failed to Read Sector xxxxxx - Reason: Timeout on Logical Unit". If I tell it to "ignore" it moves to the next sector and in a couple of minutes displays the same message for that sector. (I've often been able to play flakey DVDs by ripping them to the HD and they play fine from there; even though it can sometimes take longer to rip the disk than to play it.) These disks are nearly new, not scratched or otherwise visibly damaged. Suspecting bad disks (all six of them?!), I got another set of the same program and experienced the same results. What's going on here?
LIGHTNING UK! Posted April 26, 2010 Posted April 26, 2010 Probably copy protection - and we can't help you with that.
jgf Posted April 27, 2010 Author Posted April 27, 2010 Probably copy protection - and we can't help you with that. If it is copy protection, it is the oddest I've ever encountered. These disks all play fine in my Toshiba recorder in my living room. One will play in my Sony in the bedroom, any of the others cause it to lock up after 5-10 minutes (it will freeze one frame on the screen and not respond to any commands, must unplug it, hook it back up, and eject the disk before it loads again). They would only play with one player on my computer (though, as I mentioned, it took 30 minutes or so to load). That is why I assumed they were bad. Exchanged them and the new ones were the same. Research before coming here (a search for that error message led me to a similar thread here), led to recommendations of numerous programs to try (already had imgburn, DVDShrink, and AShampoo). One highly recommended program ran for three hours and had ripped about fifty percent of the DVD when it tells me there's no more disc space (!!, it should be copying into 40gig of empty). I checked and found there was 36gig of files in the HD directory for this DVD! I deleted all that and looked at the DVD in explorer ...there are about 70 VOB files of over 1gig each listed, yet right-clicking the DVD drive and checking properties shows about 6gig (must be a dual layer disk). Some more experimentation, and many more downloads, and I found a combination of software (one explicitly stating it wouldn't work with the other) that would copy these disks in about thirty minutes each. Lost a little quality as I was recording to single layer disks, but the copies will play quite well on all my equipment while the originals only play reliably on my Toshiba. From watching the extraction process it seems the data is contained in two or three of those many VOB files, which ones vary from disk to disk, with the others being ...?? If this is copy protection, it is absurdly intrusive; and unconscionable that the consumer should have to go through such an ordeal in order to use the disks in any player or computer in the house. BTW, since "discovering" imgburn (someone sent me a bin file and I had no idea what to do with it) I use it for most of my burning; by the time Ashampoo has loaded imgburn is already burning. I like simplicity.
LIGHTNING UK! Posted April 28, 2010 Posted April 28, 2010 Yup, it's sounding more and more like copy protection. They do loads of stuff now to prevent you from being about to make backups and some players just can't handle their 'tricks'. Intentional bad sectors and crazy file systems (hence the 70GB of files on an 8GB disc!) are just some of the methods they use. You might be able to get a firmware update for the player so it can then play the discs properly, check with the manufacturer.
jgf Posted April 28, 2010 Author Posted April 28, 2010 ... You might be able to get a firmware update for the player so it can then play the discs properly, check with the manufacturer. ???
LIGHTNING UK! Posted April 28, 2010 Posted April 28, 2010 Talk to the manufacturer's support team, tell them the player (mention your specific model) keeps messing up on these certain few discs (again, mention which ones - and tell them it's with all 6 discs in the set and you've tried a 2nd set) and see what they say on the subject. Sometimes they'll provide a firmware update (the players internal software) to fix the issue.
jgf Posted April 28, 2010 Author Posted April 28, 2010 Talk to the manufacturer's support team, tell them the player (mention your specific model) keeps messing up on these certain few discs (again, mention which ones - and tell them it's with all 6 discs in the set and you've tried a 2nd set) and see what they say on the subject. Sometimes they'll provide a firmware update (the players internal software) to fix the issue. Interesting. How is this accomplished? Return the unit to a warranty station?
LIGHTNING UK! Posted April 28, 2010 Posted April 28, 2010 Normally it's just a file you download, burn to disc and then stick in the player. (well, it is for mine anyway)
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