Suggestions

[blacklash123]

I've been thinking about these ideas for a while, but not sure if these functions already exist or not. But most of these were geared towards DVD Decrypter, which was sadly discontinued. But here is what I have anyways. They might be possible or impossible to currently do, or never, but who knows. Here they are anyways:

 

1. More on the possible side of things is this. Let's say I have two copies of the same disc. If I know which sector is bad or not by comparing sector errors from one disc's log with another's, the one that shows up but doesn't in another's must mean it's a bad sector. Knowing that, maybe I can tell ImgBurn (DVD Decrypter...) to read it "x" amount of times for that particular sector. This is different than setting the number of retries under settings because originally, it will set the same number of retries for all the errors encountered (fake sectors or not). I want is to set a number of retries for a few or many particular sectors I know are not fake sectors, but ones that are bad because of dirt or scratches on a disc. This can significantly save a lot of time.

 

2. This might be impossible to do at the moment, but I'll share anyways. Let's say I have two discs that both have bad sectors. If I know which sectors are bad (but not fake) on one disc, but read perfectly on another genuine copy, maybe we can swap the bad ones with the ones that read correctly from the other disc. Then we can make a perfect copy from the two discs that both had bad sectors, but ones that do not have the same ones, otherwise a perfect copy cannot be made from the two.

 

3. This third one is sort of like the 2nd suggestion, but a little different. Let's say I'm trying to clone a disc, but I want to skip the first 2 million sectors because I know the first 2 million sectors of another disc are perfect. So placeholder sectors are slotted in for the skip ones (not sure if the term dummy sectors is correct here for the placeholder term I'm using) to save time. A cross comparison between the two BINS (or ISO...) are then combined with the bad sectors taken out to create a perfect copy from the two discs with different bad sectors than the other.

 

Is there a program out there that actually does the 2nd and 3rd suggestion? If not, can a new development project be built on top of what DVD Decrypter has already done as a whole separate project? There wouldn't be any affiliations to it as it is just swapping out bad sectors from one ISO with another ISO of another copy of the same source disc. Since this program doesn't do anything illegal as to decrypt or rip anything, it seems to be perfectly legal.

Edited July 12, 2017 by blacklash123

[_Greg_]

Is there a program out there that actually does the 2nd and 3rd suggestion?

IsoPuzzle may be helpful for merging two DVDs into one image if the source discs are identical.

 

ImgBurn can tell you the sector count for a minimal indicator of if the discs are likely to be the same, but IsoBuster (free version) would be more informative. IsoBuster shows the volume timestamp info, sector numbers where files start, and other details.

 

If the DVDs are copy-protected a product such as AnyDVD will be needed as well. IsoPuzzle doesn't do decryption, so something like AnyDVD is needed to ensure that the data is decrypted before IsoPuzzle sees it.

[blacklash123]

 

Is there a program out there that actually does the 2nd and 3rd suggestion?

IsoPuzzle may be helpful for merging two DVDs into one image if the source discs are identical.

 

ImgBurn can tell you the sector count for a minimal indicator of if the discs are likely to be the same, but IsoBuster (free version) would be more informative. IsoBuster shows the volume timestamp info, sector numbers where files start, and other details.

 

If the DVDs are copy-protected a product such as AnyDVD will be needed as well. IsoPuzzle doesn't do decryption, so something like AnyDVD is needed to ensure that the data is decrypted before IsoPuzzle sees it.

 

 

Thank you for replying. I haven't checked IsoPuzzle yet, but will when I have time. But can it swap out bad sectors from an ISO that I found when cloning the first disc with a good sector at that same location with the ISO of a second disc? Was that what you meant by "merging two DVDs into one image if the source discs are identical". What I would like is to create a perfect ISO from two or more scratched discs by replacing with ones that I know are good. Some DVDs also have fake sectors, so if I compare the log of two or more copies and determine which ones are fakes, I can ultimately figure out which ones are real sectors that turned bad from dirt or scratches and have them replaced.

Edited July 12, 2017 by blacklash123

[_Greg_]

But can it swap out bad sectors from an ISO that I found when cloning the first disc with a good sector at that same location with the ISO of a second disc?

There isn't really any swapping out of sectors, just filling in of blanks. IsoPuzzle keeps track of which sectors have and haven't been read successfully as you use it.

 

You would first use the program to create a new image from one of the bad discs. You would then switch to the second disc and the program would try to read the previously unreadable sectors again.

 

If the process is successful, you should have a single good image as the output.

[blacklash123]

 

But can it swap out bad sectors from an ISO that I found when cloning the first disc with a good sector at that same location with the ISO of a second disc?

There isn't really any swapping out of sectors, just filling in of blanks. IsoPuzzle keeps track of which sectors have and haven't been read successfully as you use it.

 

You would first use the program to create a new image from one of the bad discs. You would then switch to the second disc and the program would try to read the previously unreadable sectors again.

 

If the process is successful, you should have a single good image as the output.

 

 

Can this only be done in one sitting? If I do, that would mean I must have two or more of the same discs with me already sitting at home. Why I'm asking this is because I already have two ISOs from two different DVDs of the same source, and I'm not sure if I still have multiple copies of the same disc with me at the moment. Can the program cross analyze with the ISOs I've already got, or does it have to be a completely new rip with ISOPuzzle? Also, does it retain any of the extra data like MDS Files do on the side? Such as laybreak and etc.

Edited July 13, 2017 by blacklash123

[_Greg_]

Can this only be done in one sitting? If I do, that would mean I must have two or more of the same discs with me already sitting at home. Why I'm asking this is because I already have two ISOs from two different DVDs of the same source, and I'm not sure if I still have multiple copies of the same disc with me at the moment. Can the program cross analyze with the ISOs I've already got, or does it have to be a completely new rip with ISOPuzzle? Also, does it retain any of the extra data like MDS Files do on the side? Such as laybreak and etc.

It can be done over multiple sittings. A common use of IsoPuzzle is to read as much as possible from a single bad disc using multiple different drives. The rip/dump status is stored in an .flg file which allows recovery over multiple sittings.

 

It cannot use existing images since those are not accompanied by any information about what portions were and weren't read successfully from the DVD. 2048-byte sectors read from DVDs don't have checksums, so sector-level error-checking of existing images isn't possible. The A/V streams on the discs may include optional checksums, but that is far beyond the scope of what IsoPuzzle considers.

 

How were the images created in the first place? Are they the full size of the disc, or are they smaller due to aborting the reading process? This info would have an impact on how practical it would be to merge the existing images successfully in the absence of checksums.

 

As far as I remember, you only get the image file from IsoPuzle, no MDS.

 

Is having the discs professionally resurfaced out of the question?

[blacklash123]

 

Can this only be done in one sitting? If I do, that would mean I must have two or more of the same discs with me already sitting at home. Why I'm asking this is because I already have two ISOs from two different DVDs of the same source, and I'm not sure if I still have multiple copies of the same disc with me at the moment. Can the program cross analyze with the ISOs I've already got, or does it have to be a completely new rip with ISOPuzzle? Also, does it retain any of the extra data like MDS Files do on the side? Such as laybreak and etc.

It can be done over multiple sittings. A common use of IsoPuzzle is to read as much as possible from a single bad disc using multiple different drives. The rip/dump status is stored in an .flg file which allows recovery over multiple sittings.

 

It cannot use existing images since those are not accompanied by any information about what portions were and weren't read successfully from the DVD. 2048-byte sectors read from DVDs don't have checksums, so sector-level error-checking of existing images isn't possible. The A/V streams on the discs may include optional checksums, but that is far beyond the scope of what IsoPuzzle considers.

 

How were the images created in the first place? Are they the full size of the disc, or are they smaller due to aborting the reading process? This info would have an impact on how practical it would be to merge the existing images successfully in the absence of checksums.

 

As far as I remember, you only get the image file from IsoPuzle, no MDS.

 

Is having the discs professionally resurfaced out of the question?

 

These images were created with DVD Decrypter. They are full sized discs that went through the full reading process. Too bad no program out there is capable to doing something like xdelta, but to replace specific sectors from a different ISO's. I would really appreciate if someone knowledgeable in this field can create something that can do what I've suggested. Not that ISOPuzzle is bad, but it seems to have it's limitations with requiring it to rip with another program's decryption method active in the background. If a program can work with the already existing ISOs and we can tell it to replace what data sectors with another disc. I'm not sure how complex this might be to do, but since the structure and data organization is more or less identical from the same source, I'm thinking it's doable. Maybe even implementing a log to record every sector and their CRC which can be then referenced within the ISOs would be interesting.

 

I do not know much about professional resurfacing, but I do not want to risk making these discs worse than they already are. I would like to preserve them and keep a perfect digital copy for archival purposes. Some of the disc I have are almost impossible to find, even if they aren't worth anything really. But whether they are of some worth or not, they are precious to me because they were gifts that I should have taken care of as a kid.

 

I just wish that Lightning UK and some other developers would take a look at this. Really wish this suggestion can be actualized. I know I'm going to get scolded by Lightning UK again for talking about DVD Decrypter here again because he pointed it out that this forum isn't the place for this. But I really hope one day a piece of software can do all this.

Edited July 13, 2017 by blacklash123