Trolls Movie...New copy protection method? Timestamp corruption?

[Broseph]

I purchased a (legit, retail) DVD of the new Trolls movie a few days ago. I tried to back it up with AnyDVD and all went well, until I attempted playback in VLC.

The problem is that every 10 minutes or so, video playback pauses, and after a period of 5 to 10 seconds it recovers and video playback resumes.

I discovered what I believe to be the root of the problem by using handbrake as an attempt to troubleshoot. It failed transcoding at what looked to be the exact same place that the first playback interruption happened. I looked at the handbrake logs and googled the error I found. "avformatMux: track 3, av_interleaved_write_frame failed with error 'Invalid argument'"

It led me to discover that handbrake developers got reports of this happening to another person (with a different video), in a very recent bug report on github. They explained the problem, which is that frames were encountered in the video stream with bad timestamps. Could this be a new anti-backup protection?

The handbrake devs said they would put in a patch so that their software could deal with the problem to the extent that they can, but I am wondering: are the AnyDVD developers already aware of this potentially-new timestamp issue?

AnyDVD logfile attached for good measure. Handbrake log also attached.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Can you rip the entire disc to hard drive and play it with something like PowerDVD fine? If so, then it's not an anydvd problem. You can start by updating to beta .4

 

[Broseph]

Can you rip the entire disc to hard drive and play it with something like PowerDVD fine? If so, then it's not an anydvd problem. You can start by updating to beta .4

How does one update to beta .4?

Can I rip it to disk? Yep. That's precisely what I did in the first place.

Can I play it with PowerDVD? I don't know. I don't have it and haven't ever used it. Looks like windows software and I run Linux. The only thing I run Windows for is AnyDVD and I do it in a virtual machine. I have done this with AnyDVD for nearly a decade. That's why I've bought a lifetime license for all their products -- TWICE. It. Just. Works.

But not anymore? Not without PowerDVD? I doubt it.

Is PowerDVD the only video playback mechanism with which AnyDVD aims to successfully operate? Again, I doubt it, and not just because AnyDVD really is that good, but also because the formats for DVD and BD are literal standards -- created as such so that any compliant player also "just works" once the ridiculous copy obstructions are cast aside.

While I sense that this response to your reply may be met with less than eager enthusiasm, rest assured, it's no less so than how I felt while reading (paraphrasing), 'Meh. Go try it with some other software that you'll have to pay for by the way, and which isn't guaranteed to work either'

 

[Ch3vr0n]

The same way you update to beta .4 ^^ grab it from the 1st sticky then install. The reason for the PowerDVD is that it's a fully licensed DVD player. If you can rip to HDD and the rip functions properly inside PDVD then it's not an anydvd problem, plain and simple. PDVD in this part is purely for testing purposes if the rip was succesful. Obviously there's players such as VLC which can do basic DVD playback but it's not the same as PDVD.

Nobody's saying PDVD is the only mechanism. PDVD is purely as rip playback tester, no more, no less

 

[Broseph]

The same way you update to beta .4 ^^ grab it from the 1st sticky then install.

Thanks. Will install that ASAP.

Nobody's saying PDVD is the only mechanism. PDVD is purely as rip playback tester, no more, no less

OK, understood. I'll see what I can do to get a copy of it and follow up with my findings. I honestly admit I'm a bit concerned about what happens in the event that PowerDVD does play back the video without problems and I'm left with no way to transcode my movie for playback on Plex... but here goes.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

In the event that it does play correctly, then anydvd did it's job and it's a handbrake issue. I'm not saying it's NOT an anydvd problem or it can't be. That's what PDVD is for, to rule out if it IS an anydvd problem.

 

[Broseph]

In the event that it does play correctly, then anydvd did it's job and it's a handbrake issue. I'm not saying it's NOT an anydvd problem or it can't be. That's what PDVD is for, to rule out if it IS an anydvd problem.

Well I installed it, straight from the vendor website. I must say I'm extremely unimpressed. Unlike AnyDVD which just works, PowerDVD doesn't work at all. This would seem to be a dead end.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Weird, v16 works fine here. Try VLC player then. It had basic DVD support too.

Sent from my Nexus 6P with Tapatalk.

 

[Broseph]

I upgraded all my Redfox/Elby products and did a fresh rip, but got the same results in VLC. So I pulled down the patch created by the handbrake team which implements their workaround for the timestamp poisoning and applied it via Debian Linux's jesse-backports software branch of the deb-multimedia repo. BAM. Problem solved.

So what have we learned?

By applying the patch for bad timestamps in a non-compliant video stream, I overcame the inability to transcode the video and playback now works without the pausing if I watch the mpeg4-transcoded version in VLC, Plex, mplayer, etc. The raw rip-to-disk copy still does not play back well. This would lead me to believe that the very problem that handbrake fixed was indeed my problem, and that AnyDVD did not repair the DVD sufficiently for a seamless standards-compliant playback.

I'll call it a small victory for open source, and a sad day for RedFox paying customers.

Should this method of anti-backup protection become more prevalent, lemme just say, more people gonna come complainin. For everyone's sake, I'll hope that it doesn't.

 

[Clams]

Should this method of anti-backup protection become more prevalent, lemme just say, more people gonna come complainin. For everyone's sake, I'll hope that it doesn't.

No one (except yourself) has asserted that the bad time-stamps were anything more than bad DVD authoring - and we see that crap all the time here.
I'm sure that if it becomes "a real repeatable thing" - they will look it it. (Remember, you're the 1st one notice or have this issue with Trolls.)
Did you use the built in AnyDVD ripper to do the full disk test rip? If not you gotta try that too.
-W

 

[Broseph]

No one (except yourself) has asserted that the bad time-stamps were anything more than bad DVD authoring - and we see that crap all the time here.
I'm sure that if it becomes "a real repeatable thing" - they will look it it. (Remember, you're the 1st one notice or have this issue with Trolls.)
Did you use the built in AnyDVD ripper to do the full disk test rip? If not you gotta try that too.
-W

No one except myself? Oh, well that answers part of my original question of whether or not anyone was aware. Sometimes it's not good to be the first.

I used both the built in ripper and did a full disk rip. I also used clonedvd2 to create a 1:1 DVD image and attempted to use that. I also used clonedvd2 to create a selective DVD image as well. All results were the same, as originally described. So let the record reflect that I did try those options.

 

[whatever_gong82]

No one except myself? Oh, well that answers part of my original question of whether or not anyone was aware. Sometimes it's not good to be the first.

I used both the built in ripper and did a full disk rip. I also used clonedvd2 to create a 1:1 DVD image and attempted to use that. I also used clonedvd2 to create a selective DVD image as well. All results were the same, as originally described. So let the record reflect that I did try those options.

However, you didn't post the latest AnyDVD (version 8.0.9.4 as of the date I'm typing this) and CloneDVD2 (version 2.9.3.3) logs from your problematic disc.

If you come across something like that in the future, please post the results here, so that the developers can fix the issue.

 

[Ch3vr0n]

I'm not saying it can't be an anydvd problem but i think that's highly unlikely. It's most likely down to bad authoring of the disc, i wonder if it plays properly on a standalone player. @Broseph please update to beta 8094 and provide an anydvd and clonedvd logfile so the developers can have a look.

 

[nebostrangla]

How does one update to beta .4?

With the installer available here:

http://sandbox.redfox.bz/SetupAnyDVD8094.exe

FYI:

Beta's DO NOT trigger the new version notice. When using the check for updates tickbox in AnyDVDHD. Only release version's will .
You must come here to the forum to get beta's.

Also they are posted as stickies so that they will stay at the top of the product sub-forum it's located in.

 

[Yaris]

I'll call it a small victory for open source, and a sad day for RedFox paying customers.
Should this method of anti-backup protection become more prevalent, lemme just say, more people gonna come complainin. For everyone's sake, I'll hope that it doesn't.

Somebody, pass me a box of Kleenex!
Geez, let the developers enjoy their weekend off!!

 

[Clams]

Somebody, pass me a box of Kleenex!
Geez, let the developers enjoy their weekend off!!

The Devs have a choice to read and respond on weekends - or not.
Our job is to "beat" a logfile out of people, that's made from the offending DVD, and with the current beta.
(That's no easy trick sometimes!)

James can look at said logfiles at his choice of timing.
-W

 

[James]

The Devs have a choice to read and respond on weekends - or not.

Which devs? Handbrake?

James can look at said logfiles at his choice of timing.

Regarding video frames, the logfile doesn't reveal anything. If CloneDVD (mobile) can make a playable copy, I'm happy.

 

[Broseph]

Beta's DO NOT trigger the new version notice. When using the check for updates tickbox in AnyDVDHD. Only release version's will .
You must come here to the forum to get beta's.

That's great to know, thanks @nebostrangla !!

 

[Broseph]

Somebody, pass me a box of Kleenex!
Geez, let the developers enjoy their weekend off!!

I never asked for devs to respond immediately, on the weekend, or at all. I literally asked whether or not they were aware of a potential "timestamp poisoning" issue. I felt that if I had run into the problem (and others out there on the net have as well), that I should try to help out by reporting it.

 

[Broseph]

Which devs? Handbrake?

Regarding video frames, the logfile doesn't reveal anything. If CloneDVD (mobile) can make a playable copy, I'm happy.

It didn't... like I said:

"I used both the built in ripper and did a full disk rip. I also used clonedvd2 to create a 1:1 DVD image and attempted to playback/transcode video from the image. I also used clonedvd2 to create a selective DVD image as well. All results were the same, as originally described. So let the record reflect that I did try those options."​

I got around the problem by upgrading handbrake, thereby leveraging their fix. Doing so produced a playable video that works with VLC, mplayer, ffmpeg, Plex, and Plex mobile.

As others have requested additional logfiles, I'll take some time to follow up here with logs as soon as I can go through the process, but I'm not sure it will be very helpful as you indicated that the logs don't reflect frame-level data.

One last thought: I appreciate the help and attention that this issue has gotten from everyone. Given that no one else has mentioned issues with this DVD, this problem may not merit any further effort. I found a fix for the issue, and documented it here so that others can benefit if they hit the same roadblock. Hopefully this doesn't start biting larger numbers of people.