Defective rip for "La Guerre des Boutons"

[jpmccusa]

I've had this problem with several discs and this is the latest: when I rip the feature with either PGC demux or with DVDDecrypter to demux the image for adding subtitles, the image loses its anamorphic ability: it's always widescreen and I can no longer get pan-and-scan or letterbox settings on the DVD player to work. How can I get a non-defective rip of such discs? This time, forcing AI didn't work!

I'm attaching the logfile with AI scanner in automatic.

 

[Adbear]

Try using AnyDVD's 'rip to hard disk' option then run the rip through those programs.
As far as I'm aware AnyDVD doesn't touch the video flag

 

[jpmccusa]

Yes, I've done that. No go. I'm sure you're right, but something about the disc is preventing me from getting a clean rip with either of those programs...while it might not be intended as protection, it is working as such, and I hope it'll be addressed.

 

[Adbear]

It's not a protection as the disc can still be played as it's supposed to be played in widescreen. When you pan and scan the player just zooms in and chops the edges off and as it appears to be full frame (1:66) I wouldn't expect you to be able to get letterbox as that would mean you'd have to zoom out and that would put black bars all round

 

[jpmccusa]

The original disc has all three: WS, Pan-and-scan, and Letterbox. The rip does not preserve this. Of course you'll get black bars if you use letterbox on a FS TV, but you'll have the correct aspect ratio, which is the whole point. What I want is for the rip to preserve the features of the original disc, i.e. not be a defective rip. The disc is designed an anamorphic, not just for widescreen.

 

[Adbear]

So what happens if you just do a full disc rip to hardrive using AnyDVD's ripper then burn that back and play that, does that work? I suspect it will as like I said I don't think AnyDVD touches the flag on the files.

If the disc plays back after the rip as full frame widescreen then it is playing back as anamorphic otherwise you wouldn't get it in widescreen anymore as anamorphic pixels are designed to be played back stretched out horizontally otherwise everything would look squashed. On the original disc does it give you different menu options to decide which way you play it?

If you want to pm me the untouched IFO files from the original disc without AnyDVD running then I can take a look and see if there are any differences on the flag settings

 

[jpmccusa]

Making an ordinary copy works fine. On the original disc, the image in widescreen setting on the DVD player does looks squashed a bit, with black bars on the side...adjusting the TV to WS gets rid of the distortion and those black bars. When instead you change the DVD player setting to letterbox, the bars appear at the top and bottom and the distortion goes away. When you watch on a FS TV the bars only appear at the top and bottom. The problem occurs when I rip with a demuxing program (like PGCdemux or DVDDecrypter) to add subtitles, whether I work from the original disc or from the rip-to-hard-drive disc --- changing the DVD player to letter box leaves the image unchanged: still distorted, no black bars on the top and bottom. Something on the disc is preventing me from getting a clean rip while demuxing. Everything I said about letterbox also applies to pan-and-scan.

Sending the files you asked for seems unlikely to work for me as I'm on dialup --- it would take a prohibitive length of time to achieve, if I understand these things correctly.

 

[Adbear]

If you can make an ordinary copy and that works then there's nothing wrong with AnyDVD otherwise that wouldn't work either, it's down to the other software that you're using which is out of AnyDVD hands. It sounds like the other software is removing the widescreen flag from the files.

The ifo files should only come to about 300KB which should only take a few minutes to upload, although as you say the full copy works then there's no point uploading them, you could upload the ifo files from the copy that's giving you problems and I could take a look at those

 

[jpmccusa]

Here's the IFO files of a bad disc and of the original. This only happens very rarely, i.e. seldom with other discs, so it's not a routine matter for the demux-ripping programs, and it happens with one other demux-ripping program, too --- thus it's a problem with the original disc which is preventing a clean rip --- in effect a form of protection.

 

[Adbear]

No it's not a form of protection, you've already said that if you make a copy of the disc then that works so therefore AnyDVD has removed the copy protection. Both the original disc and the full rip created by AnyDVD still have the widescreen flag, it's only after you run it through the third party software that the flag becomes 4:3 so that's down to the third party software, not AnyDVD, if it was an AnyDVD issue then the flag would be changed on the rip made using AnyDVD.

What software are you using to remux the files?

If you load the demuxed video file into mediainfo pro what aspect ratio does it think the video file is?

 

[jpmccusa]

If it's not a problem on the disc, why does it happen with three DIFFERENT programs for demuxing (the third program giving the same result is Rejig)? I get identical results DVDflick and DVDauthorGUI when remuxing.

I've done this sort of thing with hundreds of DVDs with only the occasional problem...it's happened 4 times, I think.

As far as I'm concerned if there's a problem with the disc...and it's hard to blame software when three different programs produce identical results...then something on the disc is preventing me from copying it in demuxed form. Whether it is INTENDED as protection or not is moot, since it is working to prevent me from making a clean rip, and as such it should be addressed.

I downloaded mediainfo but it insisted that I also change to AVG antivirus, which isn't going to happen. Is there another freeware program which can be trusted not to hijack my computer?

 

[Adbear]

it doesn't insist you change to avg, you just hit 'Decline'l on that screen and then it installs without installing AVG.

In DVDFlick try going into the 'edit title' section and change the aspect ratio as it appears to default to 4:3 and as it seems to insist on re-encoding everything then it's going to re-encode the video at the wrong settings.


I'm not sure how you expect Slysoft to address the issue, the full rip comes out correct with the widescreen flag in the ifo files, the only thing you can do is to try loading the vob file from the full AnyDVD rip in to mediainfo pro and see if it has the widescreen setting, if it does then there's not much else that I can see that AnyDVD can do as it would probably involve having to either re-encode the files or re-index them, neither of which AnyDVD does. It's quite possible that if there is a glitch in the video file and that the glitch is in the original file itself.
James or someone else from Slysoft may come in and correct me, but from what I can see there's not much else AnyDVD can do.

 

[jpmccusa]

If you use 4:3 in DVDflick, the whole image gets shrunk and squeezed even further, I'm afraid. The bad aspect ratio remains.

Maybe this will make something a bit clearer: in HMDI setup you have the choice of 4:3 (pillar box) or OFF (plus superwidescreen which is useless). Usually you leave this on 4:3 and then discs with the widescreen option will fill the screen anyway. Watching discs which are FS only gives the correct aspect ratio with bars at the sides. This works properly with the original disc but NOT with the demuxed/remuxed version: you have to force widescreen here (otherwise the aspect ratio is off, and of course the pan-and-scan and letterbox options have no effect no matter what the setting). This to me is a strong indication that the Widescreen setting is missing on the demuxed/remuxed discs, as the DVD player is not detecting the widescreen provision. Similarly, when I play the demuxed/remuxed disc in my software (WinDVD5), the screen doesn't widen for widescreen presentation if I have it reduced. See screenshots at: http://gallery.atpic.com/48674/eixcahmachnuszicymgk I don't know why the images didn't show in the WinDVD screen --- they do in the original of the captures...

Here are two more discs with the same problem:

Rak Haeng Siam (Director's cut)(actually a 2-disc set - Thai release)

The Belgian release of Muukalainen (under the title "The Stranger"). The problem does NOT occur with the Finnish release of the same film.

 

[James]

I'm moving this thread to 3rd party...

 

[Adbear]

Well as James has moved this to third party I'd take that as an indication that he doesn't see it as an AnyDVD issue.
As I've stated before if AnyDVD was causing this then I wouldn't expect a full rip to play back properly either.

I'd still like to see logs from Mediainfo pro for the full disc rip made by AnyDVD, just drop the vob files into the program one at a time and then export out the logfile as a txt document

 

[jpmccusa]

Is this what you want? I don't see a logfile option on the program.

I didn't say AnyDVD is causing the problem...I said that AnyDVD isn't solving the problem, isn't allow a pristine rip with demuxing programs when the disc has this annoying feature.

 

[Adbear]

As I keep having to point out if it wasn't ripping the disc properly then the full rip would play back in 4:3 as well, as it doesn't then AnyDVD is making an exact copy of the disc minus the encryption.
You say it isn't causing the problem, well if it's not causing the problem how is it then not making a pristine copy? If the problem is already present on the original disc how do you expect AnyDVD to fix that? AnyDVD's job is to remove encryption not to fix possible glitches in the original files possibly caused by the original authoring process.
What you're not taking in to consideration is that the original disc may have a corrupt video file that only causes an issue when you demux the file, if this is the case this is well out of AnyDVD's scope to fix.

To make a logfile in Mediainfo Pro just use the 'export' option, and change it to 'text'. Try making a logfile from the original disc without AnyDVD running and then one of the same vob file with AnyDVD running.

 

[jpmccusa]

I'm trying WinFF on the original disc at the moment so it'll be a while before I can try the "export" stuff. Probably tomorrow as WinFF is notoriously slow.

Fixing things is what AnyDVD does...if there are problems preventing a clean rip then AnyDVD eliminates them, like region code, CSS keys, and so on...all obstacles to getting a good rip. This is another such obstacle so of course I expect it to be possible that AnyDVD can find and eliminate the problem. That's how AnyDVD keeps getting updated...to handle new problems on original discs.

 

[jpmccusa]

As expected, the problem wasn't resolved by WinFF. I'm attaching what I think may be the files you're looking for...hope so!

 

[Adbear]

I'm trying WinFF on the original disc at the moment so it'll be a while before I can try the "export" stuff. Probably tomorrow as WinFF is notoriously slow.

Fixing things is what AnyDVD does...if there are problems preventing a clean rip then AnyDVD eliminates them, like region code, CSS keys, and so on...all obstacles to getting a good rip. This is another such obstacle so of course I expect it to be possible that AnyDVD can find and eliminate the problem. That's how AnyDVD keeps getting updated...to handle new problems on original discs.

But if there is an error in a video stream from an authoring issue then AnyDVD won't fix that as AnyDVD's job is to remove region code and remove copy protection neither of which that scenario would fall under. As in that case it would be the original file that was written to disc that would be causing the issue and to fix that kind of an error AnyDVD would have to fix file errors which is not it's job, it's job is to give you an exact copy of the original minus the protection