Discs play on LG standalone BD player, but not on any PC BD drive

[tectpro]

Thanks for the clarification on the point about DVDShrink reading a VIDEO_TS folder.
The way it was initially phrased made it sound like the test was conducted from a folder on the hard drive, not directly from the DVD.
However, your follow-up—specifically stating that you loaded the disc into DVDShrink—cleared that up.

 

[dbminter]

I apologize for any initial confusion.

 

[dbminter]

It wouldn't surprise me if there are mastering/authoring errors on these discs. The entire set is cheap junk. They used 32 DVD-5's but put 7 half hour episodes on each one! That's nearly double the compression. Plus, these discs were originally released as flippers, which are even cheaper.

 

[James]

Maybe @James can have a look at the log files.
Maybe he can find an indicator of why the protection doesn't show in the AnyDVD Window but in the log file.

AI Scanner is always enabled for log creation. Otherwise the log would not contain anything useful.
EDIT: So for this disc - if the heuristical check didn't recognize the structural protection - the AI scanner can be set to "always enabled". Don't know if this helps, but it might.

 

[dbminter]

I did try the scanner set to Always enabled and it didn't help. The disc still wouldn't read and the main AnyDVD interface window did not report any kind of protections.


The issue doesn't appear to be software related but some kind of quirk in the authoring or mastering process. It happens on the exact same spots on the exact same discs in 2 different copies of the set. No methodology will play these on a PC yet they will play on a standalone player. For these reasons, I didn't expect the forums here could help, but I didn't know where else to ask about it.


Thanks!

 

[James]

the main AnyDVD interface window did not report any kind of protections.

This can't be. Your log said:

Found & removed structural copy protection!
RCE protection not found.
UDF filesystem patched!
Found & removed 1 potential bad sector protections!

Did you uncheck to "remove copy protection based on read errors"?

 

[dbminter]

Sorry, but it doesn't. Let me get a screen shot and post back.


Let me check the Remove copy protection based on read errors setting. Copy Protection based on unreadable sectors IS checked. Should I try unchecking it?


EDIT: I tried unchecking Copy Protection based on readable sectors, knowing that would most likely not make a difference in this issue; It didn't. I then checked the setting back for future decryptions.

 

[dbminter]

Here is a screen shot showing the AnyDVD interface window stating there are no protections of any kind on Season 3, Disc 8:





Unless UDF filesystem patched is a form of an indication of structural protection. I'm not that familiar with what AnyDVD means when it says UDF filesystem patched.

 

[dbminter]

Plus, there doesn't appear to be structural protection on these discs as DVDShrink WILL process them correctly WITHOUT AnyDVD resident.

 

[James]

Here is a screen shot showing the AnyDVD interface window stating there are no protections of any kind on Season 3, Disc 8:


View attachment 79371


Unless UDF filesystem patched is a form of an indication of structural protection. I'm not that familiar with what AnyDVD means when it says UDF filesystem patched.

In this case you don't have AI scanner set to "always enabled".

 

[dbminter]

AI scanner is set to Automatic, not Always enabled. I think I tried changing that setting before and it didn't help reading. I don't recall if changing that setting changed the AnyDVD info window. Will do that now.


EDIT: I changed the AI scanner setting to Always enabled (not recommended) and this time the AnyDVD window did display some new information I hadn't see before. Apparently, it's using the local database on this disc.





However, this doesn't explain how DVDShrink can successfully process these discs without AnyDVD resident. If there is structural protection on these discs, shouldn't DVDShrink have failed to read in the discs from the beginning?


I also tried Ripping to hard disk again with the AI scanner setting changed, just to see if it helped, which I figured it wouldn't as I was pretty sure I'd already tried that; it didn't help to read the disc.

 

[George++]

However, this doesn't explain how DVDShrink can successfully process these discs without AnyDVD resident. If there is structural protection on these discs, shouldn't DVDShrink have failed to read in the discs from the beginning?

DVD Shrink can read discs with copy protections without AnyDVD active to decrypt the disc(s). Not every disc, but in my experience it has been several years since DVD Shrink failed to copy a disc by itself without AnyDVD running. Newer DVDs I never try to copy with just DVD Shrink alone.

Even an unprotected disc, such as a copy or an "on demand" DVD-R title, with AnyDVD active DVD Shrink will fail.

If I use DVD Shrink I always rip the DVD to HD first using either AnyDVD's built-in "rip to files/folder" or CloneDVD, and then throw that output into DVD Shrink.

Yes, it's a few extra steps, but I never have problems that aren't original disc based such as an unreadable disc due to problems with the disc or the optical drive. It is also less wear and tear on the optical drive as well as being a speedier processing of the disc when mashing on it from the HD. The removal of protections and region encoding is removed from the disc by the rip-to-HD process.

 

[dbminter]

My experience has been these Digimon discs are the only ones I've come across which claim to have structural protection that DVDShrink could read in. Every other disc I tried reading in with something other than CSS protection failed to read in.


I do like you do. I use AnyDVD's rip to HD feature and then use that VIDEO_TS folder for processing from hard disk. It's a few extra steps but saves time directly reading from the disc each time you want to process it. It takes a little extra time, too, to read the disc once, but you save time in the long run processing the VIDEO_TS folder from a hard drive versus from the optical disc itself for any subsequent reads you may need.