:edit:
I hope none of this comes off as being arrogant or mean spirited, I appreciate the company responding to the issues I brought up, James!
:NEW:
AnyDVD-HD RIPPER misses the ANGLE and GROUP locks (VOB PUOs) on all REGION:1 DVDs
AnyDVD-HD RIPPER misses the KARAOKE AUDIO MIX CHANGE PUO on combined audio track DVDs and many Western R:1 and R:2 DVDs. While this missed VOB PUO would not be a problem on most Western DVDs, if at all, it's a HUGE issue on many re-releases of classic Chinese and Thai films that are simply DVD transfers from VCDs. The audio tracks are transferred directly as a single multi-channel audio track. The KARAOKE AUDIO MIX CHANGE lockout blocks computer VCD players (Nero Showtime, VCD 360) (and some standalone players, i.e. Durabrand 1002, Samsung v1000, LG SuperMulti BD-HVD2) from being able to change the audio channel within a stream. Many of these films are entirely cell code video, which do not allow time code and scrollbar searching and bar bookmarking and thus requires a complete restart of the disc to the opening menu, and replaying the film from the beginning. Most of these discs allow you to chose from a menu among audio tracks titled simply; “Track 1, Track 2” or the like making it difficult to find the correct original track simply from the menu. This also affects many newer Karaoke discs.
The reason for the PUO is to bar on-the-fly and adaptive ripping of a single or split channel audio track, as many Karaoke DVDs contain an 8-channel audio track (split-joint stereo: Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese or Korean audio and the mono Karaoke track), since most Karaoke album DVDs cost lest than the audio disc version and still have all the songs. Why it's set on many film DVDs is beyond me, but they made the disc and can do whatever they what I guess.
AnyDVD-HD Ripper seems to be confused on R:7 discs (Japanese "Media" discs). Don't worry, DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink appear to be equally dumbfounded asking for me to enter the correct region and then telling me that the region isn't real or doesn't match! AnyDVD-HD Ripper just seems to take longer on these discs (which have NO other protection other than the R:7 coding). More of an annoyance than a problem.
My suggestions would be to:
A) Remove the time and search lock PUO. It makes jumping around in the previews easier, rather than watching them all straight through if we've already seen one. An especially useful function on Sony R:1 and Shaw Releasing R:3,4,6 films that have 8-12+ minutes of previews that overlap in many places with other film openings from those companies.
B) Set AnyDVD-HD Ripper to dig a little deeper. Make it an advanced option with warnings to have it remove the remaining PUOs beyond the above mentioned one, especially the ones on menus for R:3 Celestial DVDs. (I'll post the logs for those in a few days). Something along the lines of... "Removing the structural PUOs may cause compatibility issues on some older players" but it would be useful for those of us who enjoy Asian imports. Will cause issues with primarily PowerDVD and WinDVD, but great on most other software players that simply freeze up the menu when fast-forwarded to the end with a no-jump stop call. Great on many Lions' Gate and Dimension films that have a forever lasting lead-in on the main menu and those long lead-outs (Ant Bully, Bee Movie, Harry Potter films) when switching between menu screens, periods where BOC actions don't work
C) Have the ripper verify time codes. Invalid time codes is a copy protection. It does little to a straight rip such as using AnyDVD-HD Ripper but disrupts mobile rip/conversions. Audio, video and subtitle disruptions are commonplace when ripping a DVD VOB series to another format such as DivX, MPEG-4, or Windows Media.
This is a relativity easy and simple function that would add very little time to the ripping process, but would save a large amount of time rebuilding timecodes individually later. Invalid or mismatched timecodes are common on Media Asia, Sony (especially Sony Pictures Classics and Sony Home Entertainment releases) and the various Disney (MGM, Disney Films, Buena Vista...) branded releases. It's noticeable as a black screen or pause at the beginning or ending of a VOB when played back in standard DVD fromat. They cause no real problem in standard playback but cause issues with audio syncing and subtitles/captioning streams (both internal and secondary) when ripped to a mobile format using CloneDVD Mobile and others (Nero Recode, Jodex DVD converter et al). The sync issue of a ripped conversion is most noticeable on films longer than 2 hours and is horrendous on films over 3 hours long (i.e. American Gangster Extended Version, Chak De India).
SAVAGE PLANET R:1 RETAIL
IFOs
MISSED TIME AND SEARCH LOCK
MISSED “PROTECTION BASED ON INVALID TIME CODES"
SOLUTION: REBUILD TIME CODES
BOUNTY HUNTERS 2: HARDBALL R:1 RETAIL
PROBLEMS: BAD END BYTE ADDRESS; MISSED OR REMOVED STREAMS
ISSUE: RIPPER COPIED IFO STOP VALUE AT 55, REAL VALUE 59
ISSUE: RIPPER LEFT INVALID STREAM SETTING OF VTS TABLE
IFOs
MISSED TIME AND SEARCH LOCK
MISSED PLAY SEARCH LOCK
FUNNY GAMES (1998) R:1 2003 RETAIL RELEASE
MISSED TIME AND SEARCH LOCK
MISSED PLAY SEARCH LOCK
CRIMINALS MEET YOUR MAKER (UNCUT) R:1 RETAIL
MISSED DUMMY VOBS, MISSED DUMMY STREAMS
Can you check the PUOs with IFOEdit? As far as I can see they are all cleared by AnyDVD.
Does this problem only happen with specific titles? If yes, can post AnyDVD_Info files?
I'll give that a try tonight and see if IFOEdit comes up with the same missed PUOs as PGCEdit does. I'm not sure how that will help out on the missed VOB PUOs 'though.
lost
:edit: not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm using the beta release!