Structural Protection

[slamscaper945]

Hi all. Was hoping someone could enlighten me as to how the structural protection on newer DVD's (Hancock for one) actually works. I'm very curious about these kinds of things but I haven't been up on the newer protections recently.

I know vaguely how ARcoSS worked but I was under the impression that this particular protection wasn't being used anymore, or am I wrong?

I'm guessing this kind of protection somehow uses sector metadata to confuse rippers into failing or hanging, just not sure how. Are dummy files and bogus title sets considered structural protection?

It still amazes me to this day how anydvd manages to sort through all the crap on Sony's published DVD's almost instantly to allow end-users to rip the main movie successfully. What a great program indeed.

Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Webslinger]

With structural protection, the standard file structure is corrupted--sometimes with multiple files appearing with the same file name, 1GB .ifo files, sectors that overlap each other, etc

 

[slamscaper945]

Thanks for the info webslinger. Kind of what I had expected to hear. I have to wonder how this doesn't cause standalone dvd players to fail as well. The .ifo files have to tell the player to skip or ignore these sectors and dummy files, right?

Does that mean that anydvd bypasses this kind of protection by just reading through the .ifo files (kind of like a standalone player does) and removing or hiding any files or sectors that aren't actually referenced?

 

[Webslinger]

I have to wonder how this doesn't cause standalone dvd players to fail as well.

Some do fail
In fact Sony had a recall on their discs at one point because a few of Sony's own dvd players couldn't play their discs. Kinda funny

The .ifo files have to tell the player to skip or ignore these sectors and dummy files, right?

The players follow the sector path as outlined in the video_ts.ifo file

Does that mean that anydvd bypasses this kind of protection by just reading through the .ifo files (kind of like a standalone player does) and removing or hiding any files or sectors that aren't actually referenced?

That's the job of the A.I. scanner. But yes, more or less, I think . . .

James or peer may step in and clarify or correct me.

 

[slamscaper945]

Some do fail
In fact Sony had a recall on their discs at one point because a few of Sony's own dvd players couldn't play their discs. Kinda funny

Yeah, I remember reading that once somewhere. It does make Sony look rather foolish, lol. They don't surprise me at all anymore after the whole BGM rootkit fiasco that caused major stability and security issues for anyone unlucky enough to unwittingly install it. However, considering the awful mess that ARcoSS makes I would of thought that almost all standalone players from every manufacturer would of had serious problems playing these discs. I'm guessing that all these manufacturers had to scramble to update the firmware in their whole product line to be more tolerant of these wacky protection schemes like ARcoSS/Puppetlock. Selling a DVD player that doesn't actually play dvd's is something I'm sure they'd do everything in their power to avoid, lol.

That's the job of the A.I. scanner. But yes, more or less, I think . . .

James or peer may step in and clarify or correct me.

Sorry, don't mean to boggle your mind with these technical questions. Like I said I'm just very interested in how anydvd works it's magic. It does make sense that this would be part of the A.I. scanners job, among many others. To this day I've backed up almost 200 of my dvd's and although I've encountered many different types of protection schemes, I've NEVER ran into a dvd that anydvd couldn't handle (always keep it updated of course). It's hands down the best program I've ever used. I just purchased the anydvd HD add-on recently and can't wait to try it out when I receive my blu-ray burner tomorrow. I'm sure it will work great.

If any of the dev team see this post I'd just like to say thanks for making a great product and also for keeping it constantly updated. It has allowed me to protect my investment and exercise my right to fair use.