[mythtv-users] Many new dvd's not working

[Ronald Frazier]

> That sounds much the free version of DVDFab HD Decrypter which I use
> under wine.  The few times I've ever had trouble ripping something
> with that, simply downloading and installing the newest version took
> care of it.  They seem to keep up with all the industries BS.

I've never used it, but isn't that one of the rippers that can't deal
with the latest BD+ DRM? If I'm wrong, please correct me. Other than
that, I don't know much about it, so I can't say how it compares.

One thing that I like about AnyDVD HD (which I'm not sure if anyone
else offers) is that, as I mentioned earlier, it sort of acts as a
driver rather than just being software that can rip the disc. This
means that the disc appears in explorer with all of the protections
removed, so you can actually use any tools you want to access the
decrypted, DRM-less files. Where I find this handy is when dealing
with damaged discs. When trying to copy a file from a damaged area,
any failure to read individual sectors results in the copy operation
failing. However, what I've discovered is that often repeatedly
attempting to copy a block will eventually result in it succeeding
after many tries. The problem is, once that block succeeds in being
read, often the next block will fail and the copying will abort. It's
pretty much impossible to get every block to succeed at the same time.
Thus, I've written a program which copies the file block by block, and
records which blocks succeed and which blocks fail. After it gets
through, you can then rerun it and it will retry only those parts that
failed. Between attempts, you can remove the disc from the drive,
attempt to polish it up some, even try a different drive if you have
more than one. I've had a lot of really bad discs, but almost all of
them eventually copy fully after several attempts. I've only had 1 DVD
which was so bad I wasn't able to copy it, even after dozens of runs.

-- 
Ron