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Video DVD-R/RW copy protection
To my knowledge it is essentially not possible to author a duplicated DVD (RRW) disc with copy protection. But in my possession is a duplicated 2 disc set which does appear to have some sort of copy protection included. Now, this has me very intrigued as to how this may be done and although I do not need to know for my production style, I am still curious.
The 2 discs in this set is video of a live dance concert my daughter was involved in, produced by a local production business. Both discs respond the same way and I only came across the problem when I went to do an archive copy of the discs.
Every method I use ends up showing a disc read error. The discs are in good condition and so I have to surmise it has some sort of copy protection applied to it.
The discs play fine in any player, but if you try to do a direct digital copy or extract it to a disc image etc. any program I have tried throws up a disc read error of some sort. Yes I have turned off read errors, but with no result.
As near as I can reckon there seems to be some sort of mechanism at work to force a read error in any situation other than a straight video playback. And somewhere I saw a comment that pretty much any copy protection system relies on the disc being authored outside the standard, so there may be a clue there. I can find no evidence of the “standard” copy protection systems being used.
It would be interesting to find out what is at work here for academic reasons if nothing else. I am not too worried in this case, I will probably just do a direct analog video copy of the bits I want. Has anyone an answer to this one?
Just curious, always curious!
Paul Perry
Videographer
http://www.aureola.com.au -
6 Replies
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Why not ask the folks who authored it. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to explain why you can’t rip their disc…
Noah
Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and GoPro HD Hero. -
Maybe they use a set top recorder and dint finalise it? Is there a VIDEO_TS folder on there?
Hard to say but Whatever is it, its no form of copy protection
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It could be a product called Rimage Video Protect, which is a form of content alteration that acts as a sort of copy protection. I think Rimage licenses it from someone else, but they brand it as Rimage Video Protect when they sell it. You have to have one of their Producer series duplication systems to use it, but it works quite well. Just like any form of copy protection, it has it’s it shortcomings and limitations, but it does offer a good layer of security for people that want it. They just dropped the price of it last month, but prior to that it has always been fairly expensive.
We have a small section about it on our web site it you are curious:
https://www.mstproductions.com/services/cdanddvd/copy-protection-howitworks.phpMatt Townley
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Gentlemen, my apologises for not responding sooner to your comments as above – work, life and everything gets in the way.
Also, I wanted to do a little bit more investigating before coming back to you all. I have reconfirmed the problem I mention above re not being able to copy the 2 disc set. I also remembered I have another 2 disc set from the same source of a concert produced 1 year later the “difficult” disc set. I have now checked that later set and find I can copy those discs quite easily.
One is left to wonder. I am quite sure there is nothing else I am doing which would prevent making a copy (though I have learnt the hard way to be humble and not to be adamant about my conclusions). So it remains I guess to be either a case of a quirky digital/computer situation (not the first time), or some deliberate copy “protection” method along the lines of the Rimage system mentioned by Matt. Unless I can actually interogate the contents of the discs at a very low level I may never know.
But if this is the case one wonders whether the producers have changed their duplication methods in the mean time. Perhaps they received too many complaints about difficult playback?
Eric. Yes there is a video TS folder on the disc and the contents of that folder do generally look to be correct for a video DVD. If it had not been finalised though I would expect it would not be possible to play it on a “normal” disc player.
Noah. Somehow I do not think the producers would appreciate that sort of enquiry! Of course I do respect their copyright claims as such, just that I like to be able to make a backup copy in my archive system. A reasonable thought it seems to me, but they may not think so.
Paul Perry
Videographer, film, video, photos and sound restoration.
http://www.aureola.com.au -
Have you tried to drag the TS folder onto the desktop? It doesnt do this?
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Hmmm, hadn’t actually done this since I was really trying to either extract video clips or make an image file of the disc.
So, I thinks – yer this should be easy enough but will try it anyway. Low and behold when just doing a simple copy and paste Windows refuses to copy one of the VOB files saying “data error (cyclic redundancy check)”! And going by how one of my extraction applications was showing error notices, I recon many if not most/all of the other VOB files would show the same error.
So, it won’t even do a simple copy. But, but,, the disc still PLAYS ok!???
Paul Perry
Videographer, film, video, photos and sound restoration.
http://www.aureola.com.au
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