Resurrecting/forking Smartripper

[Katie Boundary]

Despite the fact that development on Smartripper stopped 13 years ago, it remains hands-down the #1 best ripping program in existence... for the discs that it can actually read, anyway. And that's about 99% of DVDs in existence. I can literally count the exceptions on one hand: Grey's Anatomy, Darkwing Duck, Rescue Rangers, Star Trek Into Darkness, and all but the first Bayformers movie (Star Trek '09 might also be an exception; I haven't tried it).

Back in the day when files like Smartripper had to be hosted on central servers in order for anyone to download them, a court order saying "thou shalt not develop or host this software" would be pretty effective at shutting it down. Now, however, we live in the era of Bittorrent. Anyone can work on this software clandestinely, make a torrent, upload it, and laugh as the FBI bangs its head against the wall in frustration. And while I still don't understand how blockchains work, there's probably a way to maintain quality control using a blockchain. So why is no one doing this?

[Ghitulescu]

The answer is, partly, because studios [badly] need piracy.

[Katie Boundary]

I don't see how that answers the question...

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

I don't see how that answers the question...

Me neither

Anyway, why would anybody care about a program like "Smartripper", that has been discontinued more than a decade ago and thus certainly doesn't handle any of the current "copy protection" schemes?

For those discs, for which it worked 10+ years ago, it should still work nowadays. And adding support for recent discs to the ten-years-old app would probably require the same amount of work as writing a "modern" ripper from the scratch

Furthermore, I don't think Smartripper has ever been OpenSource. If so, nobody (except maybe the original developers) has access to the source codes. And without the sources, you can not continue development - except by means of reverse engineering. But why should anybody bother about reverse engineering a ripping software that has not been updated for a decade and that does not support any recent discs? It's just not worth the effort. There are many alternatives!

Last but not least, anybody who develops a ripper that is capable of handling recent discs will be under heavy "pressure" by the film industry. That's why many developers stay away from that territory

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

Anyway, why would anybody care about a program like "Smartripper"

Because it shows the user exactly how the information on a disc is organized, it lets the user choose the names and destinations of the files being ripped, it can split and weld vob files along chapter lines in a way that DVDfab doesn't (for example, it allows you to remove chapters from the middle of a movie or episode - great for removing intermissions or opening credits!), it's not annoying and intrusive as hell like DVDfab is, it cures cancer, and it's basically awesomesauce on a diamond-studded silver plate?

Seriously, have you even USED Smartripper?

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

I don't think Smartripper has ever been OpenSource.

Now THAT could be a problem.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

Seriously, have you even USED Smartripper?

I might have use it on occasion, like 10+ years ago. That was probably before I came across DVDDecrypter and DVDShrink.

And of course it was before those newer "copy protection" schemes became popular and thus all of the aforementioned tools stopped working with recent discs

Again: If, nowadays, somebody was to develop a new ripping software, which is supposed to be capable of dealing with the latest "copy protection" schemes (like DVDFab and AnyDVD can do), he or she would probably be better off by starting from the scratch than building on top of a legacy software that hadn't been maintained for more than a decade.

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

Again: If, nowadays, somebody was to develop a new ripping software, which is supposed to be capable of dealing with the latest "copy protection" schemes (like DVDFab and AnyDVD can do), he or she would probably be better off by starting from the scratch than building on top of a legacy software that hadn't been maintained for more than a decade.

Because reinventing the wheel always makes sense, right?

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

I don't see how that answers the question...

Well, it answers very simple...

Any state can fully control the internet, but copyright issues have to me demanded for (unlike murders or other crimes that carry the same punishment ).

Therefore if studios wanted any of these tools disappear, they could do the same way they managed to get CloneXYZ series off market of any colour .

[Ghitulescu]

Anyway, this discussion seems to be sterile.

The DVDs have a fundamental error, and so have the "recent than 10 years" tools.
The fundamental error of the latter is that they are adressed to a public that is brainless. Well, if one has to sell something that one has to follow the Apple ideas, right? . That means the engineers have to implement each disc in the software, because the user is not able to make the right decision, because, well .... So a whole lotta "casual pirates" disappeared when eg CloneDVD was banned, and the rest started crying at AnyDVD/DVDFab for upgrades to handle the next DVD protection.

The only protection that is impossible to rip with SmartRipper (and some work after) is based on bad sectors.

[Groucho2004]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

The DVDs have a fundamental error, and so have the "recent than 10 years" tools.
The fundamental error of the latter is that they are adressed to a public that is brainless. Well, if one has to sell something that one has to follow the Apple ideas, right? . That means the engineers have to implement each disc in the software, because the user is not able to make the right decision, because, well

I have seen a lot of your bizarre posts but this one takes a top five spot.
My favorite is "recent than 10 years tools are addressed to a brainless public". Love it.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by Groucho2004

I have seen a lot of your bizarre posts but this one takes a top five spot.
My favorite is "recent than 10 years tools are addressed to a brainless public". Love it.

I didn't think that I was in need to explain that any DVD can be ripped with no troubles at all with small, simple but powerful software - and some handwork (cleaning the fake jumps, fake conditional loops and stuff). And yes, in one variant (there are several variants) I used SmartRipper because it was the only software I knew that could take a folder from HDD and deCSS the ripped DVD (I had to rip the DVD still CSSed, once, to prove a point to a friend - that DVDs have a fatal designing flaw).

On the other hand, I remember how loud cried the "pirate population" that the last disc of Sony/Disney could not be ripped with the current version (of the two known products) and begged for a quick fix or full release. A monkey could insert the disc in the DVD-drive and press Start, so I don't really see where's the "pirate" aspect of this job or the intellect needed for this .

I don't know whether this will take away some weirdness or doubles it

[Selur]

As a side note:
a. Is there source code available of any DVD and or Blu-ray ripper ? (not counting libdvdcss)
b. assuming the smart ripper source code would have been available, I suspect that there would have been a fork.
-> no source code, nothing to fork or ressurect

[Wilbert]

@LoRd_MuldeR, Selur,

You can find the sourcecode of the latest version (2.41) of Smartripper at: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/sources.htm
Of course i like to see an open source alternative to the state of the art ripping tools which are out there.

Someone added some stuff to it (2.42): https://sourceforge.net/p/smartripper/wiki/changelog/ (apparently you have to build yourself).

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

I did not suggest to designing a new ripper from the ground up!

But I told you that doing so would probably be the more viable alternative

That counts as suggesting it.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/suggest?s=t

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

CSS, the original "copy protection" scheme used on Video-DVD, is severely broken in may ways. It uses weak cryptography, which alone makes it easy to break. But it also has several design flaws on top of that, which make it even more easy to circumvent. So, technically, being able to deal with CSS - and that's probably the only kind of "copy protection" that Smartripper ever could handle - is trivial! It's really nothing special or worthwhile.

Now, whether circumventing CSS is legal or not, that's a totally different question! It's not a technical question, but a question for lawyers and lobbyists. And yes, in some countries you can be accused for circumventing a so-called "copy protection" scheme (or for distributing software which does that), even when that so-called "copy protection" scheme is actually (technically) trivial to circumvent.

That has literally absolutely nothing to do with what I said except that the words "Smartripper" and "trivial" appeared again.

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

And that far-fetched claim is backed by what?

Did you test all Video-DVD's ever released (including all releases in the last couple of years) or how did you determine that number?

Not all, but it's an absurdly high number, well into the hundreds.

Originally Posted by LoRd_MuldeR

Be aware: Further posts that just contain blatant trolling will simply be deleted, according to rule #11. Rule violations may result in strike.

So winning an argument with you counts as trolling now?

Originally Posted by Wilbert

@LoRd_MuldeR, Selur,

You can find the sourcecode of the latest version (2.41) of Smartripper at: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/sources.htm

Cool! If no one else wants to pick up the torch, I might learn how to code just so I can keep SR updated.

[Selur]

@Wilbert:Thanks for the info! Didn't know that the source was there!

[qyot27]

Prefacing this with the fact that I've been using SmartRipper as my go-to DVD ripper since mid-2003, after looking at the source code that was linked to a bit ago...yeesh.

Even if the decryption parts could be reused, it's tethered to Borland C++ Builder 6, and the GUI is written in Delphi. If you want to make it portable, those would need to be cut out or rewritten to not use Borland-specific stuff (translate the GUI into something else, and try to get it building on one of the Express versions of MSVC so that the average user has easy access to building it and keeping it maintained...or better yet, GCC).

But beyond that, the drive/disc authentication modes need updating - the no-ASPI option couldn't authenticate correctly for me, and when I tried to use the regular ASPI access mode with ForceASPI installed, it couldn't do it either (it does at least tell you that you can make the drive authenticate by using a media player, so MPC-HC was able to resolve that and SR could cope with it then). This became glaringly obvious because of two things that recently happened to me: I had to reinstall Windows back in November and couldn't use the Restore disc anymore, so I used a standard install disc (and thus anything deeper about ASPI or no-ASPI access was completely on me after that), and I replaced my dying DVD-RW drive with a new BD-R drive in December (which may have been the real reason there).



To be honest, I think it'd be easier/more worthwhile to fork vobcopy and add any missing features SmartRipper has to it (Windows - disc access - support, stream demuxing, and individual chapter selection/concatenation, mostly; it can already do whole-disc and title-based ripping), and add a GUI - probably written with (Py)Qt, since that's also cross-platform - that superficially resembles the old SmartRipper interface. Overcoming nasty encryption obfuscation could possibly be achieved by fusing it with the ISO block decrypter that was posted on here in source form a few years ago, or at least adapting the idea by making it talk directly to ddrescue (which would itself need better Windows support than requiring Cygwin). Heck, the patch for SmartRipper from 2013 on Sourceforge adds libdvdcss/libdvdread support*, which vobcopy already uses.

*right from the changelog (2.41 was the last version from the old development):

(Version 2.41b) 2013-10-07

-> Optional use of libdvdread for IFO decoding
   (Use libdvdread 4.2.0-1 and libdvdcss-2.dll)
   Rename them to libdvdread.dll and libdvdcss.dll
-> Fixed Disks mastered with multiple unreadable IFOS (Fantastic 4 -> Rise of the SilverSurfer)
-> Fixed incorrect number of Cells Error. (JacK Reacher and Pirates of the Caribbean) 
   According to: http://dvd-replica.com/DVD/cell.php
-> Added more verbosity when approaching bad Sectors. (TIP: Uncheck first 5 Cells of a Movie.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Version 2.41)

-> added d2v-project extraction (new index file)

To answer this, though:

If you're referring to editing out a section from the middle of the video, one that's not at the beginning or end of a title, then no, I don't think it can. You'd need to use multiple copies of a single title as I explained above, but I don't think there's any way to join them together again as a single vob file.
If that's what you're referring to could you explain how to do that with Smartripper?

I briefly mentioned what SmartRipper actually does above, but you can select which individual chapters (or angles, for that matter) to rip from a title. If you deselect a chapter, SR will rip the title sans said chapter. Since chapters have to start on I-frames, it can be cleanly concatenated on output, which SR does automatically as if the chapter never existed. You can also have it output directly to the constituent .m2v, .ac3, and subtitle streams, or selectively disable one of said streams on output even if you are still outputting to VOB.

The chapter/angle selection feature in the GUI can be seen in the screenshot on Sourceforge. The stream demuxing is hidden under the 'Stream Processing' tab, seen in the other screenshot on Sourceforge.

I'd credit the lasting appeal of SmartRipper to it not trying to hold your hand (it is *just* a ripper, no transcoding), and presenting the information and options in a much more technical way than other rippers do.

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by qyot27

I briefly mentioned what SmartRipper actually does above, but you can select which individual chapters (or angles, for that matter) to rip from a title. If you deselect a chapter, SR will rip the title sans said chapter. Since chapters have to start on I-frames, it can be cleanly concatenated on output, which SR does automatically as if the chapter never existed. You can also have it output directly to the constituent .m2v, .ac3, and subtitle streams, or selectively disable one of said streams on output even if you are still outputting to VOB.

Cheers.
I had a play, and maybe I'm missing the obvious, but the deselecting of chapters part I can do, not the saving what's left as a single vob file part. For instance if there's three chapters and I de-select number two, I haven't found the setting to save chapters one and three as a single vob file, which Katie implied could be done.

It's not quite the editing I thought it might be, only being able to select particular chapters. I thought maybe you'd be able to select start and end frames as you can with DVDShrink.

Edit: Ah..... it was fooling me. For some reason after deselecting chapters and opening the output file with MPC-HC, it'd appear to still have the original duration and the original number of chapters, even though chapters are missing. If I enabled stream processing though, the output m2v file would appear to have the correct duration.

[qyot27]

Originally Posted by hello_hello

Edit: Ah..... it was fooling me. For some reason after deselecting chapters and opening the output file with MPC-HC, it'd appear to still have the original duration and the original number of chapters, even though chapters are missing. If I enabled stream processing though, the output m2v file would appear to have the correct duration.

That may be what the 'Extract to new VOB' option under Stream Processing corrects for. It always seemed weird to me that it was there when the Direct Stream Copy option would also output to VOB. But if 'Direct Stream Copy' doesn't do anything to the chapter/duration information while 'Extract to new VOB' does, then that explains it (it really could be worded better).

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by hello_hello

Yes.

Originally Posted by hello_hello

If you're referring to editing out a section from the middle of the video, one that's not at the beginning or end of a title, then no

I'll give you a hint: an "intermission" never occurs at the beginning or end of a movie, and Firefly does "cold opens".

Originally Posted by hello_hello

If that's what you're referring to could you explain how to do that with Smartripper? I'm not saying it won't, but I'm not sure how.

You un-select the offending chapters. Duh.

Originally Posted by qyot27

lots of helpful, relevant stuff

Best response yet

Originally Posted by hello_hello

Cheers.
I had a play, and maybe I'm missing the obvious, but the deselecting of chapters part I can do, not the saving what's left as a single vob file part. For instance if there's three chapters and I de-select number two, I haven't found the setting to save chapters one and three as a single vob file, which Katie implied could be done.

Oh that. Set the file-splitting to maximum filesize, and set the max filesize to something like 9999.

[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

I'll give you a hint: an "intermission" never occurs at the beginning or end of a movie, and Firefly does "cold opens".

I'll give you a hint. Intermission can occur at the end of a title if a movie is split between two disks, and just like Evangelion, I've no idea what Firefly episodes look like on DVD, so if you're going to ask vague questions you shouldn't expect accurate answers, even though I went to the trouble of explaining how DVDShrink works for you.

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

You un-select the offending chapters. Duh.

Well pardon me for taking the time to respond in detail. I guess the other posters were correct. You've got a bad attitude and you're not worth the effort.

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

Oh that. Set the file-splitting to maximum filesize, and set the max filesize to something like 9999.

You missed the part where I said I'd worked it out? Duh.

Thanks for cherry-picking which questions to answer. My question regarding using Smartripper with AnyDVD remains ignored. Not that it matters now. I don't care any more.