Another DVD structure corruption in Germany

[Musi]

Dear All,

I have purchased and tested the German release "Das Bourne Ultimatum" R2 (Universal Pictures) on my computer, but again due to a DVD structure corruption it does not play (the directory shows VOBs with the identical name and a huge IFO file).

Knowing that it is not allowed to copy this DVD, I have returned the DVD to the shop (with lots of discussions, because the seal was broken).

Again I am upset about companies selling DVDs with the DVD logo which do not follow the DVD standards! How can a copy protection be legal if the cover suggests to follow the DVD standard? For me this is strong cheating of customers and kind of illegal behaviour!

Everybody here in Europe points at the end users copying DVDs, but nobody points on the producers.

I hope that some day these companies get out of new ideas for stupid copy protections and come back to working standard DVDs.

My question at the end: Does anybody know a software DVD player (freeware most appreciated) that still can play titles with structure corruption without problems?

Regards
Musi
:mad:

[setarip_old]

@Musi

Hi!

What's most surprising to me is that Universal, after all these years of releasing ALL of its DVDs with nothing more than the standard CSS protection (and the humorous attempted protection of "The Jumping Boy") would, at this point in time, suddenly "take a shot" at applying a newer copy protection.
My question at the end: Does anybody know a software DVD player (freeware most appreciated) that still can play titles with structure corruption without problems?It seems that "older is better", as the two following software DVD players play these godawful DVDs (including the just released "Mr. Woodcock") :

1) If you can track it down, the free "DVDPlay.exe" that appeared on the Win95 installation discs

2) The ancient freeware, "DSPlayer"

Of course, both require that you have an MPEG2 filter/decoder installed

[Musi]

Dear setarip_old,

Thank you for your reply.

I have found sources for both mentioned players and will check whether they manage to play these titles with my next purchase of a "bad disc".

Just for your information (and for the information of other readers):

(1) Sources for DSPlayer can be easily found online when typing the words "DSPlayer Martin Offenwanger" into google.

(2) A source for DVDplay.exe was more complicating. There seems to be no valid version in the www. On the Microsoft site I learned that DVDPlay.exe was first introduced with Win98. But even on the original Win98 disc it can hardly be found. Following a good description in the www the following files have to be extracted from the Win98 disc:

Zip-File on Win98 disc -> File(s) to be extracted
----------------------------------------------
driver11.cab -> dvdplay.exe & dvdrgn.exe
win98_25.cab -> dvdplay.cnt
win98_46.cab -> dvdplay.hlp

Unfortunately I could not yet test the functionality (and wikipedia says that DVDPlay.exe does only run up to Windows Me and not under newer versions of Windows).

I will keep the forum updated on my trials (but this may take some time... because I need a "bad disc" again first and I don't really hope to get one again soon).

Regards

Musi
:thanks:

[setarip_old]

wikipedia says that DVDPlay.exe does only run up to Windows Me and not under newer versions of Windows).I'm afraid that's incorrect - as I'm presently running it under WinXP SP2 ;>}

Also, I'm still fairly ceretain that it was first available with Win95 - I have v.1.01. It bears a copyright of 1997...