Copy protected DVD

[PJP]

I have a DVD which my wife wanted to copy onto the PC - its a WeightWatcher excersise DVD.

So I dropped it into my DVD reader (PX-708A) on WinXP ready to fire up DVD Decrypter. The drive whirred and seemed to have trouble reading the DVD. Eventually, it decided there was no DVD present!

I tried several times with the same result. Nothing I could do would get the system to recognize the DVD. I wondered if it had some sort of auto-play nasty onit, and so disabled autoplay and tried again - same result.

I tried other DVDs, just to ensure that my drive hadn't broken ... they all worked perfectly.

In desperation, I dropped it into the reader on my Linux system.

What we see looks like:

AUDIO_TS IMAGES VIDEO_TS weightwatchers.html;Ä

So what's that wierd character at the end of the html file?
Turns out the filename has ;\0304\0200 appended.

Looking at the VIDEO_TS folder we see:

VIDEO_TS.BUP;Ä VIDEO_TS.VOB;Ä VTS_01_0.IFO;Ä VTS_01_1.VOB;Ä VTS_01_3.VOB;Ä VTS_01_5.VOB;Ä
VIDEO_TS.IFO;Ä VTS_01_0.BUP;Ä VTS_01_0.VOB;Ä VTS_01_2.VOB;Ä VTS_01_4.VOB;Ä

Same stuff appended to every file name.

BTW, the DVD plays with no problem on a normal DVD player.

It looks like the appended characters are there just to screw up various programs which might try to open the files.

So, I thought, lets just copy the disk, bit by bit - make an ISO image.

I tried to run dd to copy the raw disk, and guess what? It has bad sectors. It looks as though every unused sector is invalid, so you can't do a raw copy of the disk.

Any comments on how to deal with a DVD like this ??

[PJP]

BTW, the files themselves don't seem readable.
Trying to use dd to read one we get:

$ dd < VTS_01_1* > /tmp/z
dd: reading `standard input': Input/output error
0+0 records in
0+0 records out

And in /var/log/messages we find:

May 26 12:02:38 lindy kernel: hdc: command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
May 26 12:02:38 lindy kernel: hdc: command error: error=0x54
May 26 12:02:38 lindy kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 68576
May 26 12:02:38 lindy kernel: Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 17144

[artronic]

Does it play in Xine or Mplayer at all?
Have you tried DVD::RIP in Linux?

[PJP]

I don't have any of these.

I tried building DVD:Rip, but have problems with some of the prerequisite stuff - In the usual Linux tradition, the current versions of all of the dependencies don't work together (missing symbols).

I tried the rpms, but again, it doesn't work, because the rpms don't contain everything needed when you try to assemble the whole.

Anyway, I was really more interested in the general topic (so thanks a bunch whoever moved this thread to this location!) of whether this sort of anti-copying technique was becomming common -- because it certainly seems to be effective against current tool-sets.

[artronic]

Man, this is scary. If indeed the disk is copy protected, what bothers me is that Weight Watchers came up with this nasty scheme, where as Hollywood sticks to the basics.
Still, there may be some other issue with the disk (hopefully).

I wouldn't give up, we may be able to learn something from this experience.

Did you try looking at the disk in Windoze explorer?
Do you have another PC you can try it in (possible dvd drive issue)?

Maybe DVDInfo or even the Nero Info tools will be able to read it.

If there is a weightwatchers.html file in the root of the drive, it seems to me that the disk was intended to be accessed on a PC. There may be some other issue here. Please let us know.

[PJP]

I can't look at it with any windows (XP) tools, because XP doesn't even recognize it as a valid disk - I can't even explore it.

Nero says it is a blank disk - then hangs.

As I mentioned before, it works perfectly in a DVD player.

Weight Watchers are paranoid about their materials, its the only thing that keeps people tied to them.

My reader is a Plextor PX-708A, a VERY good drive, and works perfectly with everything else but this one disk.

Hollywood has to pretty much stick to the DVD spec (so far...).
Weight Watchers have no such problem, they just don't want it to be copyable.

[tibc]

I have a DVD+R disk from a friend that does not play on the PC but plays fine on the standalone. When the disk is inserted in my DVD-ROM, WinXP sees nothing; when it's inserted in the DVD+-RW, WinXP thinks that I have just inserted an audio cd. Explorer sees nothing.
I've tried Media Player, WinDVD, Nero Player, PowerDVD--nothing plays it on the PC.

[PJP]

So is this DVD an accident? A deliberate attempt to stop copying? Or something else ???

This is mostly a guess, because I don't have the time to dig into the intricasies of DVD filesystems, or to build to tools to explore ... but I think most of the filenames with the extra characters at the end are there just to make life difficult to read with ordinary command-line tools. For example, the non-ascii charaters are non-obvious, and not easy to type with a keyboard, and the ; is an end of line terminator in most shells - dliberate obfuscation to make the filenames difficult to manipulate in an interactive environment, but no problem at all for something which just copies a string of bytes as the dilename, and then uses that string blindly to open the file.

I also suspect that the files are not written as sequential blocks, but have gaps between some of them. For a dumb system which just reads the list of blocks from the directory entry and seeks to each and reads it there is no problem. Most general purpose OS's use things like readahead in the lower levels of the device driver - if someone requests block 100, go ahead and read 100, 101 an 102, because 99 times out of 100 if a given block is requested, the one following it will be too sometime in the very near future.

It appears that any blocks not containing data deliberately have bad sector/block headers, which will screw up either copying the whole DVD, or readahead in the device driver.

It would, of course, be quite possible to read the disk via the Linux raw device interfaces, block at a time, with appropriate tools (I might just try doing this... if I can find the time.

This obfuscation appears to be deliberate in the case of my DVD. I am wondering if that is the case with yours ?

[artronic]

Just out of curiosity, is there any indication on the dvd sleeve that it's not playable on a PC?
The html file really intrigues me.

[Dimmer]

My guess would be that they messed up ISO filesystem so that Windows won't see the files properly. DVD player reads only UDF filesystem, which is left intact. I suppose unused sectors can be intentionally made defective during pressing.

@PJP
Unfortunately, making an ISO image most probably would be a waste of time. If the DVD is CSS-encrypted, you won't be able to copy the keys, so you'll end up with an encrypted image.

[PJP]

Actually, I don't mind it being CSS encrypted - nomal PC DVD players should deal with that.

[Dimmer]

Originally posted by PJP
Actually, I don't mind it being CSS encrypted - nomal PC DVD players should deal with that. No, the keys must be on the same disc, otherwise the players wouldn't know how to decrypt it.

However, DVD Decrypter has brute force CSS cracking functionality, not sure though how long it would take.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Find a drive that can read the disc and then give DVD Decrypter another go.

If the drive wont even initialise the disc, there is nothing any software can do about it!

DVD Decrypter can read UDF and ISO file systems - you can choose which one in the settings or let the program do it automatically (default).

Rip as much as you can via File mode, leaving the problem files. The post a log of the bits you're stuck on.

Going from the 'Seek Error' you posted about earlier, I'd say the disc is dirty/scratched or just plain unreadable!

[tibc]

Of all the tools I've tried, only IsoBuster successfully opens my +R disc. It then reports an open (Nero) session, with what appears to be the correct directory/file structure.

But it encounters several sector read errors when attempting to extract the last .vob files, and actually freezes after too many attempts to retry or replace bad sectors with zeroes.

This may explain why I could get the disc to load and run in a standalone. (I must admit I didn't watch the entire movie)

I guess a new disc is in order.

[PJP]

Lightning: you don't seem to have read what I wrote. You can't rip anything, because XP doesn't recognize that there is a disk in the drive.

After that, any program you run just doesn't find a disk to rip/anyalyse/list. So there are no logs, and there is no partial rip.

It is not a problem with the disk drive.

Under Linux I can see a bit more, but can't read more than a block or so of any of the files. My standalone just plays with no problem at all.

If you wish, continue to believe that its just me/my drive(s) - but don't be surprised when one of these bites you...

[SeeMoreDigital]

PJP,

Is this DVD available in the UK. Can we have some more details about it please?


Cheers

[PJP]

Well, you would need to talk to Weight Watchers in the UK about availability there.

Its called:

WeightWatchers
Get In Shape

I believe that its region-free (symbol next to the DVD symbol is a square with rounded corners, within the square is a styalised globe - just lines of lat/log ans superimposed on that the word ALL on outline font).

It is mastered by Infodisc and has F1M1S2 and IFPI LP85 030414007 marked on it.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Unlike other programs, mine doesnt rely on the OS for stuff like reading the file system etc. It has its own and communicates directly with the drive via SPTI, ASPI, ElbyCDIO etc.

So yes, I did read what you'd written.

Is linux on the same box you're running XP on?

[Piaf]

another thing you could try is RNM and extract an ISO from this disc(xbox games can be read like this to HD to make a backup of ur original aight;) )
then mount iso and try ripping again whit dvd-decrypter
worth a shot i think :)

[PJP]

The XP and Linux boxes are different.

As I mentioned before, I think the only way to really read this disk will be to use either directly manipulate the drive (as you say), or possibly to just access block at a time via the Linux raw interface to the drive. To do that requires me sitting down and learning all about the filestore used on DVDs, then writing the code to persue the filestore ... something that unfortunately, I don't have the time to do right now.

If anyone knows of any tools what work like this, either XP or Linux, I am willing to give them a go.

So, if I was able to read/copy the directory and file structure by such a means, and perhaps mount that "copy" as an ISO image, would that work? or would it still be missing something critical (I can't imagine what)?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It seems to me that the drive in the XP box just cant initialise the disc properly. The reason I asked if XP was on the same box as Linux was because if the other drive reads the disc better, put it in the XP box.

You're asking for tools that access the drive directly and read blocks (sectors) and yet you've had DVD Decrypter sitting there the whole time which does exactly that.

Like I said, eject the disc, load the program and put the disc back in. (It's important to do it that way)

It'll say something like 'logical drive in process of becoming ready' in the status bar of the program.

What it says AFTER that (if indeed it ever goes away!) is what's important.

[blargbigfoot]

I am having the same problem with the trailer park boys cd2 (of 3). The first and third disks ripped without a problem, all three play in my stand alone player, but the 2nd disk is reported to win2k an unformatted disk and dvd decrypter seems "unable to recover TOC". WinDVD cannot play it, probably due to win2k but I do not really know for certain. I use autoGK so if there are any other rippers that will work well and easily with that I would be open to suggestions.

"unable to recover TOC" is what is reported after I load DVD Decrypter and then insert the disk

[LIGHTNING UK!]

That means your drive cant read the disc.

Put it in another drive (if you have one)