I recently tried to burn a copy of Star Wars Episode 2 for myself. I used DVD Shrink and found that the copy would skip about halfway through the movie and then eventually just stop and it wouldn't play any further. After using DVD Decryptor to decrypt the dvd to my hardrive, I used dvd shrink to burn my copy. It worked beautifully! Assuming that I'm better off safe than sorry, I tried to burn a copy of Season 1 of Da Ali G Show, an HBO classic. After decrypting with DVD Decryptor as with Star Wars, I burned using DVD Shrink, again like Star Wars. This time, I got almost the same issue that I had with the defective copy of Star Wars. I tried copying again with DVD Shrink directly from the disc and it worked beautifully! I'm a little confused, I've been trying to figure out how to predict which ones will need to be decrypted before being burned with DVD Shrink and so far it seems to be a total crapshoot. Both DVDs have CSS encoding according to DVD Decryptor, but they obviously didn't burn the same way. Now I'm left with two coasters! I'm wondering if anyone has found a way to predict this so that I can eliminate the need for testing DVD encryption through coaster burning. PS I don't know if this makes a difference, but the coasters were burned with DVD-Rs. The working copy of Star Wars is a DVD-R and my working copy of Da Ali G show is DVD+R. Thanks for your attention!
So how do I get the files to the hardrive? Do I use DVD Decryptor or copy them over directly from the disk or what?
?? 1) Do I use DVD decryptor to decode it to my hardrive? 2) Do I copy the files over from the DVD without decoding? How do I test them? There are tons of files.
Oh, my apology, let me elaborate further: Insert source DVD, run Decrypter, click 'Mode', then 'File'. Decrypter would automatically recognize and highlight all the files on the DVD. Just set 'destination' folder, and it would copy all the files on the DVD to the folder. Go to the destination folder, double click or open 'video_ts.ifo' with your media player, and the movie will begin to play. Now you can check if things are o.k.. If yes, then you can do the final burning to DVD. Now if the media you use is fine, the end result should be fine too.
I know this must be getting exhausting for you but I just want to clarify, if it works after I decrypt it to the hardrive, does that mean that I want to burn the decrypted files to the disk, or I want to burn from the original dvd.
I tried decrypting the Ali G Show which didn't work when I decrypted it for burning with DVD Shrink. Using the method you described, the playback works just fine from my hardrive. Considering that the dvd I burned using those decrpyted files skipped, shouldn't it also skip when played back on my hardrive?
if the file you created using dvd decrypter plays fine that means your problem is not decrypting it might be the media you are using. or something more important there is always a slight loss of quality during compression but this should not make that noticable of a difference. if you are using good media try the quality settings with dvd shrink the deep analysis works wonders when I have to do a lot of compression 50%
My vote is for bad media as well. ~Plays from the hard drive with no problems. ~Skips and eventually freezes after playing halfway through. One thing.... Shrink can't be used to do the actual burn. It can call another program like Nero or Decrypter to perform the actual burn. Normally I let Shrink do the CSS removal and compression and then burn with Nero. If I have a movie with structure protection or if Shrink has a problem, I'll rip it with Decrypter first and then use Shrink to compress. Sometimes I burn with Nero, sometimes with Decrypter. Either way works for me.
Well, they all said it, bad media's my vote too. Try change to better media, use a RW for test. Good luck!
Thanks guys, you're probably right. I was using Comp USA DVD-Rs that are only 1x. Now I'm using Memorex DVD+Rs that go up to 8x write. I had a 1.4x burner but with the firmware upgrade it seems to be running just fine. I just wanted to prevent it from happening again in the future. Thanks for all your help guys!
Woah!! Memorex media is a no-no. Try Taiyo-Yuden's, Ritek, Sony, Fuji, Verbatim. Make sure the media is "Made in Japan." The first two you can get online, like rima.com, they give free samples on request, and meritline.com.
... Memorex uses a variety af manufacturers for their discs ... Some are great, some really suck ... It's a crap shoot ... Stick to good media ... From a store: Sony, Verbatim, Maxell ... On line: Taiyo Yuden, Ritek ... http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
Oh no not memorex change to TY or Verbs they are the beat, I used to use memorex untill I started making coasters, I switched to TY and Verbs and not 1 coaster since then
... Memorex sells great CD-R media and really inconsistant DVD media ... I've had nothing but headaches from their DVD stuff ...
There are people who use Memorex DVD media and have good luck with them, but I was not one of them. When I first started burning I bought a spindle, out of the 50 I maybe got 10 decent burns. That was the last time I used Memorex, I switched to Verbatim and had no problems. I have not used Memorex in years maybe it has improved but from the posts I see from people who are using it and having problems, I doubt it. Moral to all of this is if you are going to burn use quality media, the amount of money you save buying cheap does not warrant the problems you will have with burning, playing or lack of longevity of the media. My two cents :~)
... I'm not so sure that the actual price in dollars and cents has anything to do with the consistant quality of a particular brand of media ... The Maxell, Sony and Verbatim discs that I use, are costing me much less than the dreaded Memorex would be, especially considering the annoying coaster factor ...
