I got a DVD, never used with cellophane intact, produced in 1993 on ebay. I thought maybe, since I didn’t get a DRM warning, it predated DRM, and I could just copy it to my hard drive, so I did. Both the copy and the DVD are now corrupted and unplayable. I want to fix the DVD then rip it to my hard drive. Googling gives plenty of suggestions for ripping but none for fixing. Please help if you can. Thanks.
Yeah, nah, that didn’t happen.
DVDs were introduced in the western market in 1997 so it can’t be produced in 1993.
If it’s an audio cd or a cd-rom, maybe it was damaged from the beginning. I have many original disks from the early 90s that have “disc rot”, the data layer decomposed and are now unreadable. Watch it with a light behind it, if you see many small dots, it has disc rot and it’s now gone
If then it’s actually a DVD from 1993, then it’ a prototype that can’t be read by modern drives because it predated the standard
On closer examination, the performance is from 1993. Discogs shows a 2005 release, and Presto Music seems to be selling a version that says it was released 29th Jul 2013. The back cover of the container I have says copyright 1993. I played it before trying to copy it. VLC is the only app I have that recognized it. Pot Player and Windows Media did not.
You need to try an actual DVD player software like PowerDVD, or standalone home theater DVD player before you write the disc off as bad. Attempting to copy a DVD to your PC literally cannot damage the disc. The disc wasn’t written by a laser, it was pressed by a mold, much like a vinyl record is made. Your reader can’t possibly alter it.
I’m sure you’re more technically knowledgeable than I am b/c most people here are. But I tell you for sure though that my copying the contents of a DVD to PC using File Explorer resulted in an unplayable DVD twice. It’s fixable. I’m bookmarking this in case I forget what a mess this causes and do it again. I’d be interested to know the result if you try it to prove me wrong.
Windows? Yeah, I’m talking out of my ass here, but probably only unplayable because Windows helpfully created some kinda corrupted data file related to the disc.
What he said is factual; you didn’t make the disc itself unreadable. Which is why I blame Windows doing something stupid and not helpful.
Problem solved by DVDShrink. Thanks, everyone.
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.
Unless the drive physically scratched the DVD, it’s not corrupted. However, I’ve had a few discs that I’ve stored carefully for decades that just stopped working for no reason. The discs looked flawless with no signs of damage and they refused to work.
What region is the DVD and is your drive set to the same region?
Alternatively, download this DLL file and place it the same directory as your VLC installation. It will then be able to bypass simple region checks but not all.
Everything is set to region 0. Tried the DLL file and got this, “Your input can’t be opened: VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘file:///D:/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB’. Check the log for details.” Checked VLC using other files, and it’s fine.
Maybe you can try DVDFab DVD Copy, which may recognize your corrupted DVDs and make a backup copy of it. This tool is good at decrypting and coping old DVD.
Did it play fine to begin with before you ripped it?
It played fine before my attempt to copy it.
Does it play on standard DVD players? Is it a pressed copy (silver) or burned (typically purple)?
It sounds like the encryption section has degraded and can’t be read reliably.
It’s silver. I’ve got 3 optical drives and no standard DVD player.
What are you using to rip? I think DVD Decrypter lists the encryption found
I don’t think I can rip until the data is again readable.
deleted by creator
Yes, although VLC was the only program able to play it.
I’ve been ripping DVDs for several years now and have never seen this issue. What program did you use? I thought most retail DVDs were read only once shipped, so I am not sure how you could corrupt it.
Have you tried playing it in another player (like a recent game console or a Blu Ray player)? It could be a corrupted driver for your PC’s disc drive.
Other discs work in same drive. This happened once before, and I used an app called BurnAware to fix and rip the DVD. Apparently it’s part of DRM meanness. BurnAware isn’t working on this one.
I typically use the beta version of MakeMKV on Windows, but I would have no clue what to use on my Debian machine. I hope you are able to resolve your issue, though.
MKV doesn’t get you past DRM anti-copy, i.e. it won’t let you copy a DRM-protected disc into an MKV container, as far as I know.
I can’t find anything for sure on the webpage, but I haven’t run across a DVD in good condition that it can’t rip. I may just be lucky and not own any DRM protected DVDs, though.
I went to the webpage. It says MKV makes ISO backups, so I remembered wrong. In the forum, somebody said they used DVDShrink to make an ISO. I downloaded DVDShrink and ran its media player, which was able to read the corrupted disk. After playing it in DVDShrink, VLC and Pot Player were able to play it, too. Now the first thing on the screen is the DRM warning, which didn’t come up before. Now the DVD is playable and backed up to PC. If you hadn’t been adamant about MKV backups, I’d still have a problem. So TYVM!
FWIW, the same thing happened a couple of years ago with a more contemporary DVD. At the time, I didn’t know I couldn’t just copy it. After using Windows copy function on it, I couldn’t play it. I found a program called BurnAware that fixed and ripped it. BurnAware isn’t able to recover this disc.
