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Old 03-06-2017, 04:45 PM
musicman691 musicman691 is offline
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Default Fellow Whovians - need your help

For those of us that are Doctor Who fans I have a sad tale and request. I have on standard dvd from BBC America the first 4 series of the Dr. Who reboot with Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. Had them for a number of years and they all played okay. Wife and I decided since we hadn't seen them in a while to go through them. DVD 4 of series/season 1 wouldn't play at all and dvd 1 of the second series/season (first Tennant one) could barely play the first episode (Christmas Invasion). Looking at the back side of the two disks and the coloration isn't uniform, almost like they might either be delaminating or rotting. I keep them in their cases and in a relatively dry place so that shouldn't be an issue. The dvd player (a bluray one) is okay because everything else I've run through it plays okay. And I'm OCD when it comes to taking care of dvd's.

For anybody that specifically has these dvd's have you run into this? For that matter has anyone had a commercial dvd that they've had for years not play and also had a discoloration on the playable side?
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Old 03-06-2017, 04:57 PM
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mjslakeridge mjslakeridge is offline
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

Try downloading DVD Decrypter and see if it will read the entire DVD. You could also try DVD Shrink and perform the deep analysis. Both are free programs which I have used to backup DVDs to my HDD>
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Old 03-07-2017, 05:01 AM
musicman691 musicman691 is offline
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

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Originally Posted by mjslakeridge View Post
Try downloading DVD Decrypter and see if it will read the entire DVD. You could also try DVD Shrink and perform the deep analysis. Both are free programs which I have used to backup DVDs to my HDD>
Thanks but unfortunately Decrypter is Windows only and I have no idea what operating system Shrink is for as the website doesn't say and there's no way I can see to actually download the program. It just has this more than troubling link to click on to optimize one's system before installing Shrink.

Need solutions for Mac. Google comes up with possibly Handbrake to do the job but in what I've read of the documentation I don't see how to do that, if it even can. VLC won't do it either even though Google turns up an answer that it should but the directions don't work for the VLC install I have.

This all sucks as even though I could replace the dvd's with newer Blu-Ray versions the prices are all over the board with anywhere from $34 US for series/season one to $60+ for the rest. I am not that rich and the wife isn't all warm and fuzzy about spending that kind of dough from another product from BBC America. She asks how long will the replacement dvd's work given what happened to what we have now.

What even further sucks is this makes me wonder how long any kind of optical digital media will last? The cd's we burn, listen to, the dvd's we watch? With digital rights management you can't even burn safety copies.
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Old 03-07-2017, 05:32 AM
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

I didn't realize you were on a Mac. If you Google around for "DVD Shrink for Mac", it looks like there are some solutions available, but I cannot vouch for the safety of any of those sites. I have used DVD Shrink for years to rip DVDs into my computer and to make safety copies. If the DVD is over 4.7GB due to multiple audio languages, closed captioning, etc., DVD shrink will compress the files to fit on a 4.7GB DVD. You can also re-author the disk, copying only the sections you want (exclude director's comments, etc.)

DVD Decrytper is a similar program, and I have used it to read from a DVD that may have some scratches or unreadable sectors. It doesn't compress the files, but if they are successfully read into your HDD with Decrypter, then you can run DVD Shrink to do the compression. But I am not aware of any Mac equivalent.

I have over a hundred DVD+R's that I have burned, and I don't recall any of them failing. I also burn quite a few DVD-RW's so we can watch a movie, and then re-write over it for the next movie, and I have had a number of them go bad after many re-writes, but a pack of 25 are quite cheap at MicroCenter, so I just replace the bad ones in my rotation of 10 or so.

If you could borrow a Windows PC or laptop, I could email you the zipped installation files for DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter, as they are quite small, and as I said above, have had them on several of my computers (Windows XP, 7, 8 and 8.1), for years.
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Old 03-07-2017, 07:18 AM
musicman691 musicman691 is offline
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

Quote:
Originally Posted by mjslakeridge View Post
I didn't realize you were on a Mac. If you Google around for "DVD Shrink for Mac", it looks like there are some solutions available, but I cannot vouch for the safety of any of those sites. I have used DVD Shrink for years to rip DVDs into my computer and to make safety copies. If the DVD is over 4.7GB due to multiple audio languages, closed captioning, etc., DVD shrink will compress the files to fit on a 4.7GB DVD. You can also re-author the disk, copying only the sections you want (exclude director's comments, etc.)

DVD Decrytper is a similar program, and I have used it to read from a DVD that may have some scratches or unreadable sectors. It doesn't compress the files, but if they are successfully read into your HDD with Decrypter, then you can run DVD Shrink to do the compression. But I am not aware of any Mac equivalent.

I have over a hundred DVD+R's that I have burned, and I don't recall any of them failing. I also burn quite a few DVD-RW's so we can watch a movie, and then re-write over it for the next movie, and I have had a number of them go bad after many re-writes, but a pack of 25 are quite cheap at MicroCenter, so I just replace the bad ones in my rotation of 10 or so.

If you could borrow a Windows PC or laptop, I could email you the zipped installation files for DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter, as they are quite small, and as I said above, have had them on several of my computers (Windows XP, 7, 8 and 8.1), for years.
Thanks for the offer - I'll have to see if my ancient Windows laptop running XP still boots or not. Haven't started that thing up in a couple of years since I found Mac equivalents for the s/w I used particularly CD Architect. I don't really need to shrink them down but just be able to watch them on a standard dvd player.

Like you I have yet to have self-burned dvd's/cd's go bad on me other than again, just like you, have had rewritable media turn into coasters on reuse. I buy by the 50 or 100 spindle so that brings the costs way down.
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Old 03-07-2017, 10:44 AM
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

You won't know whether you need to shrink them down until you analyze the DVDs. Many of the commercially produced DVDs are larger than 4.7 GB, due to alternate camera angle features (concert DVDs), 5.1 and stereo audio streams, multiple languages, etc. If you are trying to rescue the failing DVD and burn it onto a standard DVD+R, the file needs to be no larger than 4.7GB. With DVD Shrink, you can let it automatically compress the files, or you can manually "re-author" the DVD and split it up into 2 files that can be burned to standard DVDs. When you do this, you lose the menu features.
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Old 03-07-2017, 04:20 PM
musicman691 musicman691 is offline
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

Quote:
Originally Posted by mjslakeridge View Post
You won't know whether you need to shrink them down until you analyze the DVDs. Many of the commercially produced DVDs are larger than 4.7 GB, due to alternate camera angle features (concert DVDs), 5.1 and stereo audio streams, multiple languages, etc. If you are trying to rescue the failing DVD and burn it onto a standard DVD+R, the file needs to be no larger than 4.7GB. With DVD Shrink, you can let it automatically compress the files, or you can manually "re-author" the DVD and split it up into 2 files that can be burned to standard DVDs. When you do this, you lose the menu features.
What about dual layer dvd's?
BTW I tried starting up that old XP machine today and the hard drive started making grinding noises after a little while. Not good so it's time to retire it for good.
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Old 03-07-2017, 04:44 PM
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

If you have a DVD writer that is capable of dual layer writing, then I don't think you would need to compress the files. I don't have a dual layer capable writer, so I am not completely sure.

Ya, it sounds like your XP machine is not long for this world.

I have used Nero software for years to burn cds and dvds, but when I recently installed Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit on my main computer, it quit working. Found a program called BurnAwayFree that I have been using for the past month or so that does a good job of burning and verifying the dvd.
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Old 03-07-2017, 06:05 PM
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Top Jimmy Top Jimmy is offline
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Default Fellow Whovians - need your help

DVD Decrypter hasn't been updated or supported for many years. There are a lot of security schemes it can't deal with now.

DVDfab allows the use of the imager for free. It has been secure enough for me. It nags you and isn't specific but even past the 30 day demo period, the ripper still works to create a disk image. Just cancel the nag screens. Then you can load the image in Handbrake and compress as desired.

But, if your DVDs are physically damaged, there may not be any hope of recovery.
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Old 03-08-2017, 04:32 AM
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mjslakeridge mjslakeridge is offline
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Default Re: Fellow Whovians - need your help

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Originally Posted by Top Jimmy View Post
DVD Decrypter hasn't been updated or supported for many years. There are a lot of security schemes it can't deal with now.

DVDfab allows the use of the imager for free. It has been secure enough for me. It nags you and isn't specific but even past the 30 day demo period, the ripper still works to create a disk image. Just cancel the nag screens. Then you can load the image in Handbrake and compress as desired.

But, if your DVDs are physically damaged, there may not be any hope of recovery.
You may be right about DVD Decrypter. I have only used it a few times to try to read a DVD that DVD Shrink could not read due to physical damage. It tries to read the damaged sectors over and over. Sometimes it is successful, sometimes not.

I have yet to come across a DVD that DVD Shrink is unable to read (other than physical damage). I don't have any Blu-Ray's just standard DVDs.
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