New copy protection?

Movie Copy Software
#1

Okay, hi all there.

I am trying to backup two german DVDs: “Urmel aus dem Eis” and “Jim Knopf” (Augsburger Puppenkiste). I have already done several backups, but this time I am stuck. AnyDVD (latest trial) is working when inserting the disc, but “finding” nothing, so I assume no there is no CSS protection, but that is not the deal. DVDShrink says something like “No valid navigation system” and stops at the analysing state. Nero of course refuses to copy the disc in any way, Alcohol (latest trial) find a lot of read errors at sectors 21000-28000 and CloneDVD Trial also stops with an error message at about 0,8% of the movie.
The layout of those two dvds are “normal”, i.e. one audio_ts and one video_ts folder, nothing else. The original disc plays fine on any of my 3 standalone player as well as on powerdvd on my comp.

On to my final question:
Does anybody know anything about a new copy protection (theses two movies are old, but the dvds were produced this year) containig read errors on commercial dvds ??

Regards, Monty

Edit:// I almost forgot to mention, that I can reproduce this error on any dvd-rom and dvd-writer I own (on win2k sp4 and win xp sp1a).

#2

have you tried using dvd decrypter to rip the dvds?

#3

Actually, I haven’t. I doubt, it will make a difference, but I’ll give it a try when I come back from work.
Something else was strange. DVDShrink something tells me so something about crc check errors…

Update: As assumed, latest DVDDecrypter didn’t do the job either…

any hints ??

#4

Hi,

yes, I can confirm this: There is a new copy protection, based on a ring with unreadable sectors. You’re right, DVD Decrypter will hang forever at this “ring”, but it can be copied the following way quite easily:

1.) If you use AnyDVD, it must be disabled, because AnyDVD gets confused and will destroy the DVD structure. I already told SlySoft about this problem, and they will fix this in the next release. James from SlySoft has already sent me a beta version of AnyDVD which fixes this.
But this is no problem, as the discs you mentioned are not CSS encrypted.

2.) You can use CloneDVD2 to make a copy. The trick is, that you must leave out chapter 1 of the main title. You must be very fast, before the preview runs into “the ring”.
Best thing to do it is, to immediately select the second title. Preview will show the unprotected title. Now change the preview speed to 1x (right click into the preview window).
Now select (the protected) title 1. Click the scissors and quickly move the left arrow one step to the right. Now CloneDVD2 will make copy. The copy will not be copy protected.

That’s it! Happy cloning!

#5

Many, many THANX, Olli.

It finally worked and the backup plays well on my standalone…

Do you know what this protection is called ? Or do you know anything about upcoming titles using this protection or something similar ?

Once again, thanx.

Regards Monty

#6

No idea, if it has a “name”. How about MontySafe, because you discovered it first? Or BeatenByCloneProt? Maybe AugsburgerPuppenLock? :bigsmile:

I don’t know if this protection will show up more frequently in the future, but my guess is, that this is some kind of “field test”. If it works well and doesn’t cause any compatibility problems, we might see more of it.
Why would a publisher invest money in a copy protection for a 20 years old children tv show, which can be bought at amazon.de for less than 9 Euros?
I am not even sure, if the publisher knows, that there is a copy protection on these discs, as the cover doesn’t say anything (the new copyright law in germany forces publishers to mark DVDs, if they are copy protected).
Maybe it is a test run conducted by the mastering facility to check compatibility, or if guys like us find an easy way to bypass it…
Time will tell… :slight_smile:

#7

:bigsmile: :bigsmile:

You are right, the DVDs aren’t marked, I didn’t notice that at first.
As it isn’t that hard to bypass (at least for me now :bigsmile: ), let’s hope we will not see it that often…

Regards Monty

#8

You’re probably right, but this protection has - unfortunately - a great potential for improvement.
There are very easy ways to make such a “ring” protection much more annoying and more difficult to bypass. I won’t go into detail, because I don’t want to give the creators of AugsburgerPuppenLock free advise… :wink:
And, in times of AnyDVD & Co., a publisher can save the CSS license fee and look for something better (and maybe even cheaper)

#9

According to this post Blindwrite is supposed to work too.

#10

I guess there will never be a FES setting for such errors, as far as DVD drives are concerned :frowning:

#11

Won’t you miss the start of the mivoe when skipping chapter 1? Or is chapter 1 just the unreadable sectors?

#12

You won’t miss anything. Chapter 1 contains a colour bar and black (and a big ring of unreadable sectors. Very unreadable, even laser positioning information is missing… I assume, this protection will not work well on dual layer discs :slight_smile: )
At the beginning of Chapter 1 is VM code, which instructs standalone players / PC Player Software to skip immediately to Chapter 2, so you usually will never see Chapter 1.
Copy sofware like DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, etc. will try to extract those unreadable sectors and will go mad.
If you instruct CloneDVD2 to leave out the “protection chapter”, you will avoid all this. And even better, the resulting disc is no longer protected at all!

#13

Well, thats a lot of time since i do not write here, but i can confirm that new copy-protection too. A title here in Spain: “Portero de noche” (which translation into german/english do not know) seems to have that system too.
Well, as posted above, it plays quite fine in every reader i found (all of my computer DVD drives: SD-R5002, Pioneer 107D & LG¿?) and in my standalone player, but it is almost impossible to be read “by brute force”.
As posted too, there isn’t any CSS mark and the whole movie are crypting-free.

I could not try such title a lot and left it for holidays, but when read that i inmediatly found the key to my problems…so thanks…

One curiosus thing…the disc can be read completely, but it last a lot of time. Every ripping tool ( such DVDDecrypter/AnyDVD/SmartRipper…) hangs my system, but i tried to read it with my pioneer 107D ( and FW 1.13) and last about 3 hours to complete the whole DVD. In adition to that, from the errors to the end, it do not speedy when finds correct data, continues at a very low speed.
Tried with my old Toshiba SD-R5002 and got surprise when read quite fast. It last about half and an hour to complete, but it reads it. ( I tried with CloneDVD first and windows explorer later)

Good luck!

#14

Hi Olli.

I was unable to get clonedvd to work as you stated in your solution. I have the latest clondvd and when I load the movie through the browse function it hangs immediately, and then quits with the crc error. How are you able to quickly select the second title when mine never highlights anything before it reads and quits?

#15

You must be quite fast, if you do this. Another solution is:

1.) Insert a “normal” DVD.
2.) Set preview speed to 1x
3.) Click “next”. CloneDVD will now save the settings
4.) Abort
5.) Insert “Augsburger PuppenLock”
…

#16

Most important is to DISABLE any decrypter like ANYDVD or something similar. Once they get access to the disk they mess it all up and you can’t do anything until you ejected and re-inserted the disc.

Once set to 1x speed, even a “slowhand” can do it :bigsmile:

@mackmansupreme

Are you trying to backup the same DVDs or something else ? Maybe the protection has already been modified ??

#17

Oh yes, you’re right! However, an updated version of AnyDVD which fixes this problem is in beta test for quite a while now… I believe, it will be released soon.

#18

Can you tell us more about this fix ? I mean, will ANYDVD just leave the disc untouched when it recognizes “AugsburgerPuppenLock” ? If so, what about DVDs which are additionally css encrypted or/and have macrovision protection ?

Regards, Monty

#19

So is this the official name of this kind of protection? :bigsmile:

ET

#20

No. The “AugsburgerPuppenLock” has - in addition to the ring, which does not influence AnyDVD at all - a mastering error. If this mastering error is intentional or not - meaning, if it is part of the copy protection - I don’t know.
I don’t think it is part of the copy protection, I believe it is a bug in the mastering software. I have seen another disc suffering from a similar error, and this one is not copy protected: It is the “Peter Finzel Test Disc V2”.
Anyway, this mastering error causes AnyDVD to exchange incorrect sectors on the DVD. As a result, the DVD will not play correctly and/or CloneDVD will spit out an error like “.ifo file not found” or “Allocation error” or “DVDManager error” or …
The mentioned fix will provide a workaround for such mastering errors, and AnyDVD will work correctly again, even with such broken DVD structures. So, if there is a combination of CSS/MacroVision/PuppenLock - no problem. :slight_smile:
As a side effect, AnyDVD will be much more tolerant to wrongly mastered “self made” DVDs. Maybe James can be so kind to publish the (quite impressive) changelog for the upcoming Version 3.8 of AnyDVD?