Copy dual-layer video dvd

[rolf]

I'll throw out a partially-digested account of my travails and, maybe, someone could help put Humpty back together.

I get video dvds on loan and GF is fond of Mr. Bean. These come on a DL dvd with encryption, which k3b handles pretty smoothly and automatically. I save a copy of the iso image for further manipulation/copies.

If I burn a copy to my Memorex DVD+R DL disks, they can't be played by the software on my machine: smplayer, kaffeine, totem, etc. They seem to play fine on the Sony PS3 but GF has some older dvd players at home and at her shop, where they do not play or have problems with freezing. The original, encrypted rental disk seems to play ok on her machines.

I have tried extracting the iso and loading the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders into k3b but that does not help. I've tried:

Code: Select all

$ growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/sr0 -allow-limited-size mrbean_a.iso

but that, strangely, just copies the iso to the disk. I've had it work for me, before.

Most recently, I've learned of k9copy from googling. That 'shrinks' the data, which I load from the k3b-created isos, in order to fit on a single-layer dvd+r and those play in my Mandriva av software. This is recent and, next, I'll give them to GF to test on her home players. I've only audited portions of the disks, don't want to sit through a full playback. Mostly, it seems fine. However, the audio is missing on the last chapter of the last title of one disk. It is there when I play the original rental dvd. I even tried using k9copy to convert directly from the rental dvd and was surprised that it worked; I thought I've noticed that many of the softwares don't have the facility for finding and employing the decryption keys. That single-layer shrunken copy plays but is missing the same audio on the last chapter. It looks to me like there are many options for excluding data in k9copy, in order to come up with the smaller size. I just leave everything at defaults, wonder if this bit of audio doesn't make the k9 cut? Can't imagine what.

Any pearls of wisdom would be welcome.

[dedanna1029]

Good luck with that ARccOS - I get the same as you with Disney dvds (and some Sonys), too.

Edit: You could *try* ddrescue, but I've been there done that too without much success.

[R_Head]

I use K9Copy to backup all my DVDs also, DVD::RIP does a great job at making AVIs. I use it to shrink the movies a CD size and play them on the Coby Kyros 7015 with Android 2.1 for the little one to have some movies to watch instead of toting around a case of DVDs.