DVD mastering protection

[Zakhar]

Binary package hint: k9copy

Ubuntu 8.04.01
K9Copy in Ubuntu repository (standard repository, not the backport).
DVD : DaVinci Code - Rental rights included - France (Droits locatifs inclus France)

This DVD shows, with the option "fast scan" :

Title 1 (Bold) : 6116 Mo
Title 1 (not bold) : Several Terabytes !
If you unfold Title 1 (not Bold) the sizes of chapters looks quite normal sizes. I didn't check if their sum is around 6Go, but it should be

....
Titles 2 to 18 seem to be OK
....

Title 19 (bold) : Several Terabytes !

Title 20 (bold) : Several Terabytes !

Obviously, Title 19 and 20 are there to fool rippers.
So I deselected them for backup.

Anyway, even deselected, K9 reads them as they must me addressed in the "main menu".
This could be understandable with the option "keep original menu", but the same occurs when "keep original menu" is not selected.

And of course, there are read errors on these titles 19 and 20.
Fortunately, recovery from these error are fast.

Then K9 copies all titles.
When it comes to title 1, the information in size are different from Title 1 (bold) and Title 1 (not bold).
And there come read errors that would take hours to recover (so I stopped the process)

I tried backup only title 1.
Here appears another error, K9 uses the size calculated under Title 1-not-bold and wants to apply a compression factor of 8654 !!!
Of course I changed it to factor 1 (as I reserved enough space to do a full backup).
But then come read errors again.

Last test I switched off "Fast Scan".
When you ask K9 to read the DVD, it then scans the 20 titles, but fails with "read error" on title 19 and so nothing is displayed on the DVD structure window and you cannot copy anything.

For information this mastering is really very tricky :
- It fails to rip under windows "rippers" such as : DVDDecypter, Magic DVDripper, DVD Fab Platinum => too many read error.
- Under VLC Windows, if you play DVDsimple, there is a fake Columbia sequence at position 0 sec, it lasts for 15sec and VLC stops.
If you play it regular DVD, title 1 chapter 1, it will start at offset 54 sec with the "real" Columbia sequence, but then fail after a few chapters.
- VLC Ubuntu does not play this DVD at all : VLC closes directly with no error message.

I managed to play it with Dell Media Direct (a small XP with some sort of "Media Player")... so I've seen the rented movie now and these bugs in K9 are not a problem if I cannot rip it, because now I don't need to rip it anymore ;-)
But I wanted to report that anyway.

Unfortunately it happens with the "Rental" version of the DVD (very expensive if you want to buy it for test... unless you are able to rent it, I rent mines at 1€ through the company where I work). I don't know if the retail version has the same intricate mastering.