I have talked about a type of special DVD copy protection scheme in a previous article; that is, pressing two marks on the DVD to make the DVD only read by DVD player but not by DVD writer. Today, I found some people were complaining some commercial DVDs not recognized by the computer DVD drive but seem not with that copy protection scheme.

The problem DVD movies are Taking of Pelham 123 (Sony Pictures video), Night at the Museum 2 (Twentieth Century Fox Film), Lionsgate’s W. (the George Bush bio pic). Following is the description of the problem:

“My DVD player can play the DVDs, while my computer DVD drive does not recognize them but it plays other commercial DVDs fine just not these. In the explorer, the drive shows empty with the DVD being in the drive, although it does try to read it when the DVD is inserted. DVD decrypting and ripping tool- DVDFab cannot detect the DVDs either.”

What makes people confused is that these DVDs can be played in the standalone DVD player but cannot be played in the computer DVD drive that play other DVDs just fine. Then what is going on in the DVD or DVD drive?

I have searched online for this problem but got nothing quite certain to solve it, so I’m not sure if this is another new DVD encryption method or it is the special copy protection scheme I referred to in the beginning. People complaining this problem didn’t mention they have found pressed marks on the discs, and I have no these DVDs in hand; otherwise, I will check the discs. Anyway, trying more DVD ripping tools is a feasible way.

What’s more probable is the problem of the DVD drive, so putting in another DVD drive can be the first try, since some DVD drives are more capable than others at reading discs. Also, check if the disc is scratched, though they are playable in DVD player and playback in DVD drive shouldn’t be picky with this.

Another possibility for the cause of this problem is the hard drive is changed to PIO mode from DMA mode. Normally, the computer HD is in DMA mode, but consecutive trying to read scratched or damaged discs will result in converting DMA to PIO mode, which will greatly slow the disc access. For details of the two modes and the solution, please refer to: http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/316294-ripping-time-tripled and http://winhlp.com/node/10

Do you have similar story or problem? Please tell me and share  your opinion by leaving comments.

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