Some DVD ISOs play, some don't

I seem to be having an issue with some DVD ISOs playing back just fine while others don’t; the end result is the dreaded, “Unable to play the selected file” message.  This is rather annoying as all of the ISOs are able to play back in VLC without issue.

The ISOs have been made from original DVDs that I own, and have not been altered (conversion from DVD9 to DVD5, RCE removal, etc.) in any way; they are straight backups of the discs that I have purchased over the years.  The ISOs were created using 4Media DVD Copy under OSX 10.6.2.  Transport to the player is via an SMB share from the NAS (FreeNAS 0.7.1).

I should point out that the failure rate on this is hovering at around 80% right now, and that the problem seems to be affecting both Region 1 and Region 2 DVD ISOs equally.  This is making me a very unhappy customer; I’m getting close to making the 80-mile round-trip to return this thing to Best Buy and just getting a region-free DVD player.

Does anyone have any idea what the issue may be?  I’m not interested in using a file format other than .ISO to back up my DVDs, so need to stick with that.

Hi,

I have been having 100% success with playing my ISO’s from Regions 1 and 2.

When I make my ISO back ups I do the following:

Remove all region codes and make the ISO “region free”

Remove DVD file encryption.

Up to now I have had no issues playing my DVD ISO’s.

Regards,

JR

are they .img or .iso?

i rename my .img to .iso for thumbnail workaround purposes.

i don’t think the WDTV supports .img, but if you rename the .img to .iso, then it works.

JR20020 wrote:

Hi,

 

I have been having 100% success with playing my ISO’s from Regions 1 and 2.

 

When I make my ISO back ups I do the following:

 

Remove all region codes and make the ISO “region free”

 

Remove DVD file encryption.

 

Up to now I have had no issues playing my DVD ISO’s.

 

Regards,

 

JR

 

 

Please advise which software you have been using (and on which platform you’re using it) for doing this. See my next reply for more details, but this appears to have been a problem with the software that I was using.

brucered wrote:

are they .img or .iso?

 

i rename my .img to .iso for thumbnail workaround purposes.

 

i don’t think the WDTV supports .img, but if you rename the .img to .iso, then it works.

They are in straight .iso format, no compression or conversion from DVD9 to DVD5, etc.  I’m treating them as backups of my physical media; if I step on a disc, I just want to toss in a blank DVD and burn a replacement copy without having to create the .iso or lose menus, etc.

The problem seems to have been with the software I was using (4Media DVD Copy under OS X); it could only cope with a very limited subset of DVDs.  Some testing with CloneDVD5 under Windows XP was more successful, but there were still discs that, presumably due to file layout-based protection, it couldn’t back up.  DVD neXt Copy did a better job, but I’m still having issues with some of the copies that it has made.

If anyone has recommendations for a truly 100% effective piece of software that can do straight-to-iso backups, I’d love to know about it.  Having some DVDs work with the WD TV Live but not XBMC or PS3 Media Server is really annoying.

casm23 wrote:

 


brucered wrote:

are they .img or .iso?

 

i rename my .img to .iso for thumbnail workaround purposes.

 

i don’t think the WDTV supports .img, but if you rename the .img to .iso, then it works.


 

 

They are in straight .iso format, no compression or conversion from DVD9 to DVD5, etc.  I’m treating them as backups of my physical media; if I step on a disc, I just want to toss in a blank DVD and burn a replacement copy without having to create the .iso or lose menus, etc.

 

The problem seems to have been with the software I was using (4Media DVD Copy under OS X); it could only cope with a very limited subset of DVDs.  Some testing with CloneDVD5 under Windows XP was more successful, but there were still discs that, presumably due to file layout-based protection, it couldn’t back up.  DVD neXt Copy did a better job, but I’m still having issues with some of the copies that it has made.

 

If anyone has recommendations for a truly 100% effective piece of software that can do straight-to-iso backups, I’d love to know about it.  Having some DVDs work with the WD TV Live but not XBMC or PS3 Media Server is really annoying.

DVD Decrypter may work.

richUK wrote:> DVD Decrypter may work.

 

Thanks for that - I’m giving it a shot now on the troublesome titles.  We’ll see how it does.

I use DVD43 and DVD Shrink with windows xp and all the iso files I create play just fine on VLC and WD TV Live. With DVD Shrink, I do not compress at all, so the setting I use for all DVDs is DVD-9. I have tried a large variety of different software and this seems to be the only reliable solution.

richUK wrote:

 DVD Decrypter may work.

 

Unlikely since most current DVDs have new copy protection schemes DVDD can’t handle at all. Better try DVDfab Decrypter.

Techflaws wrote:

 


richUK wrote:

 DVD Decrypter may work.

 


Unlikely since most current DVDs have new copy protection schemes DVDD can’t handle at all. Better try DVDfab Decrypter.

 

Never had any problems (yet) :wink:

richUK wrote:

 


Techflaws wrote:

 


richUK wrote:

 DVD Decrypter may work.

 


Unlikely since most current DVDs have new copy protection schemes DVDD can’t handle at all. Better try DVDfab Decrypter.

 


Never had any problems (yet) :wink:

 

I’d have to agree with Techflaws; DVD Decrypter, whist awesome in its day, hasn’t been updated for years and more recently seems to choke on a lot of discs.

DVDFab HD Decrypter (also free) is updated to bypass new copy protection as it appears.  Anything DVD Decrypter can’t handle, DVDFab HD Decrypter handles no problem.  I have both on my system but you really only need DVDFab’s version.

Then I usually run the output folder through DVD Shrink to make an ISO.  Don’t think I’ve got any ISOs that fail to play… but I don’t have many ISO files to begin with (MKV all the way).  :slight_smile:

When I first started using ISO back with a Gen1, the only issue I had was with .ISO files of things like TV episodes or childrens cartoons where the resulting .ISO was less than around 1GB or less than 30 minutes. They’ve since fixed this bug in the Gen2 which I now have so it isn’t a problem for me anymore. I have not confirmed that it has been fixed or was ever even an issue with the Live but I think it would be worth looking at just in case this is a problem. Also, if anyone has confirmed that it isn’t a problem with the Live, posting that would be great. Just rip a trailor or something from a DVD and store it as an .ISO and try it.

While not officially stated the Live has fixed this issue, ISOs and VOBs can be as short as one minute and still be played back. Of course only the largest title is played back from episodic discs.