Hacking Movie DVDs?

[teq]

And hm, about homebrew not being able to use the DVD drive... how does the save extractor or the disc dumper work?

Well, the disc dumper doesn't work. Nitrotux clearly proved he was out of his league.

But to answer your question, it's because both of those tools rely on original discs. DVD-Rs are rejected by the drive.

 

[jakelee]

I have both Wii and PS3. PS3 supports DLNA (http://www.dlna.org/about_us/about/) and I use it to play Divx/Xvid movies off my Twonky Media Server (http://www.twonkyvision.de/) on my QNAP NAS (www.qnap.com, 14W for energy saving). You would not really tell much difference if you are playing DVD movies or Xvid movies (you will need 1080p HDTV to see the difference). For HD content, mkv is not supported for playback by DLNA players like PS3. The workaround is to convert mkv to vob (using mkv2vob) - I tested, and it seemed okay and working.

I hope Wii will soon be able to support DLNA.

 

[drfsupercenter]

I thought the point of a modchip was to make the drive accept DVD-R? (I use DVD+R bitset to DVD-ROM btw)

And what is this about the disc dumper not working? I made the three .bin files of Sonic, but never got around to merging them. You're saying if I burn it, it won't play?

 

[teq]

I thought the point of a modchip was to make the drive accept DVD-R? (I use DVD+R bitset to DVD-ROM btw)

And what is this about the disc dumper not working? I made the three .bin files of Sonic, but never got around to merging them. You're saying if I burn it, it won't play?

With a drivechip, sure, the drive will read DVD-R. These tools don't necessarily need a drivechip to function, as you would usually be using retail games.


The code on the disc dumper has been analyzed by me and a few others, and someone tested the output files. The result was that the tool makes incomplete ISOs.

 

[deathfisaro]

So first Wii without DVD playback comes out for a low price, and now Wii production cost have decreased they can stick in DVD playback without raising their price.

But don't everybody in Japan already have some sort of a DVD-playing console, or a standalone DVD player?

Also, normal DVD drive's laser life is 25000 running hours+. Yeah, unless you watch a DOZEN THOUSAND movies, the laser will survive. PS2's problem was a gear, not the laser itself.

 

[teq]

So first Wii without DVD playback comes out for a low price, and now Wii production cost have decreased they can stick in DVD playback without raising their price.

But don't everybody in Japan already have some sort of a DVD-playing console, or a standalone DVD player?

Also, normal DVD drive's laser life is 25000 running hours+. Yeah, unless you watch a DOZEN THOUSAND movies, the laser will survive. PS2's problem was a gear, not the laser itself.

I believe it's due to the fact that most Asian countries practice minimalism.

If you were to look at their entertainment centers, you wouldn't find half of the components you'd see on an American shelf.

Also, their adoption of DVD has gone on longer than the rest of the world has even had access to DVDs. They have additional formats for storing high definition content on standard DVDs and DVD players that read them. BluRay penetration in Japan is currently less than in the United States.


Oh, and thanks for reaffirming the laser myth.

 

[deathfisaro]

They have additional formats for storing high definition content on standard DVDs and DVD players that read them. BluRay penetration in Japan is currently less than in the United States.

Oh, and thanks for reaffirming the laser myth.

I recently saw a technology called v-pit grooving that was researched in Japan. By making data pits cone-shaped (V shaped from the side, thus called v-pit) you can store 10 times the data in the same space. So one DVD can get a whopping ~40GB stored in it.

The problem is, that technology requires a specific reader add-on or a new drive. I personally wasn't too excited about that news because quad-layer Blu-ray discs (100GB) can be read on current production BD players (including the PS3) without any add-ons - a firmware update in the worst case. But nobody really found the need for such size storage yet, or its cost outdo the merit.

If I'm gonna put an add-on or a new drive anyway, I'd rather go with hexa-layer BD (200GB as in 6 layers of 33GB) at this point. That's 8 times the size of single layered BD. And I think it offers more bang for the buck compared to V-pit DVDs having 9 times the size of single layered DVDs.
175GB size increase vs 35GB size increase? Somebody really didn't want to pay license to Sony, or had DVD fetish chose 35 over 175.

And by the laser myth do you mean people saying laser will burn out?
I think that comes from PS2's gear wearing and slightly dismantling the laser arm that causes disc read errors. Sony totally got rid of that gear, so this time you might be able to actually see PS3's laser burning out. If a PS3's been reading BD 24/7 since its launch, you can expect to see its laser out burning out sometime in 2010. Assuming the laser has "average" life-time.

 

[Lumstar]

While an unmodified Wii is (unofficially) capable of reading most DVD-R discs, Nintendo's copy protection code heavily restricts it.

Unofficially because they don't authorize using DVD-R on the current Wii model.

But everyone already knows this.

 

[teq]

I recently saw a technology called v-pit grooving that was researched in Japan. By making data pits cone-shaped (V shaped from the side, thus called v-pit) you can store 10 times the data in the same space. So one DVD can get a whopping ~40GB stored in it.

The problem is, that technology requires a specific reader add-on or a new drive. I personally wasn't too excited about that news because quad-layer Blu-ray discs (100GB) can be read on current production BD players (including the PS3) without any add-ons - a firmware update in the worst case. But nobody really found the need for such size storage yet, or its cost outdo the merit.

If I'm gonna put an add-on or a new drive anyway, I'd rather go with hexa-layer BD (200GB as in 6 layers of 33GB) at this point. That's 8 times the size of single layered BD. And I think it offers more bang for the buck compared to V-pit DVDs having 9 times the size of single layered DVDs.
175GB size increase vs 35GB size increase? Somebody really didn't want to pay license to Sony, or had DVD fetish chose 35 over 175.

And by the laser myth do you mean people saying laser will burn out?
I think that comes from PS2's gear wearing and slightly dismantling the laser arm that causes disc read errors. Sony totally got rid of that gear, so this time you might be able to actually see PS3's laser burning out. If a PS3's been reading BD 24/7 since its launch, you can expect to see its laser out burning out sometime in 2010. Assuming the laser has "average" life-time.

The way of the future is holographic storage. By making minor adjustments to the angle of reflection, you can store amounts of data that are virtually infinite. I know of one company that sells the writer for $25,000 and the cartridges are supposed to last twice as long as a DVD-R.

Vpit closely resembles holographic recording, but doesn't offer nearly the same amount of space.

What they've actually implemented now are VC-1 encoded standard DVD-Rs that are playable in a lot of Windows Media compatible DVD players. This enables them to fit an HD movie on a standard DVD.


As far as he PS2's laser is concerned, the problem was a mechanical issue. Sometimes the lasers lose calibration, because the units are physically moved, and other times, it's just a case of a voltage drop. There's a POT on most DVDROM drives that can actually increase the voltage of the laser, which increases the output. A lot of PS2s were able to be fixed just by adjusting the voltage.

 

[Lumstar]

MPEG is horribly outdated. The home video market will never achieve solid visual quality until something better gets support.

 

[Trolly]

Yeah, I've been suffering from DREs on my PS2 for yonks. Luckily it's only CD-based media and weirdly DVD movies (but not games :\). I can only assume the PS2 somehow finds DVD movies more difficult to read than PS2 games (seeing as my PS2 finds PS2 games difficult enough to read).
Anyway, I'll stop moaning.

And I agree with Teq on the matter that optical disc-based storage is becoming outdated. It's simply far more expensive than flash memory or hard disk space in the end. Though if disc-based storage is ever to die out, everyone will have to become much better acquainted with their computers. Digital distribution is still too much for some people to take don't forget. Adm yeah, I remember reading various Wikipedia entries on storage technologies that are being researched. One was a cube-shaped medium if I remember correctly, and it stored 100s of TBs of data (theoretically). Interesting certainly.

 

[teq]

MPEG is horribly outdated. The home video market will never achieve solid visual quality until something better gets support.

BluRay used MPEG2 for a short while, but it's moved to VC-1 and H.264 since 2006.

Granted, H.264 is still MPEG4, but it offers outstanding picture quality in a very managable container.

 

[drfsupercenter]

Um... But weren't there many people who used the Wii disc dumper and said it worked great? What exactly do you mean by an "incomplete ISO"?

How do the people who make the torrents do it? I put a Wii disc in my DVD-ROM drive and it wasn't able to read it (though it could read the ones I burned - only using Nero 1:1 copy... ImgBurn and other programs said it wasn't formatted completely)

 

[teq]

Um... But weren't there many people who used the Wii disc dumper and said it worked great? What exactly do you mean by an "incomplete ISO"?

How do the people who make the torrents do it? I put a Wii disc in my DVD-ROM drive and it wasn't able to read it (though it could read the ones I burned - only using Nero 1:1 copy... ImgBurn and other programs said it wasn't formatted completely)

The people who said it worked were full of it. Nitrotux can't support the software, so he can't fix what's wrong with it.


Wii games are normally ripped using specific versions of LG drives that have their I/O Debug Mode enabled. This forces the drive to read the DVD without trying to mount a filesystem.

I've proven before that all DVDROM drives can be forced to read the disc, it's just a matter of being able to pull the data from it. Get DVD Decrypter and press F8. This will enable I/O Debug Mode through software. Put a Wii disc in and you'll see it read the sectors.

 

[drfsupercenter]

DVD Decrypter (and ImgBurn for that matter) always complain about the filesystem being invalid.

Nero was able to read my burned .ISOs, but only to create an image... It wasn't able to read any of the data, and Windows said "Please insert a disc into drive D:"

So you're telling me that my Samsung DVD-ROM drive can read Wii discs if I use DVD Decrypter and press F8? And it'll work after being burned?

 

[Lumstar]

Not without a drivechip, I believe. Wii mode normally prevents the usual DVD file systems from being read.

 

[drfsupercenter]

Is there a difference between a modchip and a drivechip?

I have a WiiKey... will that work?

 

[jan777]

drive chip is another term for modchip

 

[Lumstar]

A modchip is needed because Nintendo's intention was to block unauthorized copies of GC and Wii games.

Their method has the side effect of preventing nearly all discs with non-Wii filesystems from being read in Wii mode, burned or not.

I also believe they've updated the protection to cover things like Action Replay too.

 

[teq]

So you're telling me that my Samsung DVD-ROM drive can read Wii discs if I use DVD Decrypter and press F8? And it'll work after being burned?

No, but it'll prove that the disc can be read by any drive.

Is there a difference between a modchip and a drivechip?
QUOTE

drive chip is another term for modchip

Drivechips and modchips are entirely different things.

Drivechips only circumvent the drive, while modchips are attached to the mainboard and have a lot more functionality.

An example of a modchip would be the Infectus.