DVD to VHS copy

[Fellwanderer]

I recently received a dvd-r [not from a member] that will play on my dvd recorder and record on to its HD but proves impossible to then copy onto dvd-r from either the dvd recorder HD or via my pc. Won't play on the pc either.



I thought I'd see if it would copy from the recorder HD to vhs and half of it copied just fine but then it seemed to lose the channel and copied from the TV rather than the recording - which was still playing!



I've tried several times since and each time I now get simply the recording from TV rather than actual dvd recording.



I did have the channels set to A1 on both dvd recorder and video recorder.



Not had problems before.



Any ideas?

[GoggleboxUK]

Have you tried using DVDShrink to copy the DVD on your PC?



Do you have burning software? Do you have twin drives?

[Fellwanderer]

name='GoggleboxUK']Have you tried using DVDShrink to copy the DVD on your PC?

Yes - using the pc internal drive it comes up with "Invalid DVD navigation structure", using the external drive it fails to recognise there is a disc present.

Do you have burning software? Do you have twin drives?

Yes - Nero and TMGEnc DVD Author 3. Neither will recognise the originals and if I do copy off the recorder HD onto dvd-rw or dvd-ram, TMG aborts with an error about halfway through reading.



The originals are by no means perfect as the person who sent me them seemed to have considerable trouble copying from vhs and they stick in several places. I was hoping to edit those out if I succeeded in getting a copy on dvd or vhs.

[Harbottle]

Can you grab the vob files and just copy those to your HD without using software, then rename them as mpeg and re-author in Tmpgenc?



Another prog worth trying to copy the DVD is DVDFab which usually succeeds where others fail. I think there is a free version.

[Fellwanderer]

name='Harbottle']Can you grab the vob files and just copy those to your HD without using software, then rename them as mpeg and re-author in Tmpgenc?

Giving that a try now from the dvd-rw that TMPG fails when used normally.



Oh dear - invalid MS-DOS function!

Another prog worth trying to copy the DVD is DVDFab which usually succeeds where others fail. I think there is a free version.

I'll try that next!

[Fellwanderer]

Tried DVDFab and that failed as well.



Seems odd that the dvd-ram copy that I made will play on the pc with PowerDVD but everything I try to copy it with brings an error of one type or another.



With a bit of lateral thinking, I've come up with something else to try and will give it a go - have to wait until tomorrow as it may prove a rather lengthy process!

[CaptainWaggett]

Dvd Decrypter has sometimes succeeded for me where other things have failed

[Harbottle]

name='CaptainWaggett']Dvd Decrypter has sometimes succeeded for me where other things have failed

Ah that's an excellent suggestion CW I was trying to remember what I used when faced with this poser, and I have a feeling this does indeed do the trick.

[CaptainWaggett]

name='Harbottle']Ah that's an excellent suggestion CW I was trying to remember what I used when faced with this poser, and I have a feeling this does indeed do the trick.

I believe it was SirOlly introduced me to its magic

[GoggleboxUK]

The only other suggestion I have is to copy the files across to your pC and convert them to MPEG2 using a program like MainConcept H.264 encoder before reauthoring in Nero or TMPEG.



As Capt W says, DVD Decrypter is extremely good but the best ripper I have ever come across is Magic DVD Ripper. Does an amazing job and can be downloaded for a free thirty day trial from their site.

[woodsy]

This is a good piece of software.



FixVTS - Download



Have used this before when I've had problems (sticking frames, invalid disc structure prompts etc). Only works for PC though, not Mac.

[Fellwanderer]

Thanks for all the suggestions - tried DVD Decrypter and Magic DVD Ripper without success and have only just seen the recommendation of FixVTS.



However, my lateral thinking appears to have worked!



I copied the first 2/3 of the programme onto dvd and successfully transferred it into TMPG. I then managed to copy the second 1/3 and transfer successfully so was able to edit them together.



Not perfect yet as it does have a few sticky moments to get rid of but at least now I have a dvd-r copy that I can play around with on the pc until I've got it as good as I can.



That's one down and one to go!



Thanks again for all the useful help

[autolycus]

Interesting. I don't know if it's related, butI have a similar problem when transferring a film from the HD of my DVD recorder to PC via a dvd rw.



If the film is about 2 hrs or more - i.e. it pretty much fills the dvd rw, then it will not be read by my PC DVD reader. I tend to get a cyclic redundancy error.



However, if i split the film in half (one time when i'm glad of adverts!) on my recorder HD, my PC will quite happily read the two smaller recordings individually and i can stitch them together on the pc when i reencode them.



It seems as if the reader struggles to read the dvd rw as it gets nearer the edge of the disk.

[Fellwanderer]

name='autolycus']Interesting. I don't know if it's related, butI have a similar problem when transferring a film from the HD of my DVD recorder to PC via a dvd rw.



If the film is about 2 hrs or more - i.e. it pretty much fills the dvd rw, then it will not be read by my PC DVD reader. I tend to get a cyclic redundancy error.



However, if i split the film in half (one time when i'm glad of adverts!) on my recorder HD, my PC will quite happily read the two smaller recordings individually and i can stitch them together on the pc when i reencode them.



It seems as if the reader struggles to read the dvd rw as it gets nearer the edge of the disk.

autolycus - I'm pretty sure I've found the same thing happen as well with a previous dvd recorder and films pushing a dvd to its space limit.



Solved the dvd-vhs problem: both had been set to AV1 and had worked for most of a recording before it lost the dvd and switched to recording the TV channel. Having tried everything else, I switched both to AV2 and it worked.



Finally got the unresponsive dvd transferred to vhs, back to dvd recorder, onto dvd-ram and then in TMPG to dvd-r.



Thanks to all the suggestions of various software which I tried but this disc wouldn't play. I'm pretty sure it was down to the person who did the original transfer but at least I got it sorted in the end

[ATKI 73]

Can someone enlighten me please on the following, i downloaded a trial version of Magic dvd copier yesterday following various threads on dvd to vhs on this page,the reason for doing this was that recently a couple of dvd's would not play on my Sony recorder, Googlebox suggested that i try cleaning the machine so my son took it away and got someone to do this for me ( give me a Gardner engine to work on and i'm fine, but electronics are past me, probably an age thing) i copied Highway to Battle which would not play on my recorder but played on my computer the copy i made will not play on my recorder or computer why do you think this is?

[johng]

name='Fellwanderer']Thanks for all the suggestions - tried DVD Decrypter and Magic DVD Ripper without success and have only just seen the recommendation of FixVTS.



However, my lateral thinking appears to have worked!



I copied the first 2/3 of the programme onto dvd and successfully transferred it into TMPG. I then managed to copy the second 1/3 and transfer successfully so was able to edit them together.



Not perfect yet as it does have a few sticky moments to get rid of but at least now I have a dvd-r copy that I can play around with on the pc until I've got it as good as I can.



That's one down and one to go!



Thanks again for all the useful help

bear in mind that whilst the disc may have enough space on it to record all the data there still has to be something left for the lead out ot the disc will not play.

[Fellwanderer]

name='johng']bear in mind that whilst the disc may have enough space on it to record all the data there still has to be something left for the lead out ot the disc will not play.

Good point but in this case it seems to have been purely down to faults on the original copy as the programme was less than 50 minutes.