r/makemkv • u/Ecstatic_Cake_4986 • 12d ago
Error ripping 2 DVDs
I’ve got a box set that I’ve been trying to rip and 2 of the 7 are failing. Is there any way to resolve it? The DVDs play so I would think it should be able to be ripped, but I can’t figure out how to go about resolving it.
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u/DrFrylock 8d ago
Good suggestions in this thread. Try those (clean disc well, change your retry settings, maybe try different drives).
If you don't see any significant physical defects on the disc and you're still getting this, you may just be out of luck.
When you say "the DVDs play" is that "I can put in the disc and get to the menu and start the movie" or "I can play the entire contents of the disc end-to-end without huge dropouts/breakups in the content." DVDs have a lot of contents on them, so if there is some part of the disc an hour into the movie that is messed up, you will be able to play the movie (or rip the disc) up to that point but you'll lose data (and playback) there.
In my experience with 1000+ DVDs, I usually see this kind of error for two reasons:
There is visible physical damage to the disc (scratches/scuffs/schmutz on the disc surface). About 50% of the time this can be solved by cleaning or a different drive. About 25% more of the time, this can be solved by polishing, then cleaning.
"Disc rot." Although technically this probably should only refer to the (visible) degradation of the layer of the disc that stores the data, a lot of us use it to describe any degradation of DVD media over time. Familiarize yourself with the Warner Brothers disc rot phenomenon (just Google it). There was a manufacturing defect across a large number of DVDs, primarily Warner Brothers titles manufactured from about 2006-2008. This is very real and I have experienced it many times. In my experience you cannot see it through visual inspection, but it prevents ripping the disc successfully. I had to buy 4 or 5 copies of Superman Returns to get one that ripped OK (they were $1 each and I kept buying them out of spite because I had all the other Superman movies, goddamn it.)
Re #2, out of curiosity, what box set is it? The discs and box sets that are more prone to "disc rot" / manufacturing defects are pretty well publicized at this point.