My husband has a rather battered DVD with a 49-minute video of his
mother's 80th birthday party, recorded and burned by a cousin who
can't provide us with the original files or another copy anymore. 
Both she and my husband want more copies, but one of the .vob files
seems to be partially, sort of, corrupted.
 
There are 3 .vob files in the Video_TS folder, two are about 1GB (20
minutes) each, and the third is about 400MB (9 minutes).  The original
DVD will play all 49 minutes from start to finish in any DVD player,
but when I used our new external Memorex burner (32023288 16x16 Dual
Format) to make an exact copy (using my OEM version of Sonic) it
crashed due to a disc error.  That disc will play the first 40 minutes
of the party in the Memorex burner, but it never closed and won't play
anywhere else.

So I dumped the Sonic and installed the OEM Nero that came with the
burner, gave the disc a good cleaning (but it's still scratched up)
and tried to copy the files to my hard drive.  The first two .vob
files copied, but the third one would not.  I've tried different burn
and copy options in Nero, but it always hangs up on that third .vob
file, and video preview hangs part-way through that last 9 minutes of
the DVD.  I can successfully make a 40-minute video DVD with the first
two files but we really want the last 9 minutes.

Given that we can successfully play the original DVD all the way
through, using Dell Media Experience on my laptop or a regular DVD
player through our TV, how can we capture the video into a new
uncorrupted file (or files)?  My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 710m (WinXP
Home) with internal DVD player, using the new external Memorex for
burning.  Nero's capture feature expects a camcorder to be attached
and I have cruised the software looking for other capture options but
I'm stumped.  I already know how to use Total Recorder to "capture"
audio recordings that are playing on my computer, so I'm thinking
there has to be a similar option for video - I'm confused by all of
the capture software and hardware out there as they appear to be for
live streams and TV.

Many thanks for any help.

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 10 Nov 2006 16:08 PST

janaugcpa...

I couldn't find any way to capture the video from a playing DVD,
but I'm thinking that those scratches are the real problem. You
might want to consider trying a mail-in DVD/CD scratch removal
service, such as Azuradisk, which I personally recommend:
http://www.azuradisc.com/services.cfm

There are other companies on the Google Directory:
://www.google.com/Top/Shopping/Entertainment/Recordings/Disc_Repair/

The cost of scratch removal is minimal, and if the DVD plays but
can't be copied, this suggests that the underlying data is fine,
but the scratches are preventing duplication of the data without
the introduction of corruption.


Let me know if this might serve as an acceptable alternative...

sublime1-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by aht-ga on 10 Nov 2006 17:41 PST

janaugcpa-ga:

In the second attempt you described above, where you mention that you
tried to copy the files to your hard drive, which DVD drive were you
using to read the DVD? Was it the external burner, or the internal DVD
drive?

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher


PS: I second sublime1-ga's recommendation to try to address the cause
of the problem directly, ie. fix the scratches. That said, in the past
I've had success using software other than Nero and Sonic products, to
read an otherwise corrupted file. Sometimes all it takes is using
another drive or a more persistent program. Let us know more details
about the attempts you've already made, then if appropriate I can
point you towards other software (freeware) to try.

---

Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 12 Nov 2006 17:35 PST

Hello janaugcpa,
 
The software I always use to copy my DVDs when they get too scratched is this:

(This is an executable file!)
 
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/SetupDVDDecrypter_3.5.4.0.exe
 
Install that and copy the DVD. You can set up the tolerance on it and
hopefully it will copy the whole DVD.

If it works, let me know and I will post this as the official Answer.
 
--keystroke-ga

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Clarification of Question by janaugcpa-ga on 16 Nov 2006 00:26 PST

Thanks to all three for your input - and we have an answer!  I hope
I'm responding correctly - I am awarding the answer to "aht" - as
suggested, I put the original dvd in the new burner instead of my
laptop's reader, and successfully copied the third .vob fle to my hard
drive. Nero just burned the entire video to a new disk which played
all the way through on our big DVD player.

janaugcpa-ga:

My apologies for not noticing your update of the 16th until now, and
thank you for allowing me the opportunity to summarize the answer!

You read my mind when you correctly interpreted my Request for
Question Clarification. In my experience, DVD drives from different
manufacturers will have different results when reading scratched DVDs,
with typically a newer drive having better results. As the
manufacturers optimize their product designs to squeeze more speed out
of their readers and burners, they are also in effect improving the
ability of the drives to track more precisely even when the disc is
damaged.

Your Memorex 32023288
(http://www.memorex.com/html/products_detail.php?section=&CID=11&SID=15&PID=871&FID=115&opento=11)
contains either an NEC ND-3500A drive, or a Liteon SHOW-1673S drive.
The transition from the NEC to the Liteon occurred sometime in 2005,
so what you actually have depends on when your particular unit was
manufactured. Here's a review telling you more about the drive, if you
are interested:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Memorex-DVD_-RWN16-D2-external-DVD-Burner-Review.html

Many 'purists' will claim that the NEC drive (which was discontinued
by NEC in 2005) is superior to the Liteon; however, it's a safe bet to
say the the Liteon will still be superior to most slimline models used
in laptop computers. So, in your case, I would recommend the following
approach for copying DVDs in the future:

1. For convenience, always start with the original disc in your
Inspiron 710m's DVD drive and the blank target disc in the Memorex, so
that you can just start the copying process and walk away.

2. Depending on what you are copying, I would recommend using a
combination of two software applications:
	a) DVD Shrink, found at http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html
		- this program even lets you 'shrink' content from dual-layer 
                  DVDs onto a single-layer DVD, for backup purposes
	b) either DVD Decrypter (as mentioned by keystroke-ga above) or
           Nero (which you already have installed)
                - please note that DVD Decrypter has been discontinued, the
                  archived version that keystroke-ga linked to above, is the
                  last version ever released; the application was purchased in
                  2005 by Macrovision Europe, and promptly buried.

3. Only if DVD Shrink runs into problems reading the disc using the
710m's internal DVD drive, do you need to use the Memorex to read the
original DVD as well as burn the backup copy.

This approach works especially well to help prevent expensive
accidents with any DVDs handled by children. It's OK to scratch a
backup version, as long as the original is safe and sound...

Best regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

you can get dvdv copying software an these sites:
http://www.dvd-software.biz/
http://www,dvdyodivx.net/

on this website you can download the software for free!!:
http://www.burn4free.com/