Backing Up Dragon Ball DVDs and Blu-rays 2.0

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I wish that VOB files weren't so all over the place. I feel like when I'd try to copy and paste them off the Japanese Dragon Box, they'd be split into like 3/4 of an episode each. So then I'd have to use a program to combine them, then split them. It's ridiculous.

I love the MKV rips because they even retained their chapter markers, audio track options, and subtitle options. Why can't this be simpler? Lol

Yeah, i like using MKV especially with my FUNi Dragon Boxes because i've tried the VOB thing you mention there before for some other DVDs and it's just too much of a hassle.

[TheGreatness25]

I just want to make 100% sure that MakeMKV extracts it 100% the same as on the DVD. I never want to put the DVD into any player again and I love doing comparison shots (I have every NA release amd the Dragon Boxes so why not?) but if the colors are even a little off, I can't make those authentic comparison shots without using the discs.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I just want to make 100% sure that MakeMKV extracts it 100% the same as on the DVD. I never want to put the DVD into any player again and I love doing comparison shots (I have every NA release amd the Dragon Boxes so why not?) but if the colors are even a little off, I can't make those authentic comparison shots without using the discs.

As far i have seen most of my rips including the Dragon Boxes have come around to 1:1 with the DVDs themselves, even if not completely identical although i have compared between them and watching the actual discs and there didn't seem to be much if any of a noticeable difference that i could see.

[ect5150]

...feel free to post some pics to detail your point.

So, I'm using the Orange Brick set here, Season 01 Disc 5 for this example.

Make certain DVDDecrypter is set to IFO mode (as seen here)



Notice PGC1 (Program Chain 1, I believe) is 2 hours and 49 minutes and 24 seconds. PGC2 is less (02:18:14). PGC1 is the series of full episodes on the disc... PGC2 appears to be the Marathon Mode found on some of these discs.

You'll also notice the Chapters below. This is where you select your episodes. You'll have to gauge which episode equals which chapters for yourself depending on the disc. For example, the disc I'm using has 54 chapters (episodes 29-35). Each episode is about 5 or 6 chapters (there are extra chapters in the list that represent other things though, not just audio & video).

I recommend you unselect all (right click on them, there is an option for it). Then only select a single chapter and rip it. You'll get a chunk of an episode. Change it up a few times just to get feel for it.

When you are ready for the full episode, you'll need to select ONLY the exact chapters. If you hover the mouse over each chapter, it does report a playtime. Also, notice at the bottom of the window is a total playtime of everything you've selected.



Small warning, the "Cell" box you see on the right can be an issue. Each chapter usually has a single cell, but a chapter can contain multiple cells. Again, you can mouse over each and deselect what is needed. You will find many chapters and many cells that are too small to be part of the episode (for example, the time stamp will often be less than a second, compared to a normal chapter being 4 minutes or so... the difference should really stand out once you see them).

I highly recommend deselecting the "junk" chapters and cells when ripping. It's filled with info that is not relevant to any episode (sometimes it might be the single image that is displayed after all video has played and just gives a few credits of the disc authoring... get rid of it.) I do want to say that the DragonBall FUNI discs (the blue sets) have issues where you really need to deselect cells within the chapters to generate a proper rip (at the start of every episode for some reason).

After selecting the specific chapters on the previously mentioned disc, I was able to rip a particular episode from start to finish (Cha-La to Zenkai Power) in a single VOB file.



Other programs can take the audio and video streams and put them into an MKV or something like that. Also, that "Stream Information.txt" file will give you the time offsets for the audio files and subtitle files if you need it.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

...feel free to post some pics to detail your point.

Spoiler:

So, I'm using the Orange Brick set here, Season 01 Disc 5 for this example.

Make certain DVDDecrypter is set to IFO mode (as seen here)



Notice PGC1 (Program Chain 1, I believe) is 2 hours and 49 minutes and 24 seconds. PGC2 is less (02:18:14). PGC1 is the series of full episodes on the disc... PGC2 appears to be the Marathon Mode found on some of these discs.

You'll also notice the Chapters below. This is where you select your episodes. You'll have to gauge which episode equals which chapters for yourself depending on the disc. For example, the disc I'm using has 54 chapters (episodes 29-35). Each episode is about 5 or 6 chapters (there are extra chapters in the list that represent other things though, not just audio & video).

I recommend you unselect all (right click on them, there is an option for it). Then only select a single chapter and rip it. You'll get a chunk of an episode. Change it up a few times just to get feel for it.

When you are ready for the full episode, you'll need to select ONLY the exact chapters. If you hover the mouse over each chapter, it does report a playtime. Also, notice at the bottom of the window is a total playtime of everything you've selected.



Small warning, the "Cell" box you see on the right can be an issue. Each chapter usually has a single cell, but a chapter can contain multiple cells. Again, you can mouse over each and deselect what is needed. You will find many chapters and many cells that are too small to be part of the episode (for example, the time stamp will often be less than a second, compared to a normal chapter being 4 minutes or so... the difference should really stand out once you see them).

I highly recommend deselecting the "junk" chapters and cells when ripping. It's filled with info that is not relevant to any episode (sometimes it might be the single image that is displayed after all video has played and just gives a few credits of the disc authoring... get rid of it.) I do want to say that the DragonBall FUNI discs (the blue sets) have issues where you really need to deselect cells within the chapters to generate a proper rip (at the start of every episode for some reason).

After selecting the specific chapters on the previously mentioned disc, I was able to rip a particular episode from start to finish (Cha-La to Zenkai Power) in a single VOB file.



Other programs can take the audio and video streams and put them into an MKV or something like that. Also, that "Stream Information.txt" file will give you the time offsets for the audio files and subtitle files if you need it.

Very interesting info there, that's definitely good to have for that particular program though i don't personally use it.

[ect5150]

Very interesting info there, that's definitely good to have for that particular program though i don't personally use it.

Just to be clear, most of that info applies to the DVD format... not strictly to DVDDecrypter. Other programs that allow you to access the VOB files properly can probably access the PGC's and chapters as well.

[TheGreatness25]

So... I decided to just copy and paste the entire contents of the "Captain Ginyu - Assault" DVD and in MPC, there's an "Open Directory" option. So when I select the folder in which I pasted the DVD contents, it kind of replicates the entire DVD experience from the main menu to the language tracks, etc. I even tried to run it through SubRip and it detects the subtitles as if it were the DVD.

So I'm pretty happy with that because it's about as 1:1 as it's ever going to get. MakeMKV is excellent, but my super over-the-top OCD would get in the way and keep screaming at me, "The colors aren't completely accurate!" But it seems like a great tool to rip the video to play around with it (to make edits, etc.). It's so, so close to being perfect.

[Scavenger]

The "difference" in color with the MakeMKV rip in MPC-HC is probably there because MakeMKV doesn't store the color primaries, transfer characteristics and matrix coefficients in the header. You could add those via the MKVToolNix header editor. With a DVD, you need to fill in the number 6 in all three fields.

[TheGreatness25]

The "difference" in color with the MakeMKV rip in MPC-HC is probably there because MakeMKV doesn't store the color primaries, transfer characteristics and matrix coefficients in the header. You could add those via the MKVToolNix header editor. With a DVD, you need to fill in the number 6 in all three fields.

I'm sorry, I'm totally showing my ignorance here. Could you detail it a little more?

[Scsigs]

Are there rips floating around of the Japanese BRs? Not asking where, just if there are. I've seen ones for the Amazon streaming versions of the movies.

[Scavenger]

The "difference" in color with the MakeMKV rip in MPC-HC is probably there because MakeMKV doesn't store the color primaries, transfer characteristics and matrix coefficients in the header. You could add those via the MKVToolNix header editor. With a DVD, you need to fill in the number 6 in all three fields.

I'm sorry, I'm totally showing my ignorance here. Could you detail it a little more?

It’s possible to add information in the header of a video file that will tell the player how to interpret the colorspace of the file. DVD uses the BT.601 colorspace, whereas Blu-ray uses BT.709 and 4K UHD BT.2020. Even if this data about the colorspace is absent, most players still display the correct colors based on the resolution of the video, but that’s not the case with every player, though I don’t recall having these kinds of issues with MPC-HC + madVR as renderer.

If you have an MKV rip, then it’s just a matter of editing the header in MKVToolNix GUI. Open MKVToolNix GUI, go to the Header Editor, load MKV, select video track 1 and colour information. Go to color primaries, transfer characteristics and matrix coefficients, click add element, type in 6 as value in all three, save. Why 6 as a value? Because BT.601 colorspace of DVD is mapped to that value.

[TheGreatness25]

So, I have a program that allows me to open up DVDs and Blu-rays like storage discs, allowing me to copy and paste all of the files. Once I do, I can drag them into a video player and the DVD is fully replicated from the audio options to subtitles to the title menu. It's pretty awesome.

BUT...

First of all, Blu-rays are a little tricky. They don't really have a main menu that's replicated. The video during the menu plays, but the different options don't come up. That's fine, since I can just go straight into the video.

Then there are the Funimation Dragon Boxes. The only release giving me any sort of issue. When you open up their "VIDEO_TS" files, it's a straight up mess. There are multiple lists of the same thing. To just copy and paste (like every other release) would leave me with 76.6GB of data per disc. I couldn't believe it. I tried Box one and two with the same issues. The disc only holds a little over 7GB, so what is this? Why the hell does it have to happen to the Dragon Boxes? Better yet, how can it happen? It's so bizarre. What's more, you have to figure out which files to copy because some don't play, some mess up the main menu, etc. I got disc one and two to play, couldn't get disc three, tried to recreate what I did with disc one and disc one stopped playing normally. It's a total mess.

Just thought I'd share my frustration lol By the way, every other release works perfectly except this one. It's amazing.

[VegettoEX]

Then there are the Funimation Dragon Boxes. The only release giving me any sort of issue. When you open up their "VIDEO_TS" files, it's a straight up mess. There are multiple lists of the same thing. To just copy and paste (like every other release) would leave me with 76.6GB of data per disc. I couldn't believe it. I tried Box one and two with the same issues. The disc only holds a little over 7GB, so what is this? Why the hell does it have to happen to the Dragon Boxes? Better yet, how can it happen?

Different copy-protection scheme from prior releases.

[TheGreatness25]

Sure. But it's not good protection. It's not like it'll prevent ripping; it'll just make it more annoying to figure out how to make it right. And besides, their releases after don't have issues.

[thejeremymenace]

Then there are the Funimation Dragon Boxes. The only release giving me any sort of issue. When you open up their "VIDEO_TS" files, it's a straight up mess. There are multiple lists of the same thing. To just copy and paste (like every other release) would leave me with 76.6GB of data per disc. I couldn't believe it. I tried Box one and two with the same issues. The disc only holds a little over 7GB, so what is this? Why the hell does it have to happen to the Dragon Boxes? Better yet, how can it happen? It's so bizarre. What's more, you have to figure out which files to copy because some don't play, some mess up the main menu, etc. I got disc one and two to play, couldn't get disc three, tried to recreate what I did with disc one and disc one stopped playing normally. It's a total mess.

Funi's Dbox authoring is really bizarre. I can't explain it but it's almost as if it was purposely obfuscated to discourage ripping them. I know that's not the case, and based on some of Funimation's other discs I can only assume it's a quirk of whatever they used to author the discs.

IIRC it's as though there's only one set of video data, but it's represented multiple times in the program chains. That might be where the size issue is occurring there -- same data, but repeated logically.

I think this issue only happens on the first three or so boxes though.

[TheGreatness25]

Oh, thanks! I figured out how to do them. I used trial and error for the first couple of discs until I noticed the pattern and it seems to be working. At this point, I have Volume 1 down. It just might be Funimation's way of preventing ripping, but it's more of an annoyance than real deterrent.