I am a newbie. I would be grateful for any advice on how to copy the video recordings from my scratched DVD. This is my only copy of the videos as I have lost the original Hi8 tapes.
My questions are:
1) Are there any reliable freeware programs which can copy the video recordings to the hard disk on my notebook computer? (If necessary, I am prepare to lose a few picture frames in order to preserve the integrity of the overall video recordings.)
2) Any other suggestion on how to recover the video recordings will be much appreciated.
I am able to watch the video recordings on the scratched DVD with our Philips DVD player connected to the TV. But I am unable to copy an ISO image of the DVD using Imgburn on my notebook computer (Windows Vista). The image copying stopped at 32% after 20 attempts and threw up an error message.
I have attempted to play the DVD on my Notebook computer using VideoLAN's VLC media player and then copy the videos to the hard-disk. But the play-back stopped after about 20 minutes and the program reverted to the standby condition.
I have also tried using another laptop with a different CD disk drive to replicate the DVD without much success.
I have washed the DVD with soap and water without much joy. At this stage, I am reluctant to use the "tooth paste as polish method" as I understand that this method could irreversibly damage the disk.
I have also searched the Afterdawn forum for inspiration. It would appear that most of the relevant discussions are several years old and mainly on software programs which have since been discontinued.
My last resort would be to capture the composite signal output from the Philip DVD player and then reconvert the analogue recordings to a digital format. Apart from the inevitable signal degradation, it would be tedious work as well since I have over 6.5 hours of video recordings on the scratched DVD.
In the past I've tried metal polish Brasso as well as a "scratch and haze remover"
originally intended for the clear coat of a car. It's hit or miss, the depth of the
scratch being one factor. The worst scratches seem to be circular or in the same
direction as the path of the track. I've used office depot screen cleaner spray and dried it on a nice soft bath towel - seems to be the safest.
I assume it is a regular formatted DVD with a video_ts folder.
You could use Nero's CD/DVD speed program on the scandisk tab.
It will identify which partitcular VOB file is the problem - then you can use
windows explorer to copy everything else - this would be a safeguard against any
further loss.
I gave DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 a twirl, first ripping in the File Mode and then in ISO Mode, both without much joy. Ripping did not get past 36% in either case.
Then I gave Ripit4me a go. Ripping reached 71% before getting stuck. I left the program running overnight (over 10 hours), but there were no further progress. I had to stop the program in case it burned out my CD reader.
The Ripit4me approach shows considerable promise. It replaces bad sectors with dummy data and moves on to prevent freezing the program, although in this case it got stuck in a series of bad sectors (from 71% onwards), giving each sector the mandatory 20 tries before moving onto the next sector.
I wonder if Ripit4me can be made to go through the whole disk once quickly, replacing all "bad" sectors with dummies, then stop to allow me to review the ripped result? If the overall result is unacceptable, how do I set the program to re-read the bad sectors ONLY, giving each 3-5 tries? When additional data is retrieved, would Ripit4me replace the respective dummies with the new data in the ripped file? Through this interactive process, I might be able to salvage sufficient content from my scratched DVD without requiring a 100% replication.
i have ripped many dvd's that will no longer play on my dvd player due to dammage.... i found first clean very well then use decrypter then if that dont work my last option has been dvdfab
After many frustrating hours trying this way and that, to rip the scratched DVD with various soft-wares, I finally gave up. Ripping appears to be too unforgiving of errors to be useful in my case.
I then tried to record the content while playing the video clips with VLC. After many attempts over the past few days, I finally managed to recover over 95% of the content from my scratched disk. I can confirm your advice that repeated washing (with soap and water)of my scratched DVD somehow improve the data recovery.
Thank you again Davexnet, blue1122 and semajjame for your help!
