A series I bought says Zone 4 but not all play

[bubbascant]

I purchased a TV series that has three seasons, with each season having 8 discs. I started burning disc 1 but it wouldn't burn. Then when putting back in again, MakeMKV just goes white, so to speak, meaning it just doesn't see anything. A couple of the discs burned most of the episodes but not all. My player is an Asus BW-16D1HT. I flashed the unit many months ago so that it shows:

Libre Drive information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform MT1959
Firmware type: (microcode access re-enabled)
Firmware version: 3.10
DVD all regions: Yes
BD Raw all regions: Yes
BD Raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

Shouldn't MakeMKV play these zone 4 discs with the flash done and information above? I followed all the guidance when I flashed the drive, making sure my drive would accept it and so forth. All the other series or movies I've done have burned fine. I also returned the first set thinking they were bad but the replacement was actually a bit worse in not playing some of the discs, or even seeing them. I tried putting in regular Blu Ray player and, while it would come up with the Menu and show episodes, none would play or respond.

I also closed MakeMKV and then put a disc in and let windows see it first so that it shows up in Explorer. I then opened MMKV. I saw it load four episodes in the window in MMKV. But as it was doing so, it threw a bunch of these lines: Error 'Scsi error - ILLEGAL REQUEST:INVALID FIELD IN CDB' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_04_1.VOB' at offset '0'. When I went back to Explorer, the AUDIO and VIDEO folders that showed up when putting the disc in originally, had disappeared. So I then closed MMKV. I put the disc back in my Asus and it came up in Explorer as before, showing the Audio and Video folders. I then opened VLC and said "open disc". It brought up the menu and I was able to browse to the first episode and start playing it. (Some attempts at playing in VLC failed, but I believe that was because I hadn't closed MMKV first?).

If I was able to burn disc 2 from season 1, for example, shouldn't I be able to burn the others? Unfortunately both sets I got from Amazon (the original and the replacement) had the same problem where it just wouldn't open/play/burn some of the discs.

Is there something I can/should do with MakeMKV to get these discs to burn even though they're Zone 4? Perhaps I'm missing something. I did also check to make sure my MakeMKV is updated. I have the paid-for software, not doing the beta license or whatever. By the way, the Amazon seller says the series should work in US DVDs for what it's worth.

Thanks.

[dcoke22]

These must be DVDs if they're region code 4. The region code system used on blu-rays is simpler and there are only 3 regions.

I would expect your LibreDrive enabled optical drive to be able to go around the region coding on the disc. (And indeed it can since at least some of the discs could be ripped.)

Sometimes it seems DVDs work better if a decrypted backup is made first, then .mkv files are made from that backup. To try that, on the very first screen of MakeMKV, click the icon of the green arrow going into the yellow folder. This will start you down the backup path, which for a DVD will produce a .iso file. If that works, you can open that .iso file in MakeMKV and create .mkv files from it.

[bubbascant]

Thank you for your reply.

The challenge for me unfortunately is that I can't click the green arrow as several DVDs won't get picked up by MMKV - meaning the program won't bring them in for me to select an episode to try and make as an .iso file.

I was able to get a few episodes from a couple of the discs to burn in Handbrake. I did use VLC to record an episode that I was able to play but there are about 36 episodes on each of the three seasons which take a lot of time.

I have gotten all of season one burned and 8 from season two using MMKV (and 3 with Handbrake). I did try a couple discs from Season three using MMKV but was not successful there - with either of the series (same exact set, just the original I ordered and a replacement).

I'm at a loss as to what to do.

Again, the seller says it should work in US players and is a region 0 DVD which means it should play universally. And I have two sets purchased from them on Amazon. I can't believe both would be so fickle. The series costs over $100 so I'm hopeful I can find a working solution or I'll have to send back. And the series is hard to find so my options are limited.

I'd sure appreciate any more information to help me resolve this. Thanks!