www.makemkv.com

It doesn't even open, no log, no anything it seems.

I activated the debug log and this is it: The disc plays perfectly. It's weird though. When opening the VIDEO_TS.IFO and playing through the menu I get the correct playtime, 3hr 2mn. But the playtime of all the VOBs combined (01_1 to 01_8) is 2hr 52mn. VOB 01_0 holds the trailer and, at the end, the frames that make up the menu.

As this is a super obscure disc for the west, I'll gladly upload a sample, the disc itself or whatever is needed to debug it. Never had a prob with MakeMKV till now, and I ripped hundreds of discs, lol

003006:0000 Opening files on harddrive at D:/THE_BIRTH_OF_JAPAN/VIDEO_TS

Can you explain why the "Disc" is opened on an "Hard Drive" and not on an "Optical Drive"? Is this a already decrypted copy?

Grauhaar wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:10 am

003006:0000 Opening files on harddrive at D:/THE_BIRTH_OF_JAPAN/VIDEO_TS

Can you explain why the "Disc" is opened on an "Hard Drive" and not on an "Optical Drive"? Is this a already decrypted copy?

Yup, already decrypted copy. It turns out the Windows File Explorer wasn't reporting correctly the durations or something (when selecting all the VOBs and right click and "properties"). I muxed VOB 01_1 with mkvtoolnix (it automatically added up to 01_8) and there I got a proper 3-hour MKV.

Thing was, VOB 01_1 had some extra warnings at the beginning (before the studio logo) that when playing the DVD normally it was shown at the end. Seems that right after VOB 01_8 finished the DVD went back to 01_1 to play those warnings. I had to cut those with the splitting feature of mkvtoolnix, as I was getting those pesky things as they come in the VOB, at the start.

The subtitles were another beast though. Mkvtoolnix doesn't read subtitles from VOBs. I had to extract them with VSRip. BUT the IDX file it produced had all the timings with negative values (like -9 hours) and no program under the sun could open it. Only SubtitleEdit which gives you the option to ignore the IDX and apply a custom palette. The actual timings on the SUB file were correct.

So... I now have a complete MKV. Still, it would be nice to unveil the mystery of why MakeMKV fails. Or not, if it's too much work. I hope I don't come across with another oddball like this.


P.S.: And I got the chapters with ChapterGrabber. They were a bit skewed as I cut those warnings maybe. I shifted them a bit and they more or less fit accurately the MKV.