Why can't makemkv handle a simple error?

[Woodstock]

You've already been told that MakeMKV is not going to become a "recover what you can" utility.

Different idea - only rip clean, pristine disks that your drive doesn't have problems with.

The versions posted can all read "actual fucking disks", as long as the drive can do it. No one is requiring you to use MakeMKV. No one is requiring you to use work-arounds for defective disks or potentially broken drives.

[armyofquad]

The bottom line here is that this program regularly has problems with clean out of the shrinkwrap disks that standard DVD players can playback and handle with error correction.

The data is completely recoverable in most cases, as standard players will play them and error correct, and convoluted tools that are challenging to install and use correctly will retrieve the data.

MakeMKV is a complete failure as a simple to use and just rip it tool, as it bombs out regularly on these disks that are completely playable by just about anyfuckingthing else!

I don't think it's that unreasonable to request that this tool be fixed to be functional!

[Woodstock]

The bottom line here is that this program regularly has problems with clean out of the shrinkwrap disks that standard DVD players can playback and handle with error correction.

"In shrinkwrap" is one common problem with disks. The chemicals used in the packaging transfers over to the disks, making them cloudy. MOST OFTEN, an older DVD drive, with its wide focus, can see through this, but the tighter focus of a BD-compatible drive will miss bits. Missed bits are error. That's why the first recommendation when you encounter errors is to thoroughly clean the disk.

DVD playback allows for such errors - it will skip over frames until it finds something it can decode. That could be one frame or one thousand. By that standard, "playable" is a pretty damn wide target!

If you're fine with that, you can use a video capture setup to record the playback from one of those "just about anyfuckingthing else" players.

The purpose of MakeMKV is to give you an exact copy. If that is NOT what you want, then there are other tools out there.

[armyofquad]

If the purpose of MakeMKV is to give you an exact copy, and the output is nothing, I'd say that's a pretty damn big failure!

[armyofquad]

Heck, even when it does work, it fails to make an exact copy!

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/324 ... -dont-work

[Woodstock]

So, are you going to continue posting things to justify why you don't want to use MakeMKV?

[armyofquad]

I'm trying to justify taking what has the potential to be a great product, and fixing it.

[Woodstock]

Considering that most around here already think it is a "great product", the way you want to "fix it" moves away from that.

Example: Nearly 100% of my ripping goes through handbrake to reduce its size on my media server. Handbrake does not tolerate defective video streams very well, so "fixing" MakeMKV to generate defective video from damaged disks would not help my work flow at all. I'd still have to figure out how to get a complete rip without errors.

Will your proposed fix help those trying to get Dolby Video, HDR, or Atmos audio to work, all of which are quite intolerant of defective data? A lot of audiophiles complain about a "blip" caused by seamless branching, so losing a whole sector of audio would seem catastrophic to them.

You are expressing displeasure with MakeMKV not magically fixing defective disks for you, because you are tolerant of their defects when played on a stand-alone DVD player, which hides those defect?

There is a way to get what you want, although on Windows it requires you to install the WSL system. The dd program, which has very simple syntax, can copy a DVD to an ISO file, that you can play with a player that will tolerate the defects. I've used it when having to copy video off a burn-on-demand disk that my main machine couldn't read. I have a lot of Linux machines available to me with DVD drives, and I was able to find one that would read the whole disk without puking its guts out, then transfer the ISO to my MakeMKV machine. While it worked, I stopped buying burn-on-demand disks.

[armyofquad]

What you are essentially saying is that it's better for software to decide for me what I want, rather than having a choice what I want. I hate programmers that have that attitude towards software. I'M the end user, I KNOW WHAT I WANT! I WANT AN OPTION TO GET ALL THE DAMN DATA I CAN OFF OF THE CRAPPY DISK WHEN I HAVE NO OTHER OPTION! This program has decided it's smarter than me and that I don't really want that option.

[Woodstock]

You've been given options that can help you do that. You choose not to like the amount of work they involve.

In place of that effort on your part, you want a program that meets the needs of the vast majority of people who are using it to bend to your use case, of making up for hardware problems. And yes, the inability for a drive to read a given disk is a hardware problem.

You now complain that it is programmer attitude that is the problem. "It's just a program, FIX THE FUCKING THING!" is just as bad an attitude as a programmer saying, "This is what the program was intended for, and it does that just fine," when YOU want it to do more.

There is a part of capitalism that says if you can identify a need and FILL that need, you can make money. You claim to have found a need, a program that will allow you to create defective files from defective disks, because that's "good enough". Here is your opportunity to test the waters by writing (or commissioning the writing of) such a program.

The author of MakeMKV's vision was apparently to make correct copies, and that apparently doesn't please your part of the market segment, so Mike won't be a competitor to you.

[armyofquad]

You have a very dismissive attitude towards the entire concept of data recovery...

[Woodstock]

I would say you have a very dismissive attitude toward the idea that data recovery is not easy, and that it isn't needed as often as you seem to think it is.

If you are having a large volume of disks that NEED data recovery, there is an underlying problem that a program won't help with. Did you obtain your collection from a DVD rental company that shut down? If so, I would hope you also got their DVD refurbishing equipment, to fix up "typical rental damage". I know that some of the disks I got from Netflix years ago were very, very bad, including cracks and scratches that looked like the disk had been attacked by a lathe tool.

But, this discussion has been pointless for a couple of days now. I'll let you have the last word, then I'm going to lock it. You have received your answer, rejected it, and unless the program's author has a radical change of heart from previous statements, the answer is not going to change.

[armyofquad]

Fine, lock the thread, ignore the problem, like all ripping software does. We're at a point in time where many people have accumulated many many discs over the years, new discs, used discs, burned discs long forgotten that get dug up years later, with data in varying states of decay. And my cherry on top of the shit sundae, even brand new out of the package discs sometimes have problems. We are at a point in time where optical discs are no longer a go to for video storage, but are still abundant as people migrate their collections from various sources onto their computers and hard drives. Every day countless people grab what discs they have, and grab an easy to use ripping software to get the valuable data off of that disc.

And every day, MakeMKV will leave that person high and dry if it finds one, just one simple error it doesn't like, because MakeMKV is so high and mighty, they will only ever make a perfect copy, and anything less, well, it isn't worth your time.

You could be leaving people with home movie transfers to DVD, with the VHS tapes long lost or rotted, that waited too long to make a backup, completely out of luck, all because you only care about perfect copies, and not at all about getting the most data you can off of the source.

It is so frustrating that it seems every ripping software acts this way. A widespread problem that is encountered frequently by people using this software, that just goes ignored, because "we only care about perfect discs and perfect copies". Yes, data recovery can be a very complex issue with lots of complicated tools - but it would be an invaluable tool to at least have a simple/basic option that could be turned on in MakeMKV to recover the best possible copy in a single pass of the disks that is being ripped. Having the option that one can choose to turn on or off, having a warning that this is not a perfect copy, but the best we can get, shouldn't in any way compromise the standard of quality you are shooting for with your "perfect copy" mentality - options are a good thing. And this would give the basic end user with an old disc at least a starting point of getting as much data off of their disc as is easily possible, which very well may be "good enough" for their purposes. If not - then yes, I suppose we would have to dive into the more complex world of data recovery, which this isn't a tool for. But I don't think it's that radical of an idea to have an option to pull off what can be, for a good starting point.

Anyways - I think that lays it all out there, go on and lock this topic, and continue ignoring this.