makemkv doesn't "see" the first half of first vob file (additional opening modes not availalbe)

[jshohio]

i had this issue for the first time with makemkv. makemkv seems to have not "seen" the first half (about 500 MB) of the first vob file. the finished mkv movie simply didn't contain the first approximately 25 minutes of the movie. no error messages were given while makemkv was making the mkv file. the mkv file plays perfectly fine - it just begins about 25 minutes into the movie.

i had never had this happen before. does anyone have any ideas as to what is going on with this? tia

=============

here is some additional information. i ran makemkv directly on the dvd (before i was working from a video ts folder that was copied onto my hdd). same issue. here is what the dialogue box says:

title #1 has a length of 10 seconds which is less than the minimum length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
cells 1-16 was removed from the start
title #2 was added (126 cells, 1:09:37)
operation successfully completed

my guess is that the missing first minutes of the movie is due to the cells 1-16 being removed from the start.

the movie is about 3 GB, but makemkv is making the mkv from 2.4 GB of it.

[dcoke22]

You could try the different DVD Opening Modes to see if the outcome is different.

[jshohio]

You could try the different DVD Opening Modes to see if the outcome is different.

thank you for that suggestion. i'll try that.

[jshohio]

You could try the different DVD Opening Modes to see if the outcome is different.

i checked out trying to use makeMKV with different opening modes to see if i could get it to "see" my entire DVD. supposedly there are different options for opening modes available in "dvd" tab of the preferences. when i opened the preferences, there is no dvd tab. i checked all of the tabs in the preferences area and did see any options for changing the opening mode. i have version 1.18.4 (darwin arm64 release).

[Sayaka]

It's in View -> Preferences -> Protection -> Below "DVD" there is something called "DVD structure protection removal method", that's the drop-down menu you want. The various options should be called Auto, CellWalk, CellTrim, and CellFull.

[jshohio]

It's in View -> Preferences -> Protection -> Below "DVD" there is something called "DVD structure protection removal method", that's the drop-down menu you want. The various options should be called Auto, CellWalk, CellTrim, and CellFull.

ok thank you for that. i found it and tried all protection removal methods, and makemkv is sill leaving out the first 10 minutes of the movie. this is what it says at the bottom of the screen after the video_ts.ifo file is loaded:

==============

Calculated BUP offset for VTS #1 does not match one in IFO header.
Titleset start sector mismatch for titleset 1 : 118 != 9984
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #2 does not match one in IFO header.
Titleset start sector mismatch for titleset 2 : 2669 != 12784
Title #1 has length of 10 seconds which is less than minimum title length of 120 seconds and was therefore skipped
Cells 1-16 were removed from title start
Title #2 was added (128 cell(s), 1:09:37)
Operation successfully completed

===============

tia to anyone who has any additional suggestions.

[Sayaka]

This may sound crazy, but may I ask what happens if you also set the minimum title length (seconds) in View -> Preferences -> Video to 0 (in addition to trying every protection removal method) ? Does that help in any way ?

[jshohio]

This may sound crazy, but may I ask what happens if you also set the minimum title length (seconds) in View -> Preferences -> Video to 0 (in addition to trying every protection removal method) ? Does that help in any way ?

ok i tired that with all the protection modes and what it did was it added 1 cell (10 s), but it's still says:

"cells 1-16 were removed from the start"

i think that is what accounts for the missing first 10 minutes of the movie. it's odd that it just seems to be arbitrarily removing those first 16 cells.

thank you for the suggestions.

[Sayaka]

i tired that with all the protection modes and what it did was it added 1 cell (10 s), but it's still says:

"cells 1-16 were removed from the start"

i think that is what accounts for the missing first 10 minutes of the movie. it's odd that it just seems to be arbitrarily removing those first 16 cells.

thank you for the suggestions.

Hmm... All right, let's try something else. Try using File -> Open DVD files manually in MakeMKV.

Now, this next part will be painful. Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder on your DVD and open VIDEO_TS.IFO.

Look at the list of Titles, Chapters and Cells. What you need to do here is manually select every title and every cell.

For example :

1:@1-@1 2:@1-@144

Would be "Select Cell 1 for Title 1 and Cells 1-144 for Title 2, keeping the default title order".

EDIT : Ugh, I had completely messed up the first version of my example command. Fixed.

If this is gibberish, please feel free to link to a screenshot of your MakeMKV screen displaying the DVD Title/Chapter/Cell list and I will try to post the correct command for you. Please bear with me. I really think we will be able to solve your problem this way.

Also, feel free to see below for more information :

Manual DVD mode

During the DVD analysis phase MakeMKV has to make many decisions how to interpret contents of the disc - split video data to titles/chapters, remove duplicate title entries, detect and remove fake titles, skip portions of discs with mastering errors, etc. Sometimes the produced result is different from a desired one - title can be wrongly identified as fake, title order could be wrong, series episodes could show up as a single gigantic title.

Starting from version 1.9.0 MakeMKV can open a DVD disc in a so-called manual mode. The bad part about this mode is that its usage requires advanced knowledge about DVD authoring. The good part is that in this mode user has precise control over DVD layout interpretation. Any part of the disc can be assigned to any title in any order. Any title can be forced to be non-fake, titles can be split by cell (or chapter) boundaries, in any order.

During opening DVD disc in manual mode one has to enter a "title selection string". This string describes what parts of DVD should be opened and in what order. Given the proper title selection string any DVD disc can be opened, even disc with a structure protection that MakeMKV can't normally handle.

Title selection string syntax

The title selection string is a set of space-separated tokens. Each token produces one or more titles. Simplified token syntax is - XX[:[yy,yy,yy-yy][;yy]] where XX is a title number and yy is a chapter or cell number. In a simplest case only title number can be specified - in this case MakeMKV will open title in exactly the same way as it would open it normally, with exception that all fake checks would be disabled. For example, if MakeMKV incorrectly identifies a certain title as fake, all you have to do is to note the title number (any DVD player can show this information) and enter it in title selection string. As a practical example title string 15 3 2 5 would instruct MakeMKV to open titles 15,3,2,5 - in that specific order and to assume that all titles are not fake.

In addition to title number, each token can specify exact parts of title to be opened. The minimum addressable unit is a so called cell (historically named after movie film cell). Portion of the title can be specified as single chapter/cell or a range of cells/chapters. Plain number specifies chapter while number with "@" prefix specifies cell. The string 5:1-5 8:@3-@14,@16-@21 specifies that chapters 1-5 should be opened from title number 5 as a first title, and cells 3-14 followed by cells 16-21 should be opened as a second title. The string 1:1-4 1:5,6,7,8 1:9-12 1:13,14,15,16 specifies that title number 1 containing 16 chapters should be split into 4 titles, by 4 chapters in each. The same selection may be specified by a single token 1:1-4;5-8;9-12;13-16. Instead of chapters, cell numbers can be specified. Assuming that each chapter occupies a single cell the same selection string can be specified as 1:@1-@4;@5-@8;@9-@12;@13-@16.

Somewhat formal suffix for the title selection string is presented below:

title_selection string := token1 [token2 ... tokenN]

token := tile_number:part1[;part2;...;partN]

part := range1[,range2,...,rangeN]

range := point1[-point2]

point := (chapter|[pgc/]@cell])

Also :

https://download.videohelp.com/r0lz/pgc ... ossary.htm

[jshohio]

i tired that with all the protection modes and what it did was it added 1 cell (10 s), but it's still says:

"cells 1-16 were removed from the start"

i think that is what accounts for the missing first 10 minutes of the movie. it's odd that it just seems to be arbitrarily removing those first 16 cells.

thank you for the suggestions.

Hmm... All right, let's try something else. Try using File -> Open DVD files manually in MakeMKV.

Now, this next part will be painful. Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder on your DVD and open VIDEO_TS.IFO.

Look at the list of Titles, Chapters and Cells. What you need to do here is manually select every title and every cell.

For example :

1:@1-@1 2:@1-@144

Would be "Select Cell 1 for Title 1 and Cells 1-144 for Title 2, keeping the default title order".

EDIT : Ugh, I had completely messed up the first version of my example command. Fixed.

If this is gibberish, please feel free to link to a screenshot of your MakeMKV screen displaying the DVD Title/Chapter/Cell list and I will try to post the correct command for you. Please bear with me. I really think we will be able to solve your problem this way.

Also, feel free to see below for more information :

thank you very much for all of your help and sharing your knowledge of makemkv. i would like to try the suggestion of manually loading the titles and cells.

when i go to makemkv ---> file

the options i get in the dropdown menu are:

open files
open disc
eject disc
set output folder (greyed out)
save selected files (greyed out)
backup (greyed out)

i have the video_ts folder copied onto my hard drive, so when go to file ----> open files, and then navigate to the video_ts.ifo file, chapters and cells just automatically load into makemkv at that point and i don't see any options for manually loading chapters and cells.

it seems however there should be an option for "open dvd files manually", but i'm not seeing it.

i'm sorry for the difficulties!

[Sayaka]

You need to go to View -> Preferences -> General and tick "Expert mode", then click on Apply and then on OK, and now "Open DVD files manually" should show up when you click on File.

[jshohio]

You need to go to View -> Preferences -> General and tick "Expert mode", then click on Apply and then on OK, and now "Open DVD files manually" should show up when you click on File.

i'm pretty speechless right now - because that worked! i was able to open the dvd manually and have makemkv include every cell yay!

once i saw the titles and cells displayed by makemkv, it was very clear how to enter it thanks to your excellent and very clear example. it actually wasn't hard at all : )

opening the dvd manually is a *very* useful thing to know how to do. thank you again for all of your help with this : )