Black Sails

[drathbun]

Hi, long-time lurker, first time poster...

I've read all of the topics regarding the error messages that aren't the fault of MakeMKV. But I'm still at a bit of a loss. Occasionally I've run into errors that are corrected by cleaning a disc. However, season 2 and season 3 of Black Sails (from the STARZ network) are being difficult. I've actually worked with two different copies of season 2, and both had tracks that I simply could not rip from the blu ray. (I have never experienced this issue with DVD discs.)

What are my next steps? I've cleaned the discs to remove any non-visible manufacturing residue or "film" as suggested in some other posts. I've rebooted my system in an attempt to start with a clean system.

One thing that leads me to believe it might actually be something fixable is I ran into the same problem with my copy of Insurgent. I was not able to rip it, so after several weeks of trying it went back on my shelf. A few versions of MakeMKV later I decided to try again, and it worked perfectly. So am I to assume that the disc magically healed itself? That there was still some sort of film on the disc that evaporated? That despite the fact i played fine in my dedicated blu ray player there was something about the disc that caused read problems in my computer drive?

It's really frustrating. I've managed to rip 99% of my TV series so that I can play them via my Apple TV, but this one remains unavailable. Any suggestions are welcome.

[yorgo]

You can try upping the "read retry count" (View/Preferences/IO) to 25, see if that helps. If that doesn't work, replace the discs. My experience has been that if it won't rip after a cleaning, there's either damage to or manufacturing defect(s) on the disc. I've also been "lucky" enough to have to replace a disc more than once, until I found a copy that worked.

[drathbun]

Thanks for the input. I'm actually trying something new. The element in common between the two seasons of Black Sails that I'm having so much trouble with, and normal stuff where I have zero issues, is that Black Sales has cardboard cases and the discs slide in very tightly between two layers of cardboard. Not the best packaging option in my opinion. So I have the discs sitting out to "air out" and see if leaving them open to the air will help clear up any surface issues. Come to think of it, instead of leaving them sitting out in the open (where something could potentially spill on them) I'll put them into old blu ray plastic packages.

I'll report back in a month.

The thing that bothers me the most is that none of the BS discs have any issues playing in my Sony blu ray player. It's only when I try to rip them that I encounter issues.

The only other time this happened consistently was on a disc for True Blood, and inspection revealed a visible defect in the disc itself, and it also impacted playback in my player and not just my computer drive.

[yorgo]

The thing that bothers me the most is that none of the BS discs have any issues playing in my Sony blu ray player. It's only when I try to rip them that I encounter issues.

The only other time this happened consistently was on a disc for True Blood, and inspection revealed a visible defect in the disc itself, and it also impacted playback in my player and not just my computer drive.

As has been stated here and elsewhere, a disc can play in a standalone blu-ray player with no issues while it won't rip using MakeMKV (or other software for that matter), the reason being error correction can be used to overcome bad areas of a disc so playback via BD player seems fine but MakeMKV needs the disc to be perfect in order to make a bit-for-bit copy.

Also, damage is not always visible, especially if the disc is manufactured poorly or with errors. Being able to see these errors with the naked eye would be impossible, if one thinks about how densely information is packed on a disc. That's why replacing the disc is often advised and why it may take more than one replacement to land a good disc; if the disc with errors came off the same manufacturing "lot", one can expect the error could be on all the discs from that lot.

[drathbun]

I'll report back in a month.

Not quite a month (much longer in fact) but thought I would report back.

I just picked up Black Sails Season 4 and ripped it without a single issue. I went back to my copy of Season 2 which had been removed from the original cardboard case, cleaned and then stored in a standard plastic bluray case and tried it... no luck. I had in the interim picked up a second copy of season 2, and tried to rip it. Interestingly enough, it failed at exactly the same address as the first copy.

Season 2 - Disc 2 - Copy 1:

Code: Select all

Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:1090' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00300.m2ts' at offset '362545152'

Season 2 - Disc 2 - Copy 2:

Code: Select all

Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:1090' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00300.m2ts' at offset '362545152'

I don't think I ever noticed that the errors were in exactly the same place before. If that's the case, doesn't it point to a defect in the master copy?

And of course, the obligatory, "But it plays fine in my bluray player" comment has to be made. I get it, it's a false indicator, but it's still frustrating...

[yorgo]

Frustrating indeed. It certainly does look like the mastering is the problem if the rip fails at the exact same point. If it's possible, and I'm not sure how one would be able to do this easily, try to find a disc that was made in a different batch lot. Rental vs. purchase, different country, different packaging?

[Woodstock]

You can also try removing individual audio or subtitle tracks - occasionally there are defects that affect only one thing, which is why some people could potentially rip a title with no issue (they didn't select the "bad track"), while others can't get it to work at all.

[texasdaddy]

I'm having exactly the same issues with both Season 1 and Season 2 of this series. Looks like they used some very cheap manufacturing to produce these Blu Ray sets.