"Calculated BUP offset" + "Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR" problem (and resolution!)

[tommyfists]

I spent the last few days trying to resolve the issue I was having out on my own, and I'm happy to say that I actually did manage to resolve it and have a loose understanding of why it was happening. I wanted to share what I was encountering and how I resolved it here, in case anyone else should run into something similar, or if anyone may want to elaborate on the technical details of what happened here for posterity. Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this, since it's no longer a problem.

I was in the process of backing up my Case Closed Season 4 DVDs, starting with the first disc, and when MakeMKV read it, it was giving me this:

Code: Select all

Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #10 does not match one in IFO header.
Title #1 was added (2 cell(s), 0:00:13)
Title #3 was added (1 cell(s), 0:00:32)
Cells 1-6 were removed from title start
Cells 14-98 were removed from title end
Title #11 was added (7 cell(s), 0:24:14)
Operation successfully completed

As you can see, there was some error where Title 11 (which is the title containing all the episodes on the disc) was added, but instead of the 50 chapters it has on the disc, it only had 7, and was 1gb instead of ~7gb like the first three seasons worth of DVDs. I couldn't figure out why it was skipping all those cells, so after some light searching, I saw a recommendation to use manual mode to try to force MakeMKV to load in the full title with the string "11". That resulted in this:

Code: Select all

Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #10 does not match one in IFO header.
Open DVD manually : "11"
Fake cells occupy 85% of the title - assuming fake title
Failed to open disc

From there, I refined the string to be "11:1-50" so it would be forced to include all the chapters, and it did properly load it all into the title selection screen, but upon trying to process it, I received this error:

Code: Select all

Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #10 does not match one in IFO header.
Open DVD manually : "11:1-50"
Title #11 was added (98 cell(s), 2:49:57)
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory F:/BDR
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Error 'Scsi error - MEDIUM ERROR:L-EC UNCORRECTABLE ERROR' occurred while reading '/VIDEO_TS/VTS_05_1.VOB' at offset '1343488'
Failed to save title 0 to file F:/BDR/title_t00.mkv
0 titles saved, 1 failed

I figured maybe the disc was damaged, so I skipped it and move on to Disc 2, but I encountered similar issues: it would only load a fraction of the title, and forcing it through manual mode resulted in the same uncorrectable error. This continued to happen for the remaining two discs in Season 4, as well as all four discs in Season 5.

From there, using Season 4 Disc 1, I tried:

• Cleaning the disc with a microfiber cloth; no change

• Backing up with a different program; it created the .mkv, but there was an exponentially worsening audio desync issue the further along the video got (remember this)

• Downloaded a separate program to copy the disc in its entirety to see if something was corrupted; everything copied fine, as far as I could tell

• Tried using the "toothpaste trick" to fix any unseen scratches on the disc; can't believe I didn't actually ruin the disc doing this

• Downloaded MakeMKV on another computer to see if it was the disc drive; got the exact same errors in the logs above on this computer

At this point I was just about ready to write off being able to back these DVDs up, but before giving up, I decided to try one last thing and installed RedFox's AnyDVD program to see if it was maybe something to do with copy protection that MakeMKV couldn't get around.

Code: Select all

Summary for drive H: (AnyDVD HD 8.6.2.0, BDPHash.bin 20-03-11)
ASUS BW-16D1X-U A104 
Drive (Hardware) Region: 1
Current profile: DVD-ROM
Media is a DVD.
Booktype: dvd-rom (version 1), Layers: 2 (opposite)
Size of first Layer: 2028656 sectors (3962 MBytes)
Total size: 3940160 sectors (7695 MBytes)

Video DVD (or CD) label: CASE_CLOSED_S4_D1
Media is CSS protected!
Media is locked to region(s): 1!
Video Standard: NTSC

Using local database!
Found & removed structural copy protection!
Found & removed invalid cell pieces!
Found & removed bogus title set(s)!
Found & removed invalid VOBUs!
RCE protection not found.
UDF filesystem patched!
Autorun not found on Video DVD.
Removed CSS copy protection!
Found & removed 28 potential bad sector protections!
Emulating RPC-2 drive with region 1!

After the disc was processed by AnyDVD (with no additional changes past the default settings after installation), I attempted to load it in MakeMKV, and got the following:

Code: Select all

MakeMKV v1.17.1 win(x64-release) started
Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #0 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #10 does not match one in IFO header.
Title #1 was added (2 cell(s), 0:00:13)
Title #3 was added (1 cell(s), 0:00:32)
Cells 1-27 were removed from title start
Cells 55-67 were removed from title end
Title #11 was added (27 cell(s), 1:12:40)
Operation successfully completed

Progress! More chapters loaded in using the normal process, but still not all of them. Next, I tried loading the disc through manual mode, skipping right to the "11:1-50" string, loaded the title selection, and...

Code: Select all

Using direct disc access mode
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #0 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #5 does not match one in IFO header.
Calculated BUP offset for VTS #10 does not match one in IFO header.
Open DVD manually : "11:1-50"
Title #11 was added (67 cell(s), 2:49:41)
Operation successfully completed
Saving 1 titles into directory F:/BDR
AV synchronization issues were found in file 'F:/BDR/title_t00.mkv' (title #1)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 0:24:17.760 with duration of 1597.9ms : audio gap - 49.934 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 0:48:37.117 with duration of 830.466ms : audio gap - 25.952 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 1:12:55.900 with duration of 1205.7ms : audio gap - 37.678 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 1:37:15.474 with duration of 823.066ms : audio gap - 25.72 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 2:01:34.601 with duration of 820.333ms : audio gap - 25.635 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 2:25:54.397 with duration of 1216.066ms : audio gap - 38.002 missing frame(s)
AV sync issue in stream 1,2 at 2:50:12.573 with duration of 1230.066ms : audio gap - 38.439 missing frame(s)
1 titles saved

Success! Despite the worrying presence of the "AV sync issues", you'll notice that they occur in ~24 minute intervals, and only for about a second- these are the time codes where the screen is blank in-between episodes. Playing back the .mkv resulted in both audio tracks (English and Japanese) being properly synced to the footage, unlike the one I had created with the other program, where those single second desyncs got exponentially worse in-between each episode.

I was then able to replicate this setup and successfully backup the three remaining discs in the Season 4 set and all of the Season 5 DVDs as well. As an extra measure, I loaded up another DVD I had noticed this issue with, where it only loaded the last trailer in the trailer reel title (Slayers - The Motion Picture (Essential Anime Collection)), and was able to generate that full title as well.

I'm admittedly not familiar with the technical aspects of DVD manufacturing and copy protection, but here's how I interpreted what happened here: in addition to normal copy protection, the manufacturer of these DVD sets loaded it with junk information that would simply be skipped over by a DVD player, but mess with backup software. By filtering the disc through AnyDVD, that junk information was mostly dealt with (as indicated in the AnyDVD logs), but MakeMKV was still having trouble with its standard reading because of the .bup misalignment causing the audio "desync". This seems to be another method of copy protection, because it's not actually a desync: it's just the space between each episode. Switching to manual mode after getting rid of the junk information caused MakeMKV to not encounter the error, and correctly accommodate for the "desyncs" with silence.