Movies that contain scrambled parts after vobdecing

This is a really sad chapter of ripping history. A couple of days ago people started reporting errors with certain R2 - German in that case - titles. The Blair Witch Project, Teaching Mrs. Tingle and Fight Club were mentioned. Apparently the disk key changed during the movie. The first 2 movies mentioned are distributed by Kinowelt Home Entertainment GMBH, the last one by 20th Century Fox. I've also run into problems with "The man with the golden gun" US special edition. That one wouldn't play on anything I threw it at, PowerDVD, WinDVD, DVD Station and my standalone. 

Here's what I found out: The Blair Witch Project can be ripped using VobDec, the key in that case is C0 00 00 00 01 for all the vobs. On Teaching Mrs. Tingle there's indeed a problem VobDec finds key C0 00 00 00 02 and decrypts the movie. Soon after the start of the 4th vob the picture gets scrambled and this goes no till the end of the movie. So here's how I fixed that problem:

Use VobDec to copy the first 3 vobs to your hard disk. Rip the 5th vob to your hard disk separately while making sure that you get the right key. Then copy the 4th vob to your hard disk in Explorer - no decrypting. Then use vstrip0.5 - the one without CSS routines built-in - to split the movie by vob ids. You'll get 3 files, merge the first two together using Filemerger and use VobDec on it. Then use VobDec on the 3rd splitted vob. Merge the 2 decrypted parts of vts_02_4.vob together. After that you're done.

Command lines for the operations: "vobdec vts2 1 3" - ripping the first 2 vobs. "vobdec vts2 5" to rip the 5th vob. "copy f:\video_ts\vts_02_4.vob g:\ to copy the 4th vob to your hard disk in encrypted form. "vstrip vts_02_4.vob test.vob v" to split the 4th vob by vob id. Then merge test_PRE.vob and test_VOB_1.vob to tmt1.vob and run vobdec on it "vobdec tmt1.vob part1.vob". Then decrypt the 2nd part "vobdec test_VOB_2.vob part2.vob". Then merge part1.vob and part2.vob to vts_02_4.vob - make sure to delete the encrypted vts_02_4.vob first. After than you can rip as usual.

So for short: The key in Teaching Mrs. Tingle changes within the movie, in the 4th vob after 15 megs - vob id 2 - the key changes from C0 00 00 00 02 to C0 00 00 00 01.

As for Fight Club I can't tell you anything.. I have a R2 copy but that one isn't even encrypted. But Fox is distributing another version of this movie in many European countries and that one is definitely encrypted, since all major studios use CSS on their movies.

As for "The man with the golden gun" the story goes like this: The first 3 vobs use a different key from the other 2. So you have to run "vobdec vts3 1 3" and then "vobdec f:\video_ts\vts_03_4.vob vts_03_4.vob" and the same again for the 5th vob. After that you can convert the movie as usual. 

Teaching Mrs. Tingle won't work on one of my 2 standalone players and it won't play past the point of where the key changes in both PowerDVD 2.55 and WinDVD 2.0. So what does that mean? Either it could be a mastering error and somehow some players are still able to play the disc... I'd be happy if you could tell me if there's any software player out there which work on that disk throughout the whole movie. The same applies for "The man with a golden gun".  But since that problem has been reported numerous times... could it be that this DVD uses an encryption method that's not fully conforming to the specs? So far I always thought every title had to use one key - I'm not talking titles in terms of one movie, but rather titles in terms of vob files like vts_XX_y.vob where XX represents a title and y can be anything between 0 and 9. I think we need to get our hands on the official CSS specs to be really sure about this. Or maybe this disk was deliberately made not to play on PCs but I don't think that's a valid explanation since both Cyberlink, InterVideo and Sigma Designs are official CSS licensees and have access to the whole CSS specs and should make players corresponding to those specs.

I'll keep looking into the subject but so far I can't tell you any more :(