This page should help you with almost any ripping problem you may come across. However, it's kind of hard for me to assess problems when I do not get a very detailed description of the problem encountered. I literally need every piece of info down to the command lines used, error output of the ripping program, used DVD drive and firmware (and if it's a cracked one).

There's a couple of cases I can think of:

1) All files are on your harddisk but you can't convert because the encoding program crashes
2) The ripping program aborts during the process. You can jump step3.

I highly suggest PowerDVD for that operation, it has proved to be the most stable program for the task at hand. First of all start Explorer and compare the sizes of the ripped VOB files. Clearly, if a file is 0 bytes on your harddisk but 0.99GB on the DVD there's something wrong and you can go forward to step 3.

Start PowerDVD, go into file mode (press the small button left of the player controls - play, forward, backward, etc). Then create a playlist with your VOB files. Now start playing. Check if every file plays fine. If yes the problem is not ripping related and I suspect a corrupt system. Try checking the FAQs and reinstalling your system from scratch (that's almost never necessary.. but too many people with improper system configuration which can lead to serious problems).

If some file does not play it's most likely that it hasn't been decrypted properly.

Now is a good time totake a look at the tools of trade section. I'm fully aware that the majority if you simply hate command line based programs but that's how the experts do it! And that's how you have to do it in case of problems.

One option, and probably the best, is to use vStrip, it's keysearch is highly advanced and configurable. If you don't use FlaskMpeg's DVD mode you can use the IFO parsing of vStrip. Create a streamlist and name it stream.txt. Then rip the DVD using the following command line: "vstrip @stream.txt -$1024 -p0 -n1 -r1 -oout.vob". This will only rip PGC 0, which usually is the main movie. More info can be found in the vstrip guide. When you go back to step2 in most cases that should solve your problems. You may also try to not use the -r1 command at all or use -r3 for a yet more thorough keysearch - the latter is necessary only when during the playback of the file the movie suddenly starts to get green blocks and looks really screwed up.

If you insists on the DVD mode in FlaskMpeg then you'll not be able to use the IFO parsing of vstrip. First you have to find out which VOB files contain the main movie. Both DVD Decrypter and VobDec GUI will select these files by default so it won't take long to find out. Let's assume these files are called vts_02_1.vob - vts_02_6.vob. Rip each file with the command line: "vstrip f:\video_ts\vts_02_X.vob -n1 -r1 -ovts_02_X.vob". Then copy the largest .ifo file from the DVD to the same folder. The same comments about the -r flag as above applies.  Go back to step2 and check the files.

Alternatively you can use decssplus for the job: As abovementioned you'll have to locate the main movie, then use the following command lines : "decssplus f:\video_ts\vts_02_X.vob vts_02_X.vob". Note that decssplus will not get rid of multiangles.

If you get an error running vStrip you can greatly help the author by extracting the sector that creates the trouble and send it to him, along with the error message you get. Here's the syntax of the utility to extract sectors:

syntax: ex_sec in out [ofs] [num]

Hopefully everything should be alright by now.

I've never personally encountered one of these cases myself so the information presented will be a bit sketchy.

First, try to play the DVD in a software DVD player. If it can't be played there's something wrong with the disk, so return it.

If not, try to simply copy the VOB file(s) in question to your harddisk. Just to make sure try to play them in a software DVD player... they may be not encrypted, but this is highly unlikely since the CSS detection in vStrip works quite well. If they still are encrypted try to decrypt them according to step 3.

If you can't copy the VOBs in explorer then something is seriously screwed. Since DVDs are not being read by their proper software it's not possible for the manufacturers to incorporate the kind of copy-protection that can be found on many computer CDs. But it may still possible that they have a screwed up TOC but the player still manages to read them - although I'm really just guessing here. But if the movie can be played there's still some good tricks: A good old rip program called DVDRip allows to grab a VOB stream during DVD playback. Maybe you can give it a try.. I've never had to use it and I'm not so sure if it works with more recent DVD software players. If you need Direct Show Filters you can find them at the NVO Rip Site.

If even that fails please let me know. I need the know the following:

• Name of the DVD (also important: which release.. sometimes there are like 5 different releases of the same movie)
• Publisher of the DVD (e.g. Disney, Warner Brothers, Kinowelt, VCL, etc)
• Region of the disc (Europe is R2, USA/Canada is R1)
• If R2: Country the disc was bought (yes, it's necessary... sometimes there's more than 10 different editions of the same movie.. all done by other publishers)
• A directory listing of the DVD disc : start a dos prompt, go to the DVD drive (for instance f:\), then type "dir /s > c:\output.txt" and send me output.txt.

Please make sure you've followed these instructions to the letter. A mail like: SmartRipper couldn't decrypt file XX of the movie XY will automatically result in a reply that will instruct you to follow the instructions mentioned on this page.