Happy Halloween everybody! The reason why there haven't been so many new guides lately was mainly that I was busy beta-testing. As a result of this beta testing and idea exchange it's now possible to decrypt even discs with mastering errors. I have also written the web's first DVD Ripper comparison. I hope my test was hard enough. I hear there are DVDs where the first VOB can't be decrypted because it's larger, and also that there are some DVDs where the 5th VOB can't be decrypted by any tool out there. If you know such a disc please let me know - I need name of movie, studio/distributor, region and country where it's being sold. 

vStrip0.6c_css is out and it has some neat changes: much improved CSS detection. This detection (heavily tested by yours truly) allows it as the only ripper to successfully pass my DVD ripper test. 
DVD2AVI 10/31 has improved AC3 decoding. vStrip0.6c includes better CSS detection, and as usual it comes with the source so if anybody things about implementing IFO parsing in his program he should definitely take a look at the source, but I think you might be more interested in the CSS sub-version, which performed outstandingly in my tough test. You may be happy to hear that DanniDin will soon release an updated version of his mpeg2avi GUI which, among other improvements, includes full support for mpeg2avi PX3 and all vStrip0.6x versions. 

I've also added a small guide to DVD Decrypter.

DVD2AVI 10/30 and its VFP plugin are out. Changes: Revised YUV motion compensation engine, AC3 decoder and SSE iDCT. A new beta of the modified 0.3 Avisynth has also been released. It now shuts down after 99 secs of idle time and it has an log file.

DVD Decrypter 1.4 is out. It adds AC3 stream info, possibility to chose the order of keysearch algorithms used, to indicate the number of key occurences DeCSS+ is looking for, you can now abort only one file and the main movie and the corresponding ifo are auto-selected. 

After writing the smi adjust utility Jimb also wrote another util which is useful if SubRip screws up with the spaces between words. This tool is definitely worth checking out if you have similar problems with your subs. 

Now if anybody could tell me what I'm doing wrong with that darned thecounter code I'd really appreciate that. 

Wow: let's talk about my upcoming ripper comparison having some nice side effects: DVD Decrypter 1.5 has just been released and once again lightning_uk was nice to add some of the features that had been suggested by the folks on Oleg's forum and yours truly: You can chose how many times the keysearch will be performed: once per VTS set or for every VOB, fixed a bug in AC3 scanning, program settings will now be stored in the registry, DeCSS+ algo is now the default one, with search for one key occurrence and last but not least AC3/M2V files can now be merged. 

And to make things even better I decided not to release v1.5 and jump directly to DVD Decrypter 1.6 which adds the following: CSS detection, possibility to chose whether or not to chose the main movie and keysearch defaults back to VobDec first, DeCSS+ second. This wouldn't be my choice, but it works nevertheless. 

DVD Decrypter 1.3 is out.

First of all: I have some problems uploading my software. I always get a denied error.. so if the latest links don't work you know why. If anyone can provide me with 60megs webspace I'd really appreciate.

DVD2AVI 10/26 adds 48-> 44.1 KHz downsampling. And this small program allows you to adjust the timing of smi files.

DVDDecrypter 1.2 is out.

If you have enjoyed my articles about the DMCA you certainly want to read this one.

Then I have some really good news for you: Flasky is back. Apparently he's neither dead nor in prison and he has promised that work on FlaskMpeg will continue. 

I've also been in touch with Ben Rudiak and he told me that Avisynth v1.0 will not work together with the Avisynth plugin 0.25. Until somebody modifies that plugin we can't use Avisynth. If you get an IPCSource: wrong server version it's because you use a version of Avisynth that's not compatible with the plugin. 

And last but not least: Thanks Stephen for the VFAPI Reader 1.3b in English.

I've finally added a much needed part to my Scenarist guide. Now chapter linking and audio/subtitle changes are included in the guide. Now the only things missing are advanced navigational programming and multiangles but since these are rather complicated subjects and I'm currently very busy that will take some time. 

A new beta of the unofficial Avisynth adds shutdown capabilities. Apparently there's also a new VFAPI Reader but so far I haven't had time to write a patch for it. Anybody up to the task? It's really easy, since there are no new strings. Furthermore PX3 has released another version of his AC3 converter and a new DVD Decrypter has emerged.

PX3 has released the 2nd beta of his AC3 converter, this time with built-in normalizing. Then there's a new Normalize version and the cladDVD 1.64 update.

After a lot of work on my own email program here we go again: DVD2AVI 10/20 and its VFP plugin are out. They fix a bug that happens with a rare sort of DVDs. Then PX3 has released a first beta of his AC3 decoder which will later on be integrated in mpeg2avi. 

And I've just heard that most chipped DVD player still play RCE 3 discs.

DVD2AVI 10/18 fixes a nasty bug of the old releases.

Yet another Avisynth: This time somebody modified the 0.3 release to fix the 23.976fps bug. Let's hope it works now. However, the readme says to be careful since not everything works out fine till now. Eugene's DVD Player 0.94 is still the best (and only) replacement for the Hollywood plus DVD Station. Owners of a remote control might also be interested in IRAssistant. This neat tool allows you to use your remote for almost anything. I know have remote-enabled WinDVD and PowerDVD for instance :) Or what do you think of remote controlling WinAmp?

VobDec GUI 3.1 removes run-time error 58, authentication is only done when necessary (and you will no longer get authentication errors when a disc is already authenticated or doesn't need to be authenticated), etc. It's getting better and better. 

PX3 has his own homepage: From now on you can keep up-to-date with the latest mpeg2avi PX3 developments on your own. 

DVD2AVI 10/16 fixes some of the I-frame forwarding problems. 

The subtitle fix program works a bit differently as described: Basically it scans the VOBs given in the command line to find all the subtitle substreams used, and all those left empty.  It then 'moves' the used streams up to occupy the empty ones, but leaves the order intact so that the selection from IFO parsers such as in Flask will work as expected. So the command line is "slipstream vts_02_1.vob vts_02_2.vob vts_02_3.vob...... ".

A possible fix for subtitle problems? This small program will allow you to remap the subs to subchannel 0x20. Use it with caution since it wasn't extensively tested. And of course: it's a command line tool, and VOB files must not have the +r flag set.

Avisynth 1.0beta is out. For a detailed list of changes please visit the homepage. Among other things it can now read VirtualDub plugins and VFAPI plugins. However I did not see anything about 23.976 and 29.97fps and audio and when I tried to load an avs file in TMPG it crashed and I don't feel like rebooting right now.. Furthermore I have bbMPEG1.24b15 and its sourcecode.

Small changes in the redirects make the main version of this page bannerfree. However.. the links in the FAQ seem not to work. Excelland is definitely screwing us big time here by placing these stupid banner stuff and REC=0 on these pages, but there's currently nothing I can do. Make sure also to read yesterdays post. 

Another studio will introduce rental DVDs in Europe shortly: This time it's Universal. Together with many small studios, Fox and Disney they will decide on a title base which titles will be released directly as sell-thru and which to rental first. This basically means that once against Europeans are being screwed by Hollywood. Not only do we have to wait longer till we get our movies, now we have to wait even longer to buy our favorite movies on DVD because of the stupid rental window. To make this very clear for the movie studios: This is NOT a way to treat paying customers. This will only increase imports of R1 titles. Tests with the first confirmed "RCE 3 DVD (The Patriot) have also shown that this system does not work flawlessly. If you speak English and buy R2 DVDs you should check out Amazon once in a while.. you'll get better deals and most importantly you get these DVDs up to 12months earlier than if you wait for the "official" release.

Software: New DVD2AVI 10/14 and VFP plugin are out. The VFP plugin creates slightly smaller d2v files and the main program now allows for I frame forwarding (although the feature is not perfect yet).

The first installment of the Scenarist guide is out. I still need some info about how to make links to scenes defined for a movie. The next part will deal with multiangles and advanced button links and button programming. 

I have already posted this to the FlaskMpeg mailing list: Please do NOT post physical URLs to this site! Only use the addresses you can find above in the mirrors list. There's way too many people using the true URLs and then complaining whenever a host is down, and I don't need that kind of "feedback". Use the redirectors and you'll be fine off, I try to update the redirects ASAP whenever a host is down. Furthermore I urge you not to post any direct access URLs to any of my downloads. This creates additional traffic which is not generated "thru my site" and most hosts consider that as leeching. Leeching is a big problem for many websites. It generates foreign traffic for which you have to pay extra in case you have a commercial hosting (where you pay by generated traffic usually... even hosts that claim to allow unlimited traffic usually terminate your contract if you generate extra costs for them). Webhosts usually keep track of downloads, and if the amount of traffic which does not originate of one of the local html files is too large they terminate the hosting. So if you want this site to disappear then you can post direct access URLs but otherwise, please simply write that you can get that and that software on Doom9's MPEG palace in the software section and indicate one of the URLs mentioned above.

I have found CCE SP 2.5 Demo. This download is only accessible thru doom9.has.it and if I should find out that a direct access URL has been posted anywhere the file will be removed immediately! And before I forget: Any questions regarding cracks for that software will be deleted and you risk landing on my ignore list. Remember: This is no warez site!

Bad news: primemaster.net got cancelled. Apparently it caused too much traffic. That means I'm back with one host which has all the software. Anybody interested in setting up another hosting for me?

Software: Subadjust 1.4 contains small bugfixes.

Main server is down.. but when you're reading this that means you already know.

Doom9 readers know better! You wouldn't believe how many posts in the DVD ripping newsgroups wouldn't be made and how many discussions in our favorite IRC channel would not have to take place if people knew this site. I think it's safe to say that's it's the web's largest collection of DVD ripping related instructions, along with a nice software archive. So whenever you come across a post that looks like the guy doesn't know this site don't hesitate to tell them where they should go. 

Along with that: Some of you might have heard about the upcoming RCE 3 region code protection. Now to make this clear for everyone: This is NOT a new sort of encryption, with at least 15 million players sold worldwide, and at least 50 million DVD-ROMs there is no way the encryption can ever by changed. Those who've been into DVD from the beginning now that the region code stuff was changed once before, not so long after the initial launch when studios found out that a large number of discs was exported from the US. So what effects will this new thing have? On ripping it has NO EFFECT whatsoever. If you have a DVD drive that has region codes you'll have to change the code as usual.. until your 5 times of change are up. However, I suppose the majority of my readers either live in the US and have nothing to worry about region codes in any case, or have either regionfree drives or patched their drives to be regionfree. These patches make a DVD drive RPC-1, which means that the drive does not care about the regions. These new discs will work like a charm in that case, since it's up to the software player to set the region, and as you all know you can change the region code of a software player using other tools than the built-in changer in each software DVD player. DVD Genie simply sets the code as the player would do but does not increase the change counter. Hence all these disks will work without any problems. For hardware player's there's two situations: If you can change the regioncode manually (by remote or whatever) you'll have no problem with these discs.. the new scheme only detects auto-region switching devices. However if you have only an auto-switcher there could be potential trouble. Until you can actually get these discs there's no way telling which players will fail on these discs. However, the 2nd generation of region protection already made it impossible for the early modified models to play discs that came from another region, and that problem was eventually solved. So I don't think it'll take too long till this new protection scheme can be cracked. The movie studios should rather release their movies at the same date in the whole world and all these cross-importing problem would go away. The MPAA says that can't be done. Then how does MGM manage to release the Bond franchise at roughly the same date worldwide? This is a major motion picture franchise, and requires tens of thousands copies of the movie showing in theatres worldwide. It CAN be done, it's more a matter of planning, logistics and most importantly: the will to treat the rest of the world in the same way as them home market is being treated. 

I've already forgotten about the 6 months online thing and now this.. in the middle of September 99 I read about a new tool called Speed Ripper by DrinkOrDie that could crack the encryption of a DVD on Blight's site. Of course I was very interested and about 2 weeks later I finally found what I was looking for and soon I had my very first ripped DVD on my harddrive. However, PowerDVD would only play the audio commentary but at least it was a start. The movie I ripped was Cruel Intentions. As you know a lot has happened since... but it took me a long time to my first successful full-length and in synch conversion of the PAL release of The Mummy in late February 2000. 

I've updated the DVD2AVI guide to correspond to the latest release. 

I'm also looking for people who could write some articles and FAQs about DVD on PCs in general, stuff like how to make your drive/software region free, tips on playback, etc. 

Furthermore I've added two of my favorite annoy-Doom9-big-time questions to the FAQs. I hope I'll never see these questions in my forum.. otherwise I'd have to abuse my admin privileges and delete these messages. 

I've just tested the latest cladDVD.. and it failed on 3 titles. Not that it's really its fault but this is just the reason why VobDec GUI still is my favorite, since it works with these 3 titles in question. Of course the test wasn't entirely fair but that's beside the point.. I never test programs in a fair way.. I always throw the hard cases at them and see how they perform. 

miniDVD work suspended: I've just wasted a whole afternoon trying to make a small dot that follows the menu selection in a DVD menu (as in the main menu of The Matrix) and it just won't work. So unless anybody can give me a detailed explanations of how things are to be done there's nothing more I can do. I'm also interested on how the chapter selection is being done in the same movie. 

Vstrip0.6b will show you the cell IDs of the parsed ifo. Note the name: vstrip0.6b, not vstrip0.6b_css, hence no CSS support is included. The CSS versions are somewhat unofficial, but probably more useful for some of you. The latest release also comes with the sourcecode.  And then I also have the unofficial vstrip0.6b_css version. Those who've just downloaded the rippack should not worry however, the changes from 0.6a to 0.6b are minimal and you don't have to upgrade, it's just that one new option. 

About the mirrors: doom9.net and go.to/doom9 go to the same server, and so do doom9.org and doom9.has.it. It takes way too much time to run mirrors, even one mirror is already a lot of work. 

The latest DVD2AVI VFP is 11-17% faster and the latest DVD2AVI supports mp2 demux, audio normalizing and VOB preview off the disc (although you can't rip). Just set fault tolerance on and try playing the files off the DVD.

Another guide is finished: DVDMotion Pro guide for miniDVD. I'm aware that this program can also be used to make VCDs and SVCDs but it would be an overkill to do so and hence that use is not supported by this site. You should therefore address any questions concerning the program and VCD/SVCD authoring directly to the manufacturer. I've also made small updated to the miniDVD guide reflecting chapter creation in StreamWeaver. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to learn these tools compared to how long it takes to give a quick introduction to somebody else once you've figured it out. However, in the case of DVDMotion Pro you'll have to figure out some stuff on your own.. the link colors and opacity settings as well as the different types of buttons allow for many interesting creation which I didn't try out since the program is not capable of my ultimate goal: The Matrix. For that it looks like only Scenarist NT can satisfy my demands so that one's up next. I have also put up some info about the DVD subtitle format. I hope that that information will help somebody create a tool that takes the output of SubRip and creates subtitle files that you can use for miniDVDs. 

cladDVD 1.63 is out. Many internal routines have been redone and the decryption should work even better now. You may also wanna check out the Dalton Group page, these are the guys behind FlaskMpeg DeCSS and they have some interesting projects up their sleeve.

I've done some WME (Windows Media Encoder 7.0) final testing. This encoder really sucks.. can't even read AVIs created with the VFAPI reader codec so it's really useless for rippers. Then the latest CCE also has its problems with that codec.. it would only encode about 700 frames and then stop.. although at the beginning it showed the correct number of frames in the AVI. 

Furthermore I have updated the links section with some essential software links. If you can't find a software on any of the sites mentioned on my links page then don't even bother to ask me where to get a specific program.. these sites are all I know.

The updated DivX rippacks are out now. The only problem is that all my vstrip stuff except for the tools of trade guide is based on the old release and as long as the GUI does not support the new version I can't change it - or risk leaving a large part of my readers standing in the rain with a command line tool. I have added notes about that problem to any place where vstrip is being used. Furthermore I have changed the multiangle guide to deal not only with multiangles but also seamless branching and multiaudio titles.  

Do you like the new DivX logo? Nicky Page was so nice to complete Syncaio's logo work. Thanks a lot.

Other than that expect a fully W2K compatible VobDec GUI version soon - yes the skip buttons will finally work as desired. I have also added the -0 option the VobDec guide.. quite an oversight that was.

DVDMotion chocked on my sources for my miniDVD test so I spent the afternoon ReMPEG-ing. Hope it works out now. If anyone knows how the menus in "The Matrix" are done contact me immediately.

Last but not least I'm looking for someone with Macromedia Flash experience. I have a Flash vector image that I have to edit a bit and I don't have any Flash experience and neither do I have the program. 

Now for some really good news: Finally I have two fully working sites with all software. And I have my own domain as well. And to make things even better I have my own forum. Please respect the forum rules and I hope you'll soon become regulars in my forum. The forum can also be directly accessed via the url forum.doom9.net. Somehow there's an error when I use this link off my page but if I enter it manually in the browser it works.  

Also.. the latest vstrip is able to rip seamless branching titles like ID4, The Abyss or T2 ultimate edition without problems. The correct syntax to find out the versions is "vstrip @in.lst -iin.ifo" and to rip it's something like "vstrip @MOVIE.lst -iVTS_01_0.ifo -p2 -oout.vob -$1024". Thanks to Purpleman for testing. I've just checked on "The Matrix" and it works with multiangle movies as well. 

Fixed the corrupt date and put the VCD / SVCD news in together with the old DivX news. From now on there will be one section. No more confusion I hope. All software / guides / news is accessible directly from the frontpage. Of course I also have VCD guides but when I place another logo even I get scrollbars and I don't like them at all. Besides I consider VCD creation as pointless since using a Macrovision buster I can make copies that look the same but with very little time and effort.