Can AnyDVD back-up DVD-A's and remove their encryption?

[mandrix]

My Oppo's will play anything, either directly or through the network function so can't really testify to what works and what doesn't for other players.
My BDP-80 plays burned DVDA and SACD-R and the 103 plays SACD-R over the network function, but it has Russian firmware.

 

[mandrix]

I'm ripping a DVDA now with DVDFab. Will take a while, but you do have to specify if you want both folders or it defaults to the VIDEO_TS. It will create an .iso when finished.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

snip, redundant

 

[mandrix]

snip, redundant

I could not get Foobar to read my DVDA disc. In any event, I copied out the folders and assembled an .iso file with ImgBurn. Foobar would then play the lossless.
But the only option I saw was to convert to individual files.
Perhaps you explain your process?

 

[mandrix]

Without a decrypted AUDIO_TS folder there is no way to reconstruct an (playable on disc) .iso, short of authoring a DVDA that I can think of.
Here to learn.

 

[AYanguas]

To recap:

• AnyDVD can decrypt DVD-A completely when “Rip to image…”
• AnyDVD could not remove watermark signal, Cinavia or whatever technology. (Pending to confirm).
• Decrypted AUDIO_TS (ISO) files, either with watermark or not, can be accessed, extract/convert by any PC tools.
• Decrypted AUDIO_TS (ISO) files, can be played by players that do not implement the CINAVIA watermark protection. (Or has been removed by jailbreak or similar).
• ISO decrypted files burned to DVD-R can be played by players that do not implement the CINAVIA watermark protection.
• If the watermark could be completely removed during the rib/burn process, A player with CInavia implementation would play that DVD-A without problems.
• If the player implements CINAVIA watermark protection, the source has to have either No Watermark at all or the original watermark signal. Original Watermark, if exists, could be changed by the rip/burn process to a DVD-R, then the player will refuse to play because does not detect the correct watermark.

Not clear if there are DVD-A released with different protections for the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS parts.

Please feel free to correct or add any information missing.

 

[hafquark]

The watermark is encoded as an inaudible (to human ears) signal in the actual audio and players conforming to the standard are supposed to detect that signal and after about 30 seconds stop playing (with an on-screen warning) if various keys are not present on the disk and the player.

The solution is an old-enough DVD player that doesn’t detect the signal and have the protection firmware, or a software player that doesn’t honor the standard, or processing the audio to remove that signal.

I think it’s very similar to Cinavia for HD video disks.

The company (Verance) that developed the watermarking on DVD-A is now promoting different watermarking to protect video content so that “deep fakes” can’t be used in political ads (for example).

Right, the Verance watermark was used on all U.S. Warner DVD-A discs (which includes all their labels: Reprise, Nonesuch, etc.) while Cinavia was watermarking on Blu-ray video discs. As you said, the only way to play a burned disc or ISO with watermarking is to use an older player that does not "honor" the Cinavia or Verance anti-copy scheme. The OPPO 93/95, for example, ignores watermarks on burned discs.

 

[zdjh22]

To recap:

• AnyDVD can decrypt DVD-A completely when “Rip to image…”
• AnyDVD could not remove watermark signal, Cinavia or whatever technology. (Pending to confirm).
• Decrypted AUDIO_TS (ISO) files, either with watermark or not, can be accessed, extract/convert by any PC tools.
• Decrypted AUDIO_TS (ISO) files, can be played by players that do not implement the CINAVIA watermark protection. (Or has been removed by jailbreak or similar).
• ISO decrypted files burned to DVD-R can be played by players that do not implement the CINAVIA watermark protection.
• If the watermark could be completely removed during the rib/burn process, A player with CInavia implementation would play that DVD-A without problems.
• If the player implements CINAVIA watermark protection, the source has to have either No Watermark at all or the original watermark signal. Original Watermark, if exists, could be changed by the rip/burn process to a DVD-R, then the player will refuse to play because does not detect the correct watermark.

Not clear if there are DVD-A released with different protections for the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS parts.

Please feel free to correct or add any information missing.

I spent a number of hours today with AnyDVD and have found a number of DVD-A discs in my collection that "Rip to image..." does not result in AUDIO_TS files that are properly decrypted. Specifically: Little Criminals (Randy Newman), Foreigner 4, all of the dual-disc Talking Heads (DVD-A sides). I used foobar2000 in all cases to check. For all of these discs foobar2000 can play the disk with AnyDVD turned off, but cannot play with AnyDVD turned on (that is, play the "decrypted" physical disc) or play the ISO resulting from an AnyDVD rip (with or without the "Keep Protection" option). The ISO rips for all of these from DVDFab with the AUDIO_TS option enabled all play with foobar2000. AnyDVD indicated that it found CSS encryption on these discs, but does not report CPPM.

Investigating further, I performed md5sums against the ATS_01_1.AOB file in AUDIO_TS/ for (1) the raw disc, (2) the raw disc with AnyDVD enabled, (3) the ISO rip from AnyDVD, and (4) the ISO rip from DVDFab. In all cases the MD5 checksum was the same for cases 1-3, and different for case 4. The file lengths were all the same. From this I make the claim that AnyDVD is not handling the CPPM decryption, but DVDFab does, further, foobar2000 handles both the CPPM-encrypted and decrypted images. AnyDVD is not making a 1:1 ISO copy that foobar2000 can play.

I did find a number of "DVD-A" discs for which AnyDVD ISO rips worked, but these all had empty AUDIO_TS folders (that is the high res multichannel audio was in the VIDEO_TS folder). These were various Fleetwood Mac albums (the mid-70s eponymous, Tusk, and Mirage) and the two Al Stewart albums (Year of the Cat and Time Passages). I speculate that these were CSS-encrypted only.

As to watermarks, I enabled the DSP watermark detection in foobar2000 and observed watermarks on all disks with AUDIO_TS content.

I also used DVD Audio Extractor against raw discs, raw discs with AnyDVD enabled, AnyDVD ISO rips, and DVDFab rips. All of my discs with AUDIO_TS content could have songs extracted in the raw disc and DVDFab ISO rip cases, but with AnyDVD enabled or with AnyDVD ISO rips the resulting extracted files were very short (kB or 10s of kB range) and would not play. DAE worked against the discs with high res mch content in VIDEO_TS when processed by AnyDVD.

File conversions to FLAC in foobar2000 followed a similar pattern. The conversions worked without AnyDVD or with the DVDFab ISO rips. With AnyDVD enabled or against AnyDVD ISO rips the conversions failed with an error message that indicated corrupted data in the decryption data stream.

So far I have not found a DVD-A disc with AUDIO_TS content that works in AnyDVD, or for which the AnyDVD ISO rip is functional (although the low res mch content in the VIDEO_TS folder does work). Obviously there may be such discs that do work in AnyDVD, I just haven't stumbled across any.

I will note that DAE and other tools (DVD Audio Explorer) are fine solutions for extracting MLP hires mch files from DVD-A, although the watermarks will be preserved. My interest in this exploration was which tool to use for ISOs, since my archival storage on magnetic disc is all ISO format if possible.

 

[mandrix]

It was said Foobar could copy and decrypt the AUDIO_TS folder. I tried it but could never get Foobar to read a DVDA disc...not sure why unless it's because I have DVDFab installed and it has some background process running that interferes.

 

[zdjh22]

A final post to wrap up the watermark discussion. For nerds (like me) there is a fascinating USENIX paper from 2001 where a group of white hats describes their work on a challenge from the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) to detect and/or defeat prototype encodings aimed to defeat piracy. Most of these were what we call watermarks, a couple were related to hidden and encoded CD TOCs that were intended to prevent “mix tape” type of activities. From a patent reference for one of the watermarking strategies it’s pretty clear that one of the proposed technologies came from Verance, who we know was the implementer of the DVD-A watermark scheme and Cinavia watermarking for DVDs and BluRays.

The paper is here: USENIX paper and another useful web page that refers to the paper is Cinavia DRM. These watermarks are robust and can survive compression (including lossy), decompression, and even conversion to analog via a microphone (think of recording a movie in a theatre).

Some lore from postings from around 2008 indicate that at least in some cases, watermarking on DVD-A’s only prevented playing extracted music on a protection-enabled device, for example, a new DVD-R composed of songs from a variety of DVD-A’s. OTOH, a DVD-R containing all of the songs, in the same order (IIRC) from a DVD-A and only that content would play correctly on a protection-enabled device. The watermark likely carries (as speculated by the authors in that USENIX paper, who interestingly faced legal action for publishing the paper!) encoded digital content that could include, for example, the metadata from song titles and disc tables of contents.

As I noted, foobar2000 does detect watermarks in songs I extracted from DVD-A’s with AUDIO_TS content, but there were no watermarks in the 5 DVD-A’s that had empty AUDIO_TS folders (high resolution multichannel audio content in the VIDEO_TS files). If indeed the lore I mentioned is correct then it is certainly possible that discs burned from ISOs extracted from DVD-A’s will not trigger watermark protection, whereas playing individual files (say FLAC conversions from DAE) would trigger the protection. Unfortunately I don’t have a BluRay player other than the jailbroken Oppo that can play DVD-A’s so I can’t test this.

 

[zdjh22]

It was said Foobar could copy and decrypt the AUDIO_TS folder. I tried it but could never get Foobar to read a DVDA disc...not sure why unless it's because I have DVDFab installed and it has some background process running that interferes.

It’s certainly possible, in the same manner that AnyDVD runs as a background decrypting process that MakeMKV detects and tells you to turn off. Similarly I have BD cloning software that needs MakeMKV as a background helper.

I needed to get the latest foo_input_dvda plugin to get watermark detection working. I didn’t have any problems with foobar2000 on reading DVD-A discs or rips, but perhaps newer versions are less buggy (that plugin is actively maintained). It certainly can be an irritating piece of software - don’t get me started on the configuration fun that is needed to get foobar2000 to play audio from VOB files (from VIDEO_TS folders).

 

[mandrix]

It’s certainly possible, in the same manner that AnyDVD runs as a background decrypting process that MakeMKV detects and tells you to turn off. Similarly I have BD cloning software that needs MakeMKV as a background helper.

I needed to get the latest foo_input_dvda plugin to get watermark detection working. I didn’t have any problems with foobar2000 on reading DVD-A discs or rips, but perhaps newer versions are less buggy (that plugin is actively maintained). It certainly can be an irritating piece of software - don’t get me started on the configuration fun that is needed to get foobar2000 to play audio from VOB files (from VIDEO_TS folders).

I wondered if you could clarify something for me...a few times you said "high resolution audio in the VIDEO_TS folder". What do you mean by high resolution?
24/96 DTS, lossless, or what exactly?

 

[zdjh22]

I wondered if you could clarify something for me...a few times you said "high resolution audio in the VIDEO_TS folder". What do you mean by high resolution?
24/96 DTS, lossless, or what exactly?

Depends on the disc. The eponymous Fleetwood Mac is just 48k, 24-bit maybe, and also AC3 (but I’d have to tease apart the VOB files to confirm word size, but data rate is only 980k or so). Tusk and Mirage are both 96/24 DTS.

Both Al Stewart discs have 96/24 in both DTS and Dolby.

All of this is based on what my Oppo reports and what is printed on the various album covers. As far as lossy vs lossless, I’d have to do more digging (other than the AC3). The Al Stewart’s don’t say DTS-HD IIRC but I’d have to recheck. I can report back with bitrates for all of them if you are interested.

Rumours OTOH is “normal” DVD-A with MLP 5.1 96/24.

 

[mandrix]

Depends on the disc. The eponymous Fleetwood Mac is just 48k, 24-bit maybe, and also AC3 (but I’d have to tease apart the VOB files to confirm word size, but data rate is only 980k or so). Tusk and Mirage are both 96/24 DTS.

Both Al Stewart discs have 96/24 in both DTS and Dolby.

All of this is based on what my Oppo reports and what is printed on the various album covers. As far as lossy vs lossless, I’d have to do more digging (other than the AC3). The Al Stewart’s don’t say DTS-HD IIRC but I’d have to recheck. I can report back with bitrates for all of them if you are interested.

Rumours OTOH is “normal” DVD-A with MLP 5.1 96/24.

OK. I wanted to make sure you were not saying there was hi res lossless in the VIDEO_TS folder. All good!

 

[zdjh22]

OK. I wanted to make sure you were not saying there was hi res lossless in the VIDEO_TS folder. All good!

I’m a bit of a gourmoo rather than gourmet regarding lossless vs lossy. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of old otherwise unavailable (on modern disc) Q4 and Q8 conversions which have lots of artifacts, but they still sound great to me. I usually can’t distinguish between streaming Atmos from Apple Music and the lossless versions where available on BD.

 

[mandrix]

2

I’m a bit of a gourmoo rather than gourmet regarding lossless vs lossy. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of old otherwise unavailable (on modern disc) Q4 and Q8 conversions which have lots of artifacts, but they still sound great to me. I usually can’t distinguish between streaming Atmos from Apple Music and the lossless versions where available on BD.

24/96 DTS can sound very good as can 24/48.
With the lossy streaming versions I can hear a difference. For the old Quad, well, my hearing starts rolling off above 10Khz I suspect anyway, bad tinnitus for over 50 years now.
It takes some critical listening with no distractions sometimes, but way it is and I've learned to live with it. Why my first impressions aren't always the best, but subsequent listening usually reveals more details in the music.

BTW I ripped an old live R.E.O. DVDA with the current version of DVDFab and got both folders converted to .iso. They play in Foobar (expected) but did not try burning one because I have 3 Oppo's, one with firmware that ignores flags/encryption and two that plays it natively and never had further firmware upgrades since it was no longer being made when the Blu Ray folks came down on them.

 

[andyp]

It is possible to remove the verance waterrmark from DVD-Audio files using foobar and the proper plugins. I have tried the method and have not been successful but I know it can be done.

 

[mandrix]

It is possible to remove the verance waterrmark from DVD-Audio files using foobar and the proper plugins. I have tried the method and have not been successful but I know it can be done.

I once read a sort of tutorial on it, but honestly don't remember much about it other than it involved Foobar and the DVDA component.

 

[quicksrt]

It is possible to remove the verance waterrmark from DVD-Audio files using foobar and the proper plugins. I have tried the method and have not been successful but I know it can be done.

There is a way to scramble up the watermark and burn the resulting files to a DVD-A disc that plays without issues, as if the watermark has been defeated. I'm surprised that I am the one who had to bring up this watermark issue (in this thread) in the first place, and the one who knows about a "cure" for the problem. I'll let others chime in as it's known around the forum here what has been accomplished in the crax world of DVD-As.
I'm just an observer, and have not performed the magic on the files before.

 

[zdjh22]

(deleted)