Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

bentoon · 12:19 PM

so accidentally I happened on a bunch of films on DVD .
The used to play on my mac. and with the last rounds of software updates wont any longer..
Anythought?

there are no prefs I can trash...peculiar

analogika · Oct 2, 2007, 10:14 AM

The amazingly stupid thread title is pretty much guaranteed to get this thread locked, as MacNN CANNOT condone piracy.

As for playing video of various formats - what formats of video are on the disc?

besson3c · Oct 2, 2007, 10:15 AM

The plural of DVD is "DVDs", not "DVD's".

What happens when you play these DVDs? This only happens with particular DVDs? Are the DVDs mounting? Do they have a valid VIDEO_TS folder in them? Will VLC play these DVDs?

You'll need to provide more information here.

peeb · Oct 2, 2007, 10:43 AM

I don't think this is a piracy issue - sounds like a codex confusion issue.

besson3c · Oct 2, 2007, 11:05 AM

DVD player only supports one codec though, right?

peeb · Oct 2, 2007, 11:19 AM

Yeah, but the comment 'a bunch of films on DVD', I wondered whether they had been ripped to file or something.

Weyland-Yutani · Oct 2, 2007, 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by analogika

The amazingly stupid thread title is pretty much guaranteed to get this thread locked, as MacNN CANNOT condone piracy.

The Weyland-Yutani corporation approves your sentiment. Piracy is only to bereft huge corporations, such as myself from well deserved profit.

We will sue you or anyone who condones piracy. Consider that your final warning.

analogika · Oct 2, 2007, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

The Weyland-Yutani corporation approves your sentiment. Piracy is only to bereft huge corporations, such as myself from well deserved profit.

We will sue you or anyone who condones piracy. Consider that your final warning.

You#ll note a) that he edited his post after I pointed it out to him (though not the thread title), and b) that I was actually trying to be helpful.

So take it, and shove it.

Weyland-Yutani · Oct 2, 2007, 06:04 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

You#ll note a) that he edited his post after I pointed it out to him (though not the thread title), and b) that I was actually trying to be helpful.

So take it, and shove it.

That's no way to adress your corporate overlords.

bentoon · Oct 2, 2007, 07:38 PM

Hey everyone,
These were just some DVD's that a friend shared with me - he bought them in the subway and they worked when we started watching them on her PC.
But they won't play on my Mac.
In the past other, legit dvd's have worked on both our machines.a tech guru suggested to me that Apple was introducing a blocking mechanism in their DVD player for certain itunes store related reasons...
That's all

ghporter · Oct 2, 2007, 08:23 PM

Nope, no blocking mechanism. Perhaps a recent update has somehow plugged a hole through which the bootleg DVDs managed to play before. But nothing intentional.

analogika · Oct 3, 2007, 04:12 AM

What kind of video format is this?

Regular DVD? Or video files burned onto a data DVD?

What kind of video files?

FWIW, everything my machine was able to play six months ago still works, so there's definitely no "blocking" system update.

Might be a codec issue or so, but to figure that out, we'd have to know what format the video is in.

peeb · Oct 3, 2007, 10:56 AM

I don't think there is any way to distinguish a bootleg from a home burned movie, is there?

besson3c · Oct 3, 2007, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by peeb

I don't think there is any way to distinguish a bootleg from a home burned movie, is there?

A regular home burned movie won't be Macrovision encrypted.

larkost · Oct 3, 2007, 03:00 PM

Yes... the big difference between a bootleg DVD and a real one is that the real one has encryption on it. Well... then there are the parts where the artwork on the real DVD looks better, and the part where it is not sold by someone on a street-corner for $5....

But it is probably that it was a badly ripped DVD that is out of spec and there is some change that Apple made to the DVD playing that tightened up their tolerances, probably to better play some legitimate content.

peeb · Oct 3, 2007, 04:25 PM

Neither will most bootlegs, will they?

besson3c · Oct 3, 2007, 04:30 PM

Well, we don't know much about this particular DVD since I don't think the original poster has passed on much about it. It could have been a VCD, a DVD out of spec, a transcoded DVD into some other format, etc. so I'm kind of losing interest in this speculation..