know anything about burning dvds?

I just got this Aopen dvd burner... dual layer 16x yada yada

So i download dvd decrypter and smart ripper to rip my dvds to my hard drive so I can burn them and everything goes fine for the first two dvds I rip (south park if it matters), but then the last dvd of the south park wouldn't completely rip, it got like 25% done and then there was an error, something about in I/O error. So I just said screw it since it did the same thing with both programs at the same spot, figured it was something wrong with the DVD.
But now I can't get Hero to rip either, it gets 50% done and then I get an error message with dvd decrypter and it just freezes with smart ripper. And now sometimes when I open up dvd decrypter it says error message that says "Device Authentication Failed" then it says the device name and for reason it says "failed to get varient"

Anybody have any ideas as to whats wrong? I already updated the firmware, and I don't think of anything else to try... is it just you can't decryte some DVDs?


Any help would be much appreciated

 

I can't even get them ripped though

 

okay well I got it figured out finally lol

After much frustration and tech forum searching I finally came across some information that says basically it was either my dvd burner was shit and I needed to RMA it, or that the disk was bad, and can't be read.

So I checked the DVD, and sure enough it was scratched a little bit, which confused me a little since it played flawlessly in my dvd player... but anyway, I returned it, got a new copy (and a free rental for all the trouble ;D ) and its working great.

As for your question heat_blitz, I'll share what little I know right now:
First you need to d/l a ripping program, and from what I've heard DVD Decrypter and Smart Ripper are the best freeware programs out there right now, these will take that data, decrypte it, and put it on your hard drive.
next you need a program to shrink it so you can fit it on a regular dvd-r, then a program to actually burn it on to the blank dvd-r.

I've found though that there are a few programs that will do both for you, and some that even rip it too.
I use the new Nero, because it came bundeled with the burner, and it works great from what I've seen of it (burned 6 dvds so far, no coasters yet)... it even lets you make your own dvds with your own video, with a menu and everything, its pretty cool.

The only other program I've seen that does everything is DVD X-Copy Gold, and I've heard some good things about that too

hope this helps!

 

It was $63 on sale from $80 with free shipping from newegg.com (<- best bet for good prices on computer equipment, best service ever too)

Its a pretty good one too, way ahead of dvd-r technology since its a 16x burner with dual layer capability, which means as soon as dual layer dvd-r's cheaper, I'll be able to burn over 8 gbs onto one disc...

If you look, you can find burners on sale for pretty cheap at most online stores.. but don't get some off brand, stick something you've heard of, I've heard awful things about most off brand dvd burners...