I want to create a bit-by-bit backup of my DVD and a Blu-ray disc without removing its encryption. Is dd be the best method, and if so, what flags or settings should I use? Also, is comparing the SHA-256 hash of the generated ISO file with the hash of the original disc’s raw data (read from /dev/sr0) the best method for verifying the backup’s integrity?
This is silly. You’re approaching this with wrong-headed thinking. Just use makemkv.
What you will have if you used hacked firmware to bypass physical anti-copying methods present on BluRay discs to actually get a bit for bit copy of your disc is a useless blob of encrypted data that you have no way of verifying for accuracy (that it was copied correct or that the disc itself didn’t have subtle physical damage which gave you something damaged because you can’t play it to verify) and which you have no way of using. You’ll have no way of ripping it or turning it into usable data in future if your disc does go bad because no one else uses this method so there’s no software that will allow you to turn this encrypted blob easily back into a playable movie and to burn it to a new BluRay writable disc would break laws anyway because you’re engaging in duplication and secondly all BluRay authoring (burning) programs are built around building and burning unencrypted video files to a disc not around burning an encrypted blob to a disc (often specific sectors containing specific data must be written to specific parts of the disc to make it playable, something no public program will help you with when trying to bit for bit copy in reverse and which blindly bit for bit copying at low level isn’t likely to achieve).
Everyone else breaks the encryption and dumps a copy of the disc including the AACS keys and certs to prove ownership and you should do the same rather than thinking you’re particularly special or vulnerable. If you’re that much an enemy of the state or media companies they’ll do you just as much for having the encrypted copies and state you had INTENT to break it (and indeed defeated DRM mechanisms on the drive firmware itself first which may be a violation of law in order to get that copy) if they’re trying to make an example out of you because you’ve pissed them off.
In practice no media company is likely to go after someone breaking the encryption while retaining the discs and keeping the copies only for themselves. There’s simply no incentive to harassing paying customers in that way if you’re not uploading the contents or hosting a for-profit Plex or Jellyfin server of the contents or burning bootleg copies of the films. You’d have to go around publicly bragging in your own name about breaking the encryption and pretty much dare them to get you for them to know or care enough to do anything about it short of you otherwise breaking the law as I outlined above.
Blueray have anti-copying built into non-data areas, plus Cinavia DRM on the content most of the time. This means your 1-to-1 copies won’t play.
If you are hoping to make a playable bluray, use one of the tools that reads past both and creates a non-drm image.
Depending on where you live, this likely breaks copywrite, but isn’t illegal.
I know it won’t work with DRM, but my main goal is just to back it up as close to the original as I can. If the disc breaks later, I can burn it to a DVD or Blu-ray and get everything back up and running.
I can burn it to a DVD or Blu-ray and get everything back up and running
If it was possible to copy it bit by bit and just burn it as is, pirates wouldn’t have bothered to remove it.
CSS was specifically designed to fight 1:1 copies, at the time it was conceived, ripping movies to DivX/MP4/h264 wasn’t a thing
The DRM on discs works because they have data in areas that only a glass master in a $5M disc replicator can create
Not to mention that ONE quad layer BD-R for the 4k blu-rays costs $25 - at that point is better to buy two physical copies and hold them in different places for backup
ddrescue can do a really good job. But for blueray you’ll need a patched firmware.
i was going to extol dd_rescue’s virtues, but my own efforts to do what OP is trying to accomplish proves that they’ll have limited success thanks to drm.
libdvdcss handles DVDs, but like I mentioned, blueray drives need to be patched.
I’d recommend ddrescue over dd for optical media backups only because if you’ve got bad blocks it will try them again at a different speed/angle
Does
ddrescuestill check every sector even if there are no bad blocks? I’m worried it might just copy sectors without verifying, which could mean the backup isn’t a perfect copy.It’s just dd with extra flags enabled for data recovery.
Good to know, I’ll definitely check it out


