Sega Saturn game CD copy protection

[Drenholm]

Those were very interesting posts, ExCyber and antime; thanks.

I must read that PDF which you referenced, Quakester2000. You must still be frustrated; I see it was you who started the CDFreaks topic! There is some serious reading there, though.

Also, is Truman still developing the CD tool which he wrote? Visiting his page now presents me with a "Forbidden" error.

Anyway, thanks again for the input here.

 

[Quakester2000]

Originally posted by Drenholm@Fri, 2005-01-14 @ 05:21 PM

Those were very interesting posts, ExCyber and antime; thanks.

I must read that PDF which you referenced, Quakester2000. You must still be frustrated; I see it was you who started the CDFreaks topic! There is some serious reading there, though.

Also, is Truman still developing the CD tool which he wrote? Visiting his page now presents me with a "Forbidden" error.

Anyway, thanks again for the input here.

[post=127777]Quoted post[/post]​

Try giving him a PM and see what he says he probably still has the file.

 

[Drenholm]

I still need to figure out how to download that PDF...

Anyhow, I also need to get a Saturn CD within reasonable proximity to a microscope and have myself a little look.

I wonder if this will ever be figured out... Probably - but at a time when nobody cares any more!

(cries)

 

[Borisz]

Originally posted by Drenholm@Fri, 2005-02-11 @ 06:59 PM

I still need to figure out how to download that PDF...

Anyhow, I also need to get a Saturn CD within reasonable proximity to a microscope and have myself a little look.

I wonder if this will ever be figured out... Probably - but at a time when nobody cares any more!

(cries)

[post=129529]Quoted post[/post]​

 

[Mask of Destiny]

Originally posted by ExCyber@Thu, 2005-01-13 @ 08:09 PM

Sure, but if you tell it to read an area that isn't supposed to exist, it just throws an error back at you rather than actually trying to read it. Likewise the command set is structured around reading "user data" from the disc sectors, there aren't any commands that allow you to get a raw dump of the channel or anything.

Most drives can read a track in RAW mode. I believe a few can even return the P and Q subchannels. I'm not aware of any that will allow you to seek to an arbitrary position that isn't mentioned in the TOC though. It might be possible to get the laser pickup out to the edge with the same trick people have used to rip Dreamcast games on standard PC drives though. Of course, unless the data in that outer region resembles normal data it's unlikely you'd be able to read it without heavily modified firmware.

I'm guessing there's now way to dump the internal program from the Saturn's SH-1 to see what kind of data it exchanges with the CD controller. More importantly I'd imagine there's no way to dump the firmware of the cd controller itself. Oh well.

 

[ExCyber]

Most drives can read a track in RAW mode. I believe a few can even return the P and Q subchannels.

"Raw" mode is a misnomer. There's still a bunch of data in the channel that is considered to be for the drive controller's use only.

 

[Drenholm]

Why did they have to make CDs so damn confusing?!

My Lite-On drive cannot reliably read subchannel data - there are small bit-errors between subsequent 'accurate' reads. That sucks - means I can't back up my CDs in a paranoid fashion!

But there is so much stuff to do with CDs which confuses me and makes me wonder if they are unnecessarily complicated.

How complicated is the DVD format in comparison? I know they don't have subchannels, but that's about it.