dvdForge

A macOS app for archiving DVDs before they rot. It reads each disc defensively, works around scratches the way data-recovery tools do, and writes lossless MKV files: the disc's own video and audio, bit for bit, with chapters, languages and subtitles.

Made by bluepill.ca.

Features

• Lossless. MPEG-2 video, AC3, DTS and MPEG audio, and DVD subtitles are copied without re-encoding. LPCM (uncompressed) audio, which Matroska can't hold, becomes FLAC, which is also lossless.

• Built for damaged discs. Reading is multi-pass and resumable, following GNU ddrescue:

  1. Read. 1 MiB at a time. After an error it jumps ahead with a growing gap and switches to small reads, so the healthy disc comes off first.
  2. Narrow down. Reads inward from both edges of each damaged area to find exactly where the damage starts and stops.
  3. Retry. Retries the damaged core one ECC block (16 sectors) at a time at low drive speed, in rounds, stopping once a round recovers nothing.
  4. Verify (optional). Re-reads everything and compares, catching drives that return wrong data without reporting an error. Auto (the default) runs it only when the disc produced read errors, so healthy discs rip at full speed.

  A watchdog notices reads the drive is stuck on and records them at once. If the drive resets or drops off the USB bus, the rip resumes automatically when the disc comes back, without walking back into the area that caused it. You can stop retrying at any time and keep everything already read.

• Shows its work. A live sector map, a close-up of any damaged area, what the drive is doing right now, and an activity log of every decision.

• Rip reports. Each MKV gets a .dvdforge.json beside it: drive, passes, read errors, damaged areas with chapter and timestamp, tracks and the activity log. The Rip History window (⌘⇧Y) lists them.

• Named properly. With a free TMDb API key, discs are identified and saved as Title (Year)/Title (Year).mkv, the convention Plex, Jellyfin and Infuse expect. The match is chosen by running time, with a chooser when it's ambiguous. Without a key, the disc label is used.

• Batch friendly. Optionally rip the main feature as soon as a disc goes in and eject when it's done, with a chime: insert, wait, swap.

• Picks the main feature automatically, skipping the duplicate titles of structure-protected discs. Language preferences decide which audio and subtitle tracks are kept and which audio is the default.

• Also opens ISO images, VIDEO_TS folders and .dvdmedia bundles.

Requirements

• macOS 15 or later, on Apple Silicon or Intel
• A DVD drive (USB is fine; see Drive tips)
• To build: Xcode 27 (what it's developed with) and Homebrew

Download

Signed and notarised builds are on the Releases page: open the DMG and drag dvdForge to Applications. From 1.1 on, the app updates itself (dvdForge → Check for Updates…, or automatically if you allow it).

Building

brew install xcodegen meson ninja pkg-config
git clone --recursive <this repository> dvdForge
cd dvdForge
xcodegen generate          # builds the libraries, then creates dvdForge.xcodeproj
open dvdForge.xcodeproj    # or: xcodebuild -scheme dvdForge build

xcodegen generate first runs Scripts/build-deps.sh, which compiles the vendored libdvdcss, libdvdread and a minimal FFmpeg for both architectures into Vendor/build/DiscDeps.xcframework. That takes a few minutes the first time and is skipped afterwards; Scripts/build-deps.sh --force rebuilds it.

The app isn't sandboxed (raw access to the drive requires that) and is signed ad hoc for local use.

Making a release

Scripts/release.sh builds, signs with your Developer ID (hardened runtime), notarises and staples the app, then packages it as a notarised DMG in dist/ (window background from Scripts/make-dmg-background.swift). It needs brew install create-dmg, a Developer ID Application certificate and a notarytool profile:

xcrun notarytool store-credentials dvdforge-notary --apple-id <you@example.com> --team-id <TEAMID>
Scripts/release.sh

DVDFORGE_SIGN_IDENTITY and DVDFORGE_NOTARY_PROFILE override the defaults.

GitHub Actions does the same on a tag, and also signs the DMG for Sparkle and attaches the appcast.xml the app checks for updates (always read from the latest release). Bump MARKETING_VERSION in project.yml, commit, then:

git tag v1.1 && git push origin main v1.1

.github/workflows/release.yml builds, signs, notarises and publishes the release. It needs the secrets listed at the top of that file. Running it by hand from the Actions tab is a dry run that publishes nothing. ci.yml builds and runs the tests on every push and pull request.

Publish releases through the workflow rather than by hand, so each one carries its appcast. Forks need their own Sparkle key: change SUPublicEDKey and SUFeedURL in project.yml.

Tests

brew install ffmpeg dvdauthor   # used to build test discs and check output
xcodebuild -scheme dvdForge test

The test scheme builds a small DVD image (Scripts/make-fixture.sh) with several titles, chapters, AC3 and LPCM audio, subtitles and a clock restart. It then checks the disc parser; the reader against simulated scratches, intermittent errors, silent corruption, stuck reads and drive loss; and the MKVs, which must be bit-identical to the disc's streams.

Setting up title lookup

1. Create a free account at themoviedb.org.
2. In its settings, under API, request a key. Either the API Key or the API Read Access Token works.
3. In dvdForge, open Settings → Online Lookup, paste it, and click Save & Test.

The key is stored in your login keychain, never in the app or this repository.

Using it

Insert a disc. It's read and listed with the main feature selected; adjust titles and tracks if you like, then press Rip (⌘↩). MKVs go to ~/Movies/dvdForge (configurable). The raw read is staged in ~/Library/Caches and removed afterwards unless you choose to keep it.

Settings worth knowing:

Setting	What it does
Verify read	Off / Auto / Always. Always doubles rip time on every disc.
Retry rounds for damaged areas	Most rounds the retry pass will make (it stops early once a round recovers nothing).
Preferred languages	e.g. en, fr. Choose which tracks to keep and the default audio.
Batch	Rip on insert; eject when finished.

If a rip stops partway (cancelled, or the drive went away), selecting the same title again offers Resume or Finish Without Retrying. The second reads whatever hasn't been read and leaves the damaged area alone.

Drive tips

Learned the hard way with a slim USB drive:

• Most drives limit DVD-Video to about 4× to stay quiet, so expect 25–40 minutes for a dual-layer disc. Older LG and ASUS drives are often faster.
• On a bad scratch, a drive can retry one read internally for minutes, sometimes until it resets or drops off USB. dvdForge copes, and it records stuck areas so a resume skips them. If the drive stays stuck, unplugging it and plugging it back in ends the wait, and the rip resumes by itself.
• Bus-powered drives can brown out under that strain. Plug straight into the Mac, or use the drive's Y-cable or a powered hub.
• Clean scratched discs before ripping; it often turns unreadable areas readable.

Project layout

DvdForge/          SwiftUI app
  App/             app, model, settings, About panel
  Disc/            disc model and browser UI, track preferences
  Drive/           drive and disc detection (IOKit, DiskArbitration)
  Lookup/          TMDb client, label clean-up, match picking, keychain
  Rip/             rip session, progress UI, reports, history
DiscCore/          C++ engine, used from Swift through DiscCore.hpp
  src/DiscInfo     IFO parsing (titles, chapters, cells, tracks)
  src/ResilientReader  the multi-pass reader
  src/MkvRemuxer   MPEG-PS → Matroska, with clock-segment handling
Scripts/           dependency build, test fixtures, icon rendering
Vendor/src/        libdvdcss, libdvdread, FFmpeg (git submodules, pinned)

Development launch arguments: -open <path> opens an image or folder at launch, -outputFolder <path> overrides the output folder, and -simulateDamage 1000-4000@300 makes sectors 1000–3999 fail, 300 ms each, to try out the damage handling without a scratched disc.

Legal

dvdForge decrypts CSS-protected discs using libdvdcss so you can keep a personal backup of discs you own. The law on this varies by country (in the US, for example, the DMCA restricts circumvention); it's your responsibility to know and follow the law where you live.

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

License

Copyright © 2026 bluepill.ca

dvdForge is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See LICENSE.

It includes libdvdcss and libdvdread (GPL-2.0 or later) and FFmpeg (built as LGPL-2.1 or later), each under its own license in Vendor/src/, and uses Sparkle (MIT) for updates.