[Five]

ouch!

does that DVD play okay it's just that you can't rip it?

here's another thing you could try...

open the DVD like you would a normal data DVD. you will see AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS of course. generate an .md5 directly from the DVD (I use md5summer). Do it from the highest level of the DVD so that the generated checksums have VIDEO_TS/ in front of the filenames something like this:

35d4c99aa765e23f9a2875158f3b53e4 *VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
35d4c99aa765e23f9a2875158f3b53e4 *VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
5348c8ddbdb2ef3ae8d6d36bbab87a2a *VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
3965a46cc37105df9c03c9b54a2d1b0b *VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
3965a46cc37105df9c03c9b54a2d1b0b *VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
473a8ffe7dee609555e909d6f647f18e *VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
459a78d5948c47f6434d62eb91cc57c7 *VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB

Then save this somewhere. Now go to the DVD with explorer (or whatever) and drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD to your folder that the torrent for the show will be generated from (e.g. someband2005-07-10.dvdf). Now put the .md5 you generated from the DVD into the "someband" folder alongside the VIDEO_TS folder you just copied and run it. It will tell you whether there is one iota of difference between what's on the DVD and what you copied to your HD. Also try playing the DVD off teh HD using Media Player Clasic or whatever to make sure it works okay just in case. Then make a .txt file etc and go ahead with it so long as the checksums verify okay.

hope this helps