UPDATE 6/23/2011 – isoBurn has been submitted to the Mac App Store, to read more about it and see some screen shots please visit http://empoc.com/isoburn

OSx360 probably the only application that is available for Mac that can properly burn XBOX 360 games. It seems as though the developer has abandoned the project. I have checked the developers website and a few forums where he interacted with a few people that had issues with OSx360.

I’ve tried to contact him to see if he would release the source code to the application so that I could continue development and work out all of the bugs, including the ability to verify stealth on the newer released games. However, I have not been able to make any contact so I will be developing a new burning application for Mac OS X that will burn XBOX 360 games.

I’d like to ask my readers to please leave me comments with feature requests, etc…

In the meantime, OSx360 will still properly burn XBOX 360 games even if stealth is not verified. What I would suggest is this, use abgx360 to verify the ISO to ensure it has been properly patched. You can follow my tutorial on how to do that by clicking the link here. http://chris-fletcher.com/2009/06/07/how-to-stealth-patch-xbox-360-games-on-a-mac/

After you’ve finished with abgx360 and everything appears to look good, you can proceed to open OSx360. Follow my tutorial by clicking the link below on how to burn XBOX 360 games using OSx360.

http://chris-fletcher.com/2009/06/05/how-to-burn-xbox-360-games-on-a-mac/

You’ll want to follow the tutorial step by step, here’s the exception, If everything checked out fine in abgx360 but you are seeing stealth not verified in OSx360 then you must make a minor change to the configuration.

• Configuration
• Burn Options Pane
• Uncheck Require Stealth Verification

 

After you’ve made the configuration changes you can proceed to burn your game. I have been able to this without any problems, but don’t blame me if this ends up producing coasters for you.

Just wanted to mention again that I will be developing a new burning application for Mac OS X to burn XBOX 360 games and urge anyone reading this blog to submit any type feature requests.

The goal of the application will be to mimic OSx360 in that you can open an ISO it will verify stealth, dmi, pfi, etc… and allow you to burn the game. I’d like to try and keep it as simple as possible but will consider all feature requests.

That’s it and thanks for reading.

NOTE: This will only work with backup copies of Wii Games, there is currently no support for the internal DVD drives that come standard in any Mac for reading original Wii discs.

In an effort to keep things simple, this is a follow-up of my tutorial on How To Backup And Burn Wii Games On A Mac. I have developed an application that allows you to simply insert the Wii Game into your DVD Drive and then select a location and name for your ISO and simply click on Backup Wii Game.

NOTE: This is an Alpha release of WiiOSx, I will need to receive a lot of feedback as far as functionality is concerned. WiiOSx has been tested on OS X 10.5 and works without any issues. Please leave comments and let me know what you’d like to see in future releases as well as any bugs you may experience.

Just follow the simple step by step Tutorial Below:

WiiOSx Tutorial:

 

Download WiiOSx, extract and then Launch the Application.

Insert your Wii Game that you want to Backup, Finder should pop up and say that you inserted a blank DVD. Click on Ignore. Now you should see information for Media Type and BSD Name. This information is not important but it should say something other then No Disc.

Click on Select and choose where to save your image and give it a name and then click Save

You should now see your chosen location and image name appear next to the Select Button. 

If this is correct then you can proceed to click on Backup Wii Game, you should then be presented with a progress bar. Wait for it to finish and then burn with Disk Utility. You can follow my other tutorial for that bit. http://chris-fletcher.com/2009/05/17/backup-and-burn-wii-games-on-a-mac/

Download WiiOSx

[poll id="7"]

I will not charge for WiiOSx but I’m hoping that I’ll at least receive some donations for my hard work. You can use the form below to donate any amount you wish.

[donateplus] [donorwall title='Donor Recognition Wall']

This is a tutorial on How To Stealth Path your XBOX 360 games on a Mac. After much searching on google I have had a really difficult time finding anything to help me stealth patch XBOX 360 games on Mac that I’ve downloaded from the internet.

 

So this is sort of a follow up tutorial for How To Burn your XBOX 360 games on a mac. If you’ve opened OSx360 and the Stealth verification failed then you can’t burn the game and even if you could, you probably wouldn’t be able to play it in your XBOX 360 console.

This tutorial will explain in detail what you should do if Stealth doesn’t pass verification in OSx360. First you must download an application. The application we will need is called abx360, you can google for it or download it below. This application will fix an unverified stealth patch. ( Most of the time )

• abgx360

Download and install abgx360. Once it’s installed, open the application and then open up your ISO file of the game that didn’t pass the Stealth verification by clicking on the blue folder icon to the right of the text input field. You should have something similar to the below illustration.

Now click on the AutoFix tab and copy the settings below.

 

When you have everything set correctly you can click on the blue Launch button at the very bottom it should turn green when you hover over it with your mouse.

 

After clicking on the Launch button, a Terminal window should open and you should start seeing a bunch of text similar to the below. DO NOT INTERRUPT THIS PROCESS. Let it do its thing.

Notice the lines in Red, the game I am working with has a blank DMI, a blank PFI and my Stealth check has failed. These are all bad things and fortunately are all things that abgx360 will fix for us.

 

 You will notice that towards the bottom you’ll see some nice green lines of text. PFI, DMI, Video and Stealth have all been fixed, now it just needs to verify the CRC of the ISO. Let it finish, be patient this could take a few minutes. Finally we know that the program has finished when we see the line AutoFix was successful!

You can now close the Terminal and abx360. Now you can follow my tutorial on how to burn your XBOX 360 games on a mac using OSx360 and when the Verify screen pops up you should see something similar to the following.

Everything looks good, Stealth Check has passed, PFI and SS Sector Data are Valid, DMI is Valid and all is right with the world. Now go ahead and burn your game and enjoy.

Hopefully I’m not repeating what someone else has already done but like I said, I have not been able to find a good / if any tutorial on the internet. Please let me know if I missed something or you have some questions or need some help.

UPDATE: 6/21/2011 – I am in the process of finishing the development of ISO Burn which will be available on the Mac App Store hopefully sometime mid-July. Once the app becomes available I will add a new tutorial on how to burn XBOX 360 Games on a Mac using ISO Burn. To stay current, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.

UPDATE 6/23/2011 – isoBurn has been submitted to the Mac App Store, to read more about it and see some screen shots please visit http://empoc.com/isoburn

Burning XBOX 360 Games On A Mac is relatively simple. All you need is the ISO of the game and the right software and you’re on your way to burning 360 games on your Mac.

This application is pretty much automated and handles much of the work for you. You could probably figure out on your own how to use this application to burn your games but I’ll give you a quick walk through just in case.

Once you’re done downloading, extract the file and place OSx360 into your applications folder. Now launch OSx360 from your applications folder. You should see something like this:

 

Once this screen pops up, you’ll need to drag your ISO ( game image ) to the big question mark. After you drag the image to the question mark it will verify the image and you’ll see a screen similar to this one.

 

What you need to pay attention to here is making sure that everything is Valid and Everything has passed especially stealth. If you’ve downloaded an ISO that doesn’t have the stealth patch, don’t burn it or you will get banned from XBOX Live. Everything should look similar to the illustration above.

NOTE: If your ISO didn’t pass / validate everything then follow my tutorial for how to stealth patch your ISO here or everything seems to look good and the burn button doesn’t seem to do anything, then first if the extension is not ISO then you must rename it to .iso and then follow my tutorial on how to stealth patch your game. http://chris-fletcher.com/2009/06/07/how-to-stealth-patch-xbox-360-games-on-a-mac/

If everything looks good then go ahead and click on the Configuration button on the top right hand side of the application. You can mirror the configuration below. Once you’ve set your configuration settings you can close the configuration dialog.

 

If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and insert your blank DVD+R DL disc you might get the following popup, if you do just click on ignore and proceed to the next step.

 

Now you can click on the Burn button, you should get a screen similar to the below. Click burn and be patient as it takes a while to burn a dual layer DVD. I always burn at 4x and the discs turn out just fine. On a side note, I am using Memorex DVD+R DL discs and they haven’t left me hanging yet. You can pick up a pack of 15 at Wal-Mart for $20.00.

 

When the burn has completed the disc usually auto mounts and opens DVD player instructing you to eject the disc and put it into the XBOX 360. Do as it says and enjoy your game

I’m hoping that you’ve enjoyed the tutorial and as always if there’s anything I’ve left out or anything that you don’t understand, feel free to leave me a comment. Happy Burning

UPDATE: 6/21/2011 – I am in the process of finishing the development of ISO Burn which will be available on the Mac App Store hopefully sometime mid-July. Once the app becomes available I will add a new tutorial on how to burn XBOX 360 Games on a Mac using ISO Burn. To stay current, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.

So I went out and bought an XBOX 360 the other day and the first think I did after opening the box of course, is, I took it apart to have a look at the guts. I purchased the Arcade version of the 360 which came with a Lite-On DVD drive, and so the search began.

Being new to the whole XBOX community I had no idea how to go about modding it so that I can play backup’s and the tutorials on the internet are not very descriptive for a new comer. So I found a few sites with some good information and found all the tools I needed after hours of searching.

So now I’d like to give back to the community and write a very simple easy to understand tutorial, as well as providing you with all of the necessary tools and show you how to flash mod the xbox 360 to play copied games. It should be noted that this is an xbox 360 liteon drive mod and wont work for any of the other DVD drives.

This mod is considered a soft mod for the XBOX 360 and will allow you to mod the xbox 360 without a mod chip. This is done by flashing the firmware of your xbox 360 dvd-drive.

Required Software:

• ixtreme_15.rar – Download this file, it has everything we need in it. Thanks to ixtreme we can save ourselves a lot of time.

Required Hardware:

• A PC with an available SATA port as well as a COM ( DB-9 / Serial ) port.
• TX Probe, Scroll down for a schematic on how to build one, or pay me $20.00 and I’ll send you one.

Prerequisites:

• Disassemble the XBOX 360 and take out the DVD Drive – Look for a tutorial on YouTube

There are 4 Steps to this tutorial, they are:

1. Building The TX Probe ( approximately 30 min. depending on experience )
2. Preparing Your XBOX 360 DVD Drive ( approximately 15 min. depending on experience )
3. Key Dumping ( approximately 5 min. depending on experience )
4. Flashing ( approximately 5 min. depending on experience )

Total Time:

• Disassemble XBOX 360 — 30 min
• Follow My Tutorial — 55 min
• Reassemble XBOX 360 — 20 min
• Playing Any Game You Want — Timeless !!

Building The TX Probe:

For your convenience I have hyperlinked all the parts back to their respective Radio Shack links.

Parts List:

• 1 x 10K Ohm Resistor
• 1 x 1K Ohm Resistor
• 1 x NPN Transistor (2N2222)
• 1 x Female DB-9 Connector
• 1 x Male Molex Connector
• 1 x Probe, from a multimeter would be fine.

Tools List:

• Soldering Iron
• Solder
• Flux
  

Optional ( To Make It Look Nice ):

• Enclosure
• PC Board

(All of these parts should be readily available at Radio Shack)

Note: Don’t want to build one yourself ? or can’t seem to do it right ? Purchase one from me. I’m selling them for $40.00 each.

Click The Button to add it to the cart [wp_eStore:product_id:5:end]

Preparing The XBOX 360 DVD Drive:

Before we can do anything else we need to make sure that the XBOX 360′s DVD drive is half open. To do this push the eject button on the XBOX and after the drive is fully open remove the connection cable from the back of the drive and then push the tray until it is half open. DO NOT RECONNECT THE CABLE YET.

Before we reconnect the cable we need to remove pin 3. This pin controls the opening / closing of the tray. With this pin removed the XBOX will not be able to eject or close the drive tray.

Now that we have the DVD drive set the way we want we can move on to the next step.

Key Dumping:

Connect your XBOX 360′s DVD drive via the SATA cable to your computers SATA port and power on your drive. If you are powering your drive from the XBOX 360, then make sure that you removed Pin 3 from the connection cable before turning the 360 on.

Assuming that you’ve already downloaded ixtreme_1.5.rar we can move right along and open up jungleflasher.exe which you can find in the JungleFlasher .26 BETA folder within the folder that has the extracted contents of ixtreme_1.5.rar

• Go to the DVDKey32 tab and go through the I/O ports until you see the info for your liteon drive under drive properties.
• Make sure your drive is ejected and pushed in half way. Select your COM port, connect your TX Probe and probe to the Tx (R707) point while pressing the Get Key Button.
• Save all the files to a folder

Note: If you get an error saying your hardware isn’t working. check over the adapter make sure everything is correct. try testing it with a multimeter. If all else fails, you may need to buy/build a “proper” max232/max3232 adapter.

If the above step worked, dump the key another two times just to be sure you get the same key! and SAVE ALL THE BIN FILES TO A DISK OR USB STICK – THIS IS YOUR BACKUP LIFELINE.

• Go to the FirmwareTool32 tab and click Load From Dump Files.
• Select the files you saved previously, and chose where to save the dummy.bin
• Click Open Target Firmware and select ix15-liteon.bin which you extracted from ixtreme_1.5.rar. It should show YOUR KEY in the box
• Press Spoof Source to Target and save your CFW.bin

You should now have the keys dumped, and your new firmware spoofed. We can now proceed to the next and final step.

Flashing:

Now that we have everything prepared, we can flash the firmware of the DVD drive. Up until now we have not modified anything on the DVD drive. If you want you can put your XBOX 360 back together right now and it will still work.

Although its almost impossible to brick your drive with this method, there’s still that 1% chance that something can go wrong. Please know that I am not responsible for what happens to your 360. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself then scroll down to the bottom and read my instructions for sending me your XBOX 360 so that I can do the mod for you.

• Turn your DVD drive off and then back on, then go to the MTK Flash 32 tab. select the sata port which displays the info for your liteon.
• Press Lite-On-Erase.
• Once you see the “…” quickly turn your drive off and back on.
• When that’s finished it should display xx72 and some flash information. this means your drive is ready to be flashed!
• Click the Write button. It should flash and verify all 4 sectors. if all goes well you are done!

Hopefully just as with my other tutorials, you have enjoyed this one or at least found it useful or helpful. Well as always if I left something out or there’s something I could simplify then leave me a comment and I’d be happy to edit the tutorial.

Purchase TX Probe:

$40.00 is all it will cost you, the TX Probe is required for Flashing Lite-On DVD drives since the drives keys need to be dumped and spoofed.

Just click the Add To Cart Button and checkout. [wp_eStore:product_id:5:end]

Purchase XBOX 360 Mod:

$50.00 Flat Fee To Mod ANY Version of the XBOX 360

Price Includes, MODDING of 360′s DVD Drive, CD containing your DVD Drives Orginal Firmware, Key, Identify and Inquiry .bin files, and one (1) backup game of your choice!

NOTE: Your Xbox360 will have to be opened to apply the hack which WILL VOID your Warranty if you have one, or you can take the Warranty sticker off under the faceplate (some are small and silver, others are a big white/green square)

I offer no compensation or guarantee for you voiding your warranty while trying to take it off, by getting me to mod your console you accept that your warranty(If still valid and not removed) WILL BE VOIDED!

How To Order:

Leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I’ll send you a payment link with a ship to address and instructions.

XBOX 360 Modding FAQ:

Q: Can my 360 be flashed back to its original unmodded state?
A: YES! When you get your 360 flashed by me, I will give you a CD which contains the DVD drives original Firmware for that very reason! Please keep the CD safe and don’t lose it.

Q: Do you offer a guarantee or replace my 360 if you break it?
A: No I offer no guarantee, but if your 360 gets messed up while flashing, I will replace it free of charge.

Q: Once my xbox 360 is modded, is there any way I can accidentally brick, break or ruin my xbox 360 or the MOD(or hack) will mess up or ruin my xbox 360?
A: NO. The MOD (or hack) is applied to the DVD drive itself, nothing inside the 360(Mainboard, CPU, GPU, etc) is touched. The MOD is a “Firmware” hack and its physically impossible for it to ruin/brick/mess up your Xbox 360.

Q: Can I play on Xbox LIVE without getting banned?
A: YES! The latest hacked firmware (iXtreme 1.51) offers excellent protection from getting banned from Xbox LIVE. There is always a risk of getting banned, but the chances are very low. You can safely play Wave 3 games now without worry of being banned! There is always a risk of getting banned, but the chances are very low. You can only be banned from playing an improperly burned game or someone who is inexperienced and flashed your xbox wrong.

Q: Do you offer compensation if I get banned from Xbox LIVE?
A: NO. I offer no guarantee/compensation of ANY kind if you get banned from XB LIVE.

Q: Is this LEGAL?
A: YES. Having backups of games is LEGAL if you own the original copy. See legal Disclaimer below…

Legal Disclaimer-

Copying or downloading games that you have not legally purchased or own is illegal in all countries. This violates not only laws in your own country, but international copyright laws as well. The purpose of the firmware hack is for making backup copies of games that you legally own. Software piracy is illegal carries a huge penalty if convicted, is ethically wrong, and hurts the game companies. Support the game developers by purchasing the games you play. You wouldn’t work for free would you? I am offering a SERVICE to those who cannot make backups of the games they legally own. I am not charging money for the game, but for materials, wear and tear on our dvd burners and for making the backup. Chris Fletcher is not affiliated with ANY of the companies, Microsoft, Xbox 360 or any others.

In this Photoshop text effects tutorial, we’re going to create a simple text reflection effect. This effect has been used everywhere in advertising, and as we’ll see, it’s very easy to do. When we’re done you’ll end up with something like this.

Step 1: Create A New Photoshop Document

Create a new blank Photoshop document by going up to the File menu at the top of screen and choosing New. Enter the dimensions you need for your document. For this tutorial, I’m going to enter 600 pixels for my document’s Width, and 200 pixels for the Height, and a Resolution of 96 pixels/inch. Click OK when you’re done to exit out of the dialog box. Your new blank document will appear on your screen:

 

Step 2: Set The Background Color

You can make the background color anything you like. I chose to make mine black, why ? because reflections look good with a black background. Alright, lets do it… In the Layers Panel, Double Click on the Background Layer. You’ll get a pop-up, Click on OK

Here’s what we just did, we created an editable Layer from the background layer. Now we need to change the background color from white to black.To do this select the Paint Bucket Tooland make sure that your foreground color is set to black and then click inside of the white rectangle, your background color should now be black.

 

Step 3: The Main Text 

 

Now that we have our background color set, we can move on to type some text that we want to use for our reflection. I chose to type chris-fletcher.com I used the font Myriad Pro with a point size of 36 and a blue shaded color with a Regular Style.

To do this, select the Text Tool and Open the Character Window, set your font type, style, size, etc… You can copy my settings if you like.

 

 

Once you have your text setup the way you like you can click anywhere inside the black rectangle. A new layer will automatically be created and a typing cursor will be placed around the area where you clicked. You can now being to type.

 

 

 

If you’ve done everything according to the tutorial so far you should have something that resembles the image to the right. The next step will cover duplicating the Text Layer that we just created as well as flipping it and correctly positioning it.

 

 

Step 4: Duplicating, Rotating, and Positioning

The first thing we need to do is duplicate the text layer we just created. For that we need to right click ( Control Click for a Mac ) on the Text Layer and then click on Duplicate Layer. You’ll get a pop-up, click on OK. The new duplicated Layer should be highlighted by default, if it isn’t then you need to select it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we need to modify this layer and by modify I mean we need to Flip it Vertically. To do this make sure the layer is selected then click on Edit -> Transform -> Flip Vertical

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You should now have something similar to the image below.

 

What we need to do now is move the duplicated layer down below the original layer. The move tool should be selected by default. If it isn’t then you need to select it. Make sure that the duplicated layer is still highlighted then start pressing the down arrow until you have something similar to the below.

Yay, we are done with Step 4 of the Tutorial, In Step 5 we will cover the importance of masking and how we can use it to create the reflection effect.

 

Step 5: Masking To Create The Reflection

The first thing we need to do is make sure that our Duplicated Layer is still highlighted / selected. After you’ve verified that the correct Layer is selected you can click on the Mask icon. Which looks like this

You then need to select the Gradient Tool from the toolbar.

After you’ve selected the Gradient Tool, move your mouse cursor to the middle right in between the 2 layers. Click and draw a line down, almost all the way to the end of the text. Sort of like this.

That should do it, you should now have a reflection similar to the one below. I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and that it was helpful. If you have any questions or there is something you didn’t understand, feel free to leave a comment. I also accept requests for tutorials if there is something you’d like to know how to do, just ask.

 

You can download the PSD file here. Photoshop Reflections Tutorial

There are many different reasons you would want to make a DVD Cover in Photoshop. Most people just get out a Sharpie and write the name of whatever is on the DVD on the DVD itself and throw it into a CD / DVD folder. This tutorial is not for these types of people, this tutorial is for the few of us who appreciate artwork and like to show of our DVD collection.

Before I start with this tutorial, let me point out that there is a great website, http://cdcovers.cc

This website has a DVD cover for just about every movie ever released on DVD, just download the cover and print it out, but what about those home movies that you need a cover for ? What if you don’t like a certain cover and want a custom one. That’s where my tutorial comes in.

Photoshop just happens to be the perfect tool to create DVD Covers, DVD Labels, Inserts, etc…

Let’s start with the Template, please go ahead and download the following template so that you can follow along with the tutorial.

• DVD Cover Template

Once you have the template downloaded you can proceed to open Photoshop. Let’s start with the DVD Cover Template.

Make A DVD Cover In Photoshop

Open Photoshop and then open the DVD_Cover_Template.psd file. If you’ve ever worked with Photoshop then you probably know all about layers. If you haven’t then no worries. This tutorial will walk you through what you need to know to successfully make a DVD Cover In Photoshop. Once you have opened the DVD_Cover_Template.psd file you should see something similar to the illustration below.

 

 

Notice the Layers in this Template file, you should see 3 Layers: Leave this Layer, Hide This Layer Guide, and Background. We will be creating some new layers.

 

 

Click and hold on the Text Tool Icon it looks like this –  , this should bring up a drop down similar to the illustration below.

 

Select the Vertical Type Tool. Once you have the tool selected, make sure that Layer 1 is still highlighted. Then click on the Spine region of the DVD Cover Template. You should now have something similar to the illustration below. You may have also noticed that a new layer has been automatically created with a truncated version of the text that we wrote in the Spine. Each time you click on an area of the template with the text tool a new layer will be created, which is exactly what we want since this will make positioning, styling, etc… much easier.

 

 

Ok, so now that we have the spine of our DVD Cover created we can move on to the front of the DVD Cover. In this tutorial I will not cover artwork or how to style text and make it look all fancy, that part is completely up to you to play with and figure out.

Click back and hold on the Text Tool again and select Horizontal Type Tool and then go ahead and click on the right side of the template and type some text. When you are finished typing the Title go ahead and type some more text just keep clicking on different areas of the Template. When you are done with the right side you can proceed to the left / back side of the template. When you are all done with your typing you might have something similar to the below.

 

 

Are you all done yet ? Hmm… what should we do now ? Oh yeah, we need to save the cover, in my opinion it is best to save it as a jpg and the best way to do that is as follows. Before we save, we should get rid of the guides since they will make our cover look ugly. Scroll through your layers and find the Hide This Guide Layer. You should see an eye next to it on the left. Click on the Eye and the layer disappears. Now we can Save, yay !!

 

 

 

1. File -> Save For Web & Devices
2. Preset on the top right, select JPEG High
3. Click Save and choose a filename and location.
4. Click Save

 

 

 

After the Save has completed you can close Photoshop. It will ask you to Save the file, be sure to NOT save the template so that you can use it again for future covers. Now all you need to do is open the JPEG file and print it and Voila, your very own DVD Cover.

Hopefully you’ve learned something from this tutorial and aren’t scratching your head. I have a tendency to skip over obvious things sometimes. If anyone has any questions about something that I may have left out, please comment and let me know.

So if you used to be or are still an avid Windows user and are trying to take a screen shot on a Mac, then you are probably a little lost because you can’t find the Print Screen Key…

Well luckily for you there is this tutorial that will show you not only 1 but 3 different ways to take screen shots with a Mac.

• Shift + Command + 3 – This combination will capture the entire desktop and save it as a file on your desktop as picture(number). 
• Shift + Command + 4 – This combination will turn your mouse pointer into a cross and allow you to click and drag a box around the area that you would like to capture. After you let go of the mouse button an image will be saved to the desktop as picture(number). If you are not happy with your selection or you would like your mouse pointer back, just press the Esc key on your keyboard .
• Shift + Command + 4 then press spacebar - This will allow you to select which window you would like to capture and again will save a file to your desktop as picture(number).

In my opinion, I think that Apple has once again proven their innovation by being simplistic.

I recently ran into a situation where I ended up with a folder of VOB, IFO, etc… files. Naturally you should just be able to open Toast, click on VIDEO_TS folders and drag the VIDEO_TS folder into Toast, but what happens when Toast tells you that it can’t burn because the files are CSS encrypted ???

The solution is quite simple actually. You’ll need to applications for this ( Do a Google Search ):

• Toast
• Mac The Ripper

Once you have downloaded and installed these 2 applications, you can follow the simple step by step tutorial below ( Note: If you are already familiar with these applications then you can skip to the very bottom for a quicker tutorial ):

Creating A Disc Image Using Toast

 

 

Open Toast, and select DVD-ROM (UDF) under the Data Disc Tab, see the image below ( Depending on the version of Toast you have installed your screen may look different from mine )

Toast 9 Titanium

 

 

Drag the VIDEO_TS folder into the big empty white space, make sure that the folder is named VIDEO_TS and that all of the VOB / IFO / BUP files are contained within this folder. You should now have something that looks similar to the image below.

 

Moving right along, Click  on Save As Disc Image  in the bottom right hand corner. As illustrated below.

 

You should see a box pop up similar to the one below. Again depended on which version of Toast you are using. Pick a location and give it a name, then click Save. I always like to save directly to the desktop. Makes it easy to find

Toast Titanium 9 Save As Disc Image

 

 

You will be presented with a window similar to the one below, showing you the progress of writing the Disc Image. Once the writing has completed, you should have a new image file.

 

Open up this new image file by double-clicking it. This should bring up Toast and you should have something that looks similar to the image below. ( Again please keep in mind that you might see something different here depending on the version of Toast you have ) 

Toast 9 Titanium With Image Mounted

 

Note: Once I double clicked on my image file, Toast opened up and automatically mounted the image as a DVD and as soon as that happened DVD Player launched and started playing. If this happens, just close out of DVD player.

For now we are done with Toast, now we need our other application, Mac The Ripper.

 

Decrypting With Mac The Ripper

 

Open up Mac The Ripper if you did everything right you should see a something similar to the image below. Notice that at the top it tells you your disc size and underneath that it should say FULL DISC EXTRACTION. You can play with the settings, I usually just leave all the defaults. Click on Go

Mac The Ripper

 

 

Mac The Ripper will create a new folder with the name of your Disc Image on the Desktop ( That’s a default setting and that’s where the folder will be unless you’ve changed the setting ). When Mac The Ripper completes the Extraction process you should see 2 folders inside the folder it created. You’ll see a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS. All we care about is the VIDEO_TS folder. You can now close Mac The Ripper, we’re done with that.

 

Burning With Toast

 

Alright, let’s do a recap. So far, we’ve dragged our encrypted VIDEO_TS folder into Toast, Created a DVD-ROM UDF Disc Image. We then mounted this disc image as a DVD and decrypted it using Mac The Ripper. We are now left with a folder on our desktop with the name of our Disc Image file that has a VIDEO_TS folder inside of it. 

We now need to use Toast to Burn this VIDEO_TS folder to a DVD. This is a pretty straight forward process and shouldn’t need to be explained in great detail, however since I’m nice, I’ll do it anyway.

Open Toast and click on the Video Tab, then click on VIDEO_TS Folders as illustrated in the image below

Toast 9 Titanium VIDEO_TS folders

 

 

Drag the VIDEO_TS folder that was created by Mac The Ripper where it says Drag VIDEO_TS folders into this area. Once you’ve done that, click on the Big Red Circle to Burn the DVD

That’s it, wait for the DVD to finish burning and put it into your DVD player to watch and enjoy.

 

Quick Tutorial

For those of you who are already familiar with the software and just want to know the steps you need to take then you can follow this quick tutorial.

1. Open Toast
2. Select Data Disc -> DVD-ROM (UDF)
3. Drag VIDEO_TS files into Toast
4. Click Save As Disc Image
5. Mount Disc Image
6. Open Mac The Ripper
7. Click Go
8. Open Toast
9. Select Video -> VIDEO_TS Folders
10. Drag Newly Created VIDEO_TS files into Toast
11. Burn, Wait, Eject, Insert, Enjoy

 

Hopefully this tutorial was useful to someone out there. I would hate to think that I’ve wasted my time putting this together just to improve my typing skills. As always, comments are welcome as well as donations

NOTE: This will only work with backup copies of Wii Games, there is currently no support for the internal DVD drives that come standard in any Mac for reading original Wii discs.

I was surprised to find the lack of tutorials on the internet showing you how to backup and burn your Wii Games on a Mac. So after figuring it out myself, I thought I would share it with everyone else. Following my tutorial you will see how easy it is to backup your Wii Game and Burn it, using only the tools that come pre-installed on your Mac.

NEW: Check out my new post on Backing Up Your Wii Game. I developed an Application. WiiOSx

http://chris-fletcher.com/2009/06/11/backup-wii-games-on-a-mac-wiiosx/

Backing Up Your Wii Game:

• Insert your Wii Game into your Mac’s DVD drive. Since the Mac cannot interpret the filesystem that the Wii Games use it will think that you inserted a blank disc. You should see a popup similar to the following. Click on Ignore

• Open Terminal, it’s located in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
• After Terminal launches you should type the following drutil status. Then press Enter, you should have a screen with information similar to the following screen shot.

• If you look at the output from drutil, I highlighted in blue the information that we will need to use from the output. What you are looking at is the path to your DVD drive. In my case the path is /dev/disk1
• Next you will need to type the following command dd if=/dev/disk1 of=/MarioKart.iso where if= is the path to your DVD drive and of= is the path and name to save the image file as. Press enter after typing in this line. On my Mac the process takes approximately 15 min. There is no progress bar so just be patient.
• When the program is done, you should see output similar to the following screenshot.

• At this point you can type the following drutil eject . This will eject your Wii game from your Mac’s DVD drive. You should now have an ISO image of your Wii Game, and if you followed my tutorial your game should be located at the root of your Macintosh Hard Drive. That’s it, that’s all it takes to make a backup of a Wii Game.

Backing Up Your Wii Game Overview:

1. Insert the Wii Game disc into your DVD drive.
2. Click Ignore
3. Open Terminal ( Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
4. Type drutil status ( Get the Name i.e. /dev/disk1 )
5. Type dd if=/path_to_dvd of=/game_name.iso and wait 15 min
6. Type drutil eject to eject your game.

 

Burning Your Wii Game:

• Open Disk Utility, it’s located in Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility. When Disk Utility opens, you should see something similar to the screenshot below.

• Once Disk Utility Loads, click on Burn, you will be presented with a browse dialog. At this point you need to browse to the location where your ISO file is and click on it and then click Burn. If you don’t already have a blank disc in the drive, you will be prompted to insert one. I recommend DVD-R’s. These have worked for me 9 times out of 10

Hopefully everyone found this tutorial useful, don’t be fooled by all of these commercial programs out there that want your hard earned dollars, just to do something that you can do for free and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t backup Wii Games on a Mac.