Back in the day, consoles didn’t have any kind of copy protection. Just burn a CD and insert a copy into it, and the console wasn’t able to tell the difference between a real and a copied version of the game. It was not until PlayStation and Xbox implemented copy protection in their consoles.
But what about Sega Dreamcast? We all know that it was a very different console. But can it play burned games without having any issues? We are going to look into detail whether Dreamcast AV cable can really play burned games with Saga Dreamcast or not?
Types of Protection
Before understanding how Dreamcast works with copied games, we must understand the two basic types of copy protection. The first type is implemented in the discs that prevent them from being copied and the other one is built into the consoles themselves. Before PlayStation, consoles had neither of these. But why are we talking about this here?
The thing is that even though the latest PlayStation and Xbox models have some of the newest copy protection built into their discs as well as consoles, you will be surprised to know that Dreamcast has probably the best protection of them all! Yes, you heard that right! Now I know you will all say that – wait what? Dreamcast can play burned games – I have played them myself!
But just hold your horses and let me explain how that works and how it was really hard for hackers to crack open the Dreamcast discs at that time.
Understanding Dreamcast CD Structure
We all know that PlayStation had its media on CD-Rom and as it evolved, it shifted to DVD Rom and then subsequently to Blu-ray. Dreamcast was very different in this regard. It has its own media type known as the GD-Rom. This was a gigabyte disc that has its own format and if you put the disc into the computer to extract the data, it will not recognize the disc. The most it can do is that it will read some music files from it, but the rest of the sectors are alien to it.
So how did they do it? How can you extract data from something that can't be read? Well, it is a complicated procedure and outside the scope of this article.
But the real question here is, what do you do with the extracted data once you have done it? The computer cannot make a GD disc as it can neither read nor write in that format.
The MIL CD format
Not many people know that Dreamcast was made to read another format as well which is called the MIL CD format. Dreamcast was made to run the GD – Rom, music files and the Mil CD. This format was what was used by hackers to get the data on the burned discs. That is how you can play the burned games on the Dreamcast. So if you were thinking that it was the original Dreamcast CDs you were playing, think again.
Bottom Line
There have been many reports that Dreamcast consoles went bad after playing burned games because Dreamcast was never intended to play games on a MIL CD format. So can you play burned games? Yes! Should you? Sure if you can take the risk.