I literally cannot think of a single program that is as perfect for ripping as MKV. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux, you can do command line; it has one job, and it does it perfectly. There are other programs with more range of functionality, but there's always a catch with security codes or the format or name it and you have to go elsewhere. MakeMKV is the only one I can get twenty-four hour turnaround when I found a disc it couldn't read; one day later, the codes were automatically uploaded when I opened the program. Also the community in the forum is fantastic; if they can't answer a question, you're asking the wrong question.

So far--and I only speak in my experience--if you want something to just play the disc, X-Box will do it. Other players will do upscaling and audio enhancement and all kinds of useful things but if a disc can be played at all, X-Box will play it. Of all my unrippables due to flaw or damage, The Two Towers was the only one where X-Box noped out and I have some truly tragic older DVDs. Even X-Men Apocalypse could--sometimes--get past that big error, but The Two Towers...yeah.

I keep meaning to try and re-rip The Two Towers. Not because it'll succeed now, but so I can watch the error logs more closely and see if I can identify the exact problem. From years of ripping, while it's the same error if there's a problem with the stream(s) or a physical problem with the disc, I've gotten the impression that a stream problem shows more lines of debug code than a physical disc problem because with video, it's trying to correct each bad second until it can't (and you get a line for each), but a disc error, it's shorter because it's reading the exact same area (and period of time) over and over and making a line for each failure. But it could be the opposite, tbh.

Weird yet true: a fast failure on a disc means it's dirty, not that its flawed. You would think the opposite, but no; every time it just nope-failed (and didn't stretch out in like five thousand debug lines and ten hours), I wiped it down with a static free cloth and it was fine. I couldn't see this magical dirt (and sometimes, we're talking about pristine discs straight from the case) but there you go. Which is why I almost always do a light wipe with a static free cloth when I first take it out.