Hello, I am a computer newbie, please forgive my lame questions. Is DVD X Copy by 321 Studios the best or easiest way to make DVD to DVD+R backups? Thanks from a NewB
Hi, Digibop.. Not definite.DvDXcopy just one of the solution of making Dvd's duplication. There are many others s/w available to do the same task. However, for novice like u may consider this "one stop" solution (meaning that this s/w will perform multiple task such as ripping(decss) plus others and finally cum burning the blank media for you) hence will take you significant times to complete a disc(say hollywood movie) depending of the types (DVD-5 OR DVD-9) you have put in. This price for DVDxCopy will be US$99/- and a bit lengthy in times to perform the task. You may try another s/w (which I presently used) -- DVDCloner 1.95 selling at $US49.90 which is able to perform the same task and much efficient in term of times. Do check out the concerned website at www.dvdcloner.com Hope my advice will help you in choosing the right/suitable s/w you needed most. Regards keetoon
Smartripper 2.41 [free] DVD Shrink [free] ...and whatever burning software you have. That's just an alternative way.
I have used DVD X Copy since the first release. I gets worse with each release. Whenever , on rare occasions that the burn process completes successfully, the video will freeze during playback, requiring a reboot. Usually the burn process fails at some point. When the program was first released, the support was excellent. Now the support is almost non existent. I tried quite a few alternatives, both pay and free. I finally found an excellent FREE program that WORKS every time, DVD SHRINK, the best! If anyone wants more info, email me at: [Sorry, email address removed by loaded] Big AL
I dont know why people dont try the free software sometimes instead of $99 or whatever stupid price DVDXcopy were after. $99 and it gives you a warning screen & all sorts dvdXcopy is surely finished...? [bold];-]-~[/bold]
I have tried dvd shrink. What a program. And it works every time The program I was looking for info on by the way was copydvdpro. Cheers
Hi Herbman we met on the other forum with Laboy. I appologize for giving out a bad recommendation on that thread for using CopyDVDPRO, I have now animately retracted any further referrels to this company. I have had several issues with their package that they were not able to resolve. I agree 200% that DVDShrink is a great program. It is fast, easy and I have yet to have the program fail. It includes a very fast encoder (less than an hour for most DVDs!) if needed. CopyDVDPRO technical support did not help me with resolving my main issues with DVD decoding, authoring and encoding and burning and playing. These problems were related to write errors (they said it was Sony firmware - actually we had to find out on our own that it was the Hypermedia discs) and audio dropout on playback, audio sync, black screens - general (playability). While, they have an excellent tutorial (and a site that has most of the software required with links to other software such as DVDDecrypter) which is primarily what you are paying for since all the software they ask you to download is freeware. In fact today I read an email from COPYDVDPROthat they have stopped my technical support! I had many DVDs that would not play in my standalone DVD player for one reason or other (audio breakup, audio sync, black screens). I switched to DVDShrink using a Sony Vaio PCG-GRX550 and Sony DRX500ULX with firmware upgrade and using either 2.4X DVD+Rs: Verbatim or Fuji with 14 successful burns. I had many coasters with Copy DVD Pro. Here is the exact text of my last email to them and their response. Maybe I am wrong but I would never again recommend their package. I again apologize for making the reccomendation to use Copy DVD Pro ... we had issues with their package and they have now declined further technical support: My (lost track) query and their abrupt and final response. Bottom line is they cut off my technical support!!!! ________________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: Maizitis@aol.com [mailto:Maizitis@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 7:16 AM To: gregory@copydvdpro.com Subject: Re: Refund Gregory: Your advertisement states: "Our guarantee is straight forward. We stand behind our packages because we know they work and we support you after the sale. In the rare case that your hardware configuration isn't supported, we'll promptly refund your purchase." 1. We had provided you with information that our discs would not burn and you stated that was a firmware issue with the Sony DRX500ULX. This was not true in our case and we resolved the issue outside of your technical support. In that case NERO did not burn the discs successfully ... Record DX did. You stated (RE: 4/8/2003 9:14:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time): "I know that if a customer can't burn a DVD with Nero, I really shouldn't feel too bad because Nero is the defacto burning tool and it's supposed to be compatible with everything, but I do feel like crap and I always refund the purchase.". Not clear why you are not refunding our money. 2. We provided Copy DVD Pro technical support with information that many of the DVDs we burned would not play in our standalone player. All you offered was that we visit your competitor's site to view their forums for support on our issues. Copy DVD Pro did not provide technical support. 3. We requested information on converting PAL to NTSC as none of these would play on our players after conversion. You stated (RE: 4/21/2003 9:32:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time): "We don't have any information in our tutorials to help you convert PAL to NTSC." At the time of the sale there was no disclaimer that Copy DVD Pro was NTSC specific. 4. None of the DVDs processed through your tutorial will play in our standalone player. Those processed through DVDShrink will play. Therefore our hardware configuration isn't supported by Copy DVD Pro. Your software has been removed from our PC. We again request a refund. We have made an appointment with legal council. Pete Maizitis _______________________________________________ Subj: RE: Refund Date: 5/8/2003 6:31:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: gregory@copydvdpro.com To: Maizitis@aol.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Pete, I checked the 18 emails that I (Gregory) sent you, none of them contain the information you provided in your first point (1). You got a little creative with my words and added some of your own, my original words were: "I've done some looking on the Sony website and a lot of other forums (not to mention all the customers of mine that own the DRU500) and there are some serious firmware issues with this drive. Many sites that sell DVDs also tell you that you'll need to update the firmware before their recordable DVD media will work with this drive. Nero is the defacto standard in DVD burning and you're telling me you have trouble with it, I'm not surprised. I wish I have an answer for you other than make sure you've got the latest firmware in the writer. Also, I've read that you have to disable the DMA on the drive controller before you do the firmware upgrade, so be careful. I will say that I've got several customers who've been successful making copies with this drive after getting the latest firmware, so I'm confident that it's possible to use this writer, but I'm not an expert on the drive myself." From what I can see, there is a reference to Nero not being able to burn a DVD, however you are not required to use Nero and we recommend using DVD Decrypter together with ImgTools as the primary method of burning a DVD. If you had provided evidence of not being able to burn with DVD Decrypter to me, I would have refunded your purchase as I always do when there is a hardware compatibility issue that prevents a customer from using the software. Instead however you provided me the following: "Actually the issue was not so much the firmware but the Hypermedia discs. It is just curious and Sony has no answer why only the 1st 6 could be burned. I did the firmware upgrade and it did not help. In one case I had success making a data disc with the included Veritas Record Now DX software (drop the whole video subdirectory into folders).I switched to Verbatim DVD+Rs 2.4X and they work great so far. I will also be trying the Fuji DVD+Rs 2.4X ." This indicated to me that your problem was actually related to bad media. You can't expect me to be responsible for bad media. 2) Support comes in many forms, we don't claim to possess all the answers for software we didn't write. In this case however I did not send you to a competitors forum page looking for answers, I only mentioned that you are not the only one to have trouble copying a DVD, some DVDs are simply too difficult to copy no matter which tool you possess, including the competitions. I said you could confirm this if you looked on their forum pages. You have a knack for putting a spin on the original content of each email, which I preserve for cases such as this. We don't have all the answers, this is not the definition of support. Support is there to help you, we can't hold your hand through every step and make sure you do everything right. 3) You can copy a PAL DVD or an NTSC DVD, the tools we provide do both. Conversion between formats is not something we show you how to do, since none of the tools provide this capability. We don't make any claims that you can convert a DVD from one format to another. 4) DVD Shrink does not come with a burning tool, so if you can burn a "VIDEO_TS" folder with whatever tool you are using, you can do so with the "VIDEO_TS" folder produced by our tutorials. You said yourself that they played perfectly in WinDVD, which is all anyone can expect. After that, it's a question of media compatibility and quality and of course your standalone DVD player's ability to effectively player recordable media. Your "hardware configuration" doesn't include your television, your fridge and stove, nor your standalone DVD player, only your computer and the ability to use the software on it to copy a DVD. We don't guarantee you can play a DVD, only that you can copy one. All of this comes as somewhat of a surprise given the fact that on 5/4/2003 you said the following: "Hi Gregory: Just wanted to say what a great tutorial ... I keep it open as I do my processing ... very informative for this complex process." This came after all the problems you had and you only changed your tone once you found another shareware tool that it easier to use. If you buy a computer today, then in 3 weeks a better and cheaper model comes out, you can't expect the manufacturer to give you a refund. Since we don't have any control over the copying process once it's in your hands and since we can't guarantee that every tool will work flawlessly, we warn you of this in the disclaimer and you have to agree to it before you purchase the product, you did. A refund will not be forthcoming, neither will any more correspondence from our company since you have obtained far more support than anyone I've ever dealt with, and I don't want the rest of my customers to have to wait unnecessarily for their answers. Free support is not for an indefinite time, yours has run out. Gregory."
I'm sorry to hear of your woes Pete regarding software purchase. Hope all is well now at least. Cheers for posting responses you got from them as it will be (I believe) a deterent to anybody else purchasing this rip off [bold]CopyDVDPro[/bold] If I can help any , just shout : )
I fell for DVD COPY Pro and an even worse program called DVD Sqeeze. I was lucky to get refunds from both and I advise everyone to avoid these. I have had the best results using DVD Shrink to rip to my hard drive and then Nero to burn to DVD. My second choice is the newly released DVD X Copy Xpress.I also tried Pinnacle Instant Copy and returned that also.If anyone wants more info, just email me: BigAL@computer-rescue.net
Hi herbsman: Thanks for the support and encouragement and condolences. I only regret having made the recommendation to Laboy to get COPYDVDPRO (probably owe him a beer when I am in Dayton on the 19th). Hopefully we can get the message to him in time. Dummy me for not trying out the COPYDVDPRO processed (Nero burn) DVDs in my Malata first. They don't play. Those I processed with DVDSHRINK and with Nero burn play flawlessly in all my DVD players. ___________________________________ Hi al92lt1: Much thanks for your supporting statements. I would be curious how you were able to get a refund out of COPYDVDPRO as they refused a refund to me. My credit card company has processed a credit card refund for me. We have turned this matter also over to the IFCC and AOL TOSREPORTS as we now consider this to be international fraud. Just in summary what COPYDVDPRO stated in their last email to me: 1. "You got a little creative with my words and added some of your own, my original words were...." I used all direct quotes from their emails which I saved for the authorities and their website which I saved mht copies also for the authorities. 2. "From what I can see, there is a reference to Nero not being able to burn a DVD, however you are not required to use Nero and we recommend using DVD Decrypter together with ImgTools as the primary method of burning a DVD. If you had provided evidence of not being able to burn with DVD Decrypter to me, I would have refunded your purchase as I always do when there is a hardware compatibility issue that prevents a customer from using the software." Then why do files from DVDSHRINK burned with Nero play fine? I did not use DVDDECRYPTER intentionally because it is plainly stated that it may not support all burners. Nero does. And COPY DVDPRO provides a demo copy of NERO and instructions on burning a DVD with Nero. Lame! 3. "Support comes in many forms, we don't claim to possess all the answers for software we didn't write. In this case however I did not send you to a competitors forum page looking for answers, I only mentioned that you are not the only one to have trouble copying a DVD, some DVDs are simply too difficult to copy no matter which tool you possess, including the competitions. I said you could confirm this if you looked on their forum pages. You have a knack for putting a spin on the original content of each email, which I preserve for cases such as this. We don't have all the answers, this is not the definition of support. Support is there to help you, we can't hold your hand through every step and make sure you do everything right." But now they will not provide me support. And the support they did provide for DVDs that did not process properly was: "IFOEdit isn't perfect at when it comes to capturing cell times and then authoring the chapters on the DVD, it's gets mixed up sometimes depending on how the DVD is layed out. It's a complex thing and many people underestimate just how hard it is to copy a DVD. Even a mature product like DVDXCopy has all kinds of issues with many DVDs, it's surprising really. We are still in a stage where the unlike MP3, we can't just expect every copy to work well. Having said that, I've copied over 300 films and I've run into very few problems using my favorite method: Remove Extras, then compress with TMPGEnc. I know this isn't very comforting for you, but the fact is we can copy most DVDs, but not all." 4. "After that, it's a question of media compatibility and quality and of course your standalone DVD player's ability to effectively player recordable media. Your "hardware configuration" doesn't include your television, your fridge and stove, nor your standalone DVD player, only your computer and the ability to use the software on it to copy a DVD. We don't guarantee you can play a DVD, only that you can copy one." I never heard that "hardware" did not include the standalone player! Then why do files processed through DVDSHRINK and burned through Nero play fine on a standalone player and those through COPYDVDPRO do not? 5. "Since we don't have any control over the copying process once it's in your hands and since we can't guarantee that every tool will work flawlessly, we warn you of this in the disclaimer and you have to agree to it before you purchase the product, you did." But their sales website states: "DVDXCopy offer a "Free Bonus" and a "Risk Free Trial" to hype their product. The reality is they retract this offer just before you purchase by slipping in a few carefully placed words on their purchase page. That's right, they tell you that the bonus offer and risk free trial don't apply to the "download" version of the package, which is what everybody wants. Check here: Studio 123's "Risk Free Trial" and Bonus Offer (Note the text in red at the bottom of the page.)Our bonus offer is for real, you get the bonus package when you download it. Our guarantee is straight forward. We stand behind our packages because we know they work and we support you after the sale. In the rare case that your hardware configuration isn't supported, we'll promptly refund your purchase." This is the first time I heard that hardware did not include the player, whether standalone or not! Also, we did not receive a refund! 6. "A refund will not be forthcoming, neither will any more correspondence from our company since you have obtained far more support than anyone I've ever dealt with, and I don't want the rest of my customers to have to wait unnecessarily for their answers. Free support is not for an indefinite time, yours has run out." Correction: A refund will be forthcoming. Also, not sure where their TOS are that restrict technical support! ___________________________________________________________ Hope this provides anyone considering COPYDVDPRO with some more insight into the organization they will be dealing with. Conclusion: COPYDVDPRO has a great tutorial but there are great tutorials out there that you do not have to pay for. And you can get freeware that will process DVDs. Files processed by DVDSHRINK and burned through Nero consistently played on my PC as well as standalone DVD player. The majority of DVDs processed through COPYDVDPRO tutorial and burned through Nero did not play consistently (sync issues, black screens, audio breakup). Shame on COPYDVDPRO! Buyer beware! Kudos to DVDSHRINK!
I requested my refund within minutes of paying and regisrering. As soon as I saw what a P.O.S. this program was.Maybe that's why I was lucky. I have now settled on 2 methods of DVD copying: 1. DVD Shrink and NERO or 2. DVD X Copy XPRESS Method 1 has performed perfectly 100% of the time. Method 2 is faster, easier and simpler but the playback freezes occasionally, requiring a reboot. This only happens about 1-2% of the time. I would be glad to help anyone further-just email me: BigAL@computer-rescue.net_X_X_X_X_X_[small]Alan E Scher[/small]
Hi al92lt1: Thanks for the information ... at least they cooperated with you. I have had to get the national and international authorities involved. I am also cooresponding on the DVDSHRINK site as well and giving them feedback (all positive). I think they have a cutting edge software package despite some of the detractors. I really love their program! Have a fantastic weekend!
Hi al92lt1: With greatest respect to the excellent folks and forums on Afterdawn you can see the latest discussion on DVDSHRINK at: http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19027 Hope this helps ... this program is excellent.
