I noticed that 321 Studios in compliance with court orders have removed the "ripping" feature of their software products. I went there, and on their home site you needed to select and specifically read press releases, or articles on the subject to understand that the new "RF" designation in the software name meant "Ripper Free" and this is on the HOME page of the company. On the product page for each of their products, there is NO MENTION of what RF means. It states copying DVDs are a one click function, it mentions keeping original menu structure, mentions able to keep trailers and special features etc. In other words, the product page is NOW MISLEADING and the casual passerby will get the impression that this a product that will allow them to back up their DVD collection of encrypted discs and no where in the description (on the product page)does it tell any one differently. I also notice that DVD XCopy Platinum still costs $149.00 which is exactly the same as before, but now the product only does half of what it use to do. NOW the product is no different than Intervideo's DVD Copy, Elby's CloneDVD and I am sure several more but costs more than twice as much, PLUS the other products do not "phone home" and engage with two way communication with the mother ship as 321 Studios products do. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? You hobble the product to make it do less, and keep the price the same and for what? A product that every time it is started, calls home and as the manual says matches the s/n to a database........reading between the lines, keeps track of you, and who knows what else the communication is conveying. I was getting leery of purchasing any 321 Studio products earlier, now that one has to pay twice the price for the same punch as other programs......just let me say, "Buyer Beware", Do your research, there are now better products at better prices and 321 studios products are now not a one button process, does not copy encrypted disks and is about as worthless as much of the other retail packages with out help from some well known drivers that deliver decryption services. _
321 has no choice in the matter at present, their and American company based in the US, The have a very good product, lets all hope the are able to get a injuction to allow them to continue selling there great product while they fight for our rights to copy our purchased DVD movies. Cheers BTW if you mistakenly downloaded the latest version with the RF, if you followed instructions you still have your previous version installed just use it. If you didn't buy in time. Just hope we win our right to copy Cheers Clint
They do not have a choice at the moment about removing the ripping feature. They DO have a choice about the selling price. Re-Read my post. Their products now do half as than they did, and cost the same as before. This makes the programs two to three times as expensive as and NO BETTER than other copying programs available for purchase.
True, Myself I have down loaded a free ripper and continue using XCopy latest version with RF, but looking at CloneDVD real hard Cheers
Please forgive my ignorant. Without "ripping", what does this product do? My understanding of such products is they transcode and burn DVDs to DVD-R. In order to transcode, you have to rip first and re-encode. Correct me if I am wrong.
You are not wrong. However, you are looking at only ONE side of a coin with your observations. What good are 321 Studio's programs now? Well certainly if you are in the market to make legal backups of commercially produced movies which you have purchased, they are no good what so ever....on their own. One can purchase an additional program that will do what their programs USE to do before the courts stepped in. This is point of my thread here. 321 studios were made to stop producing programs that would side step the copy protection feature of all DVDs marketed, yet they have not lowered their price! Neither do their individual product page make references to the fact that they do NOT work with copy protected DVDs. Now for the other side of the coin, there IS a market (albeit very slim) and a need to copy other type of DVDs (those which YOU have created and own rights to) which make 321 studios and other software of its kind a useful tool. However, once again, 321 studio products are NOW extremely over priced for what they NOW DO. Buyer beware. Read everything you can get your hands on, because if you do not know, and you go to http://www.dvdxcopy.com you will see all kinds of claims that are simply no longer true which would lead you to believe their programs will copy ANY DVD out there PLUS pay twice the price for the mis-represented software.
Word of note: Since I started this thread, 321 Studios has finally updated their individual product pages to alert consumers that their products do not copy CSS protected DVDs. Kudos to them for doing this, however, now the issue is their price still reflects the old product that did twice as much as they do now.
Yep you are right, My guess is that 321 will get an injuction soon and be able to sell their full product, it can still be used as is with out there ripper installed, you just have to use another ripper search for "DVD Decrypter" if you have alreadyn purchased, if not you might as well wait until they reinsert the ripper or try to find an older version, or another product.
just get the freeware DVD43 and it'll work the same. u can use anydvd too. I really don't think it's too much of an issue in regard to how the program works. Not when u can replace the ripper with a freeware prog that'll make it work the same. As to 321 not advertising it all over there site, that's business for u. Now if your talking about consumer rights then that's another ball game
Well I am going to get out of this thread, Guess I was just trying to help out 321 since they are on the fore front of defending our right to make leagle copies of our purchased movies. I personaly bought in when prices were much lower for their product. There product acutaly worked where others didn't, I am perfectly capable of ripping, mastering and burning movies, with several free products on the marked. However it was very convient to have it all in one easy package. I appricate 321 for doing this for the general public. And I appricate the fact that they are fighting this for us. I also will point out that several vendors out there still have boxed packages of their product w/ripper. Sam's, and Best Buy that I know of for sure. Cheers
