Archiving software, Who's 1?

I found myself seeking a better solution than my present software allows me recently and wished to share that here and ask for input on what other’s do in this concern…. Or if at all?

Everybody making archiving software or anything else in todays market places are doing the best they can I’m sure. Sometimes however one’s best simply is not adequate. Enough. A couple such items IMO are DVD Cloner 9, and DVD ripper 2.0.

I would suggest those hunting for a solution to thwart video disc copy protections, and as well duplicate for private reasons, might want to side step these two apps. Their assertions and my experiences using them both were quite far off from each other in my actual trials of both..

At about $40 or so Cloner 9 seemed attractive especially because of the ‘declarations’ made by the feature & benefit lists each piece of soft ware publishes on their associated web sites. Also another Googled for, “Top Ten best cloning DVD software” searches resulted in exactly that and the title itself should perhaps have been a clue…. As it’s banner reads, “2012 Top ten best DVD Ripping …. Guess they have a crystal ball which reveals the future, or they’re quite optimistic their list will stand up throughout the upcoming year. You can read it for yourself here:

http://dvd-copy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

if you check out that site, and read the associated reviews, as did I, you’ll find DVD Cloner 9 ranked atop that list…. Who’ wrote the review still escapes me.

Fine. I gave #1 on the list (DVD Cloner 9) a shot as I’ve tried some of the others on that list already. a whirl I thought. Claims of a full refund aided my decision.

First and foremost, the claims of DVD Cloner 9’s built in decrypter which reads that it enables you to rip all of your own movies, and as well, virtually all the encrypted (retail) DVDs out there is as overly ambitious a statement as I’ve seen in a long time. Perhaps DVD Cloner 9 actually does jump over or defeat on board boundaries implanted into DVDs routinely. Maybe it was just my bad luck or merely the choices of DVDs I tried to test the software with. I can’t say 100% for sure the claims are indeed false, BUT fllowing 24 attempts to rip as many diverse DVDs, with only 2 being ‘seen’ or able to be duplicated and it’s less than perfunctory GUI and non intuitive process, I found it severely disappointing, cracking only two titles of the lot..

I tried easily a dozen old and about that number of recently released, DVDs…. A mix of retail flicks from my library and a few I had just bought. I tried too some former dupes of some classic titles I had already archived … for my own curiosity and these weren’t added into the counts of successes or failures. Which is a good thing for Cloner 9. Two in total, of both these group were able to be decrypted outright. That makes a grand total of two of 24. I’d say any claim made by DVD Cloner 9 about having some powerful built in copyright defense jumper is sadly not the case IMHO. Given my own tests using both DVD Cloner 9 and it’s cohort DVD Ripper 2.0. Both, by the way, ask/require you to pay for additional upgrades to have a shot at them being fully functional… quicker… etc. These necessary upgrades remain undisclosed until you completely install the items and begin to operate them.

Just my luck… I found possibly the only 22 titles DVD Cloner 9 & DVD Ripper 2.0 could not decrypt. Mama said there would be days like this.

Comparing the Cloner app aginst my registered version of 1 Clik Copy Pro.. and using DVD 43 (a free decrypter) as it’s ally in busting thru embedded walls on store bought discs, the 1 CCP + DVD 43 fared exceptionally well thru all but 1 disc (Green Lantern) which were plugged into my PC during this trial.

1CCP offers a 1:1 exact copy of a DVD be it onto a 5GB disc or a 9Gb Dual Layer relatively speaking, disc if needed. Or it can compres a larger sized movie onto a regular 4.7Gb DVD. It can remove most anything you desire of the DVDs title sets, Warnings, etc. It can yield only the main movie if you want stripping off all else, trailers, special features, etc. It can also do episodic (TV Shows) DVDs. It is quite handy providing exceptional visual and audio quality which ordinarily can not be discerned from the original disc! Some of the actions you can accomplish with 1CCP + DVD 43 are automatic, as their ad reads, ‘One click’ processes. I’ve enjoyed using it for some years.

DVD Cloner 9 did not fare as expected at all. Along with it’s system draining program and desperately non visually pleasing or functional GUI, it was a real chore to use. There are some issues with it surroundin installations on some sorts of PCs, as I came to find out later on from discussions with their support tech..

I uninstalled the app a few hours later and the next day by email, asked for a refund, which is an aspect advertised openly by the seller if you aren’t satisfied…. A FULL REFUND will be yours. That is of course, after you’ve exhausted yourself by online chatting with the SUPPORT arm of the company… and when THE Support team says you can get one as I was thereafter informed by an agent of the seller, from Herman Street!

I’ve received two emails from Herman St. that a refund was forthcoming, A credit/refund was given me quickly.

I did however find another one which appeared attractive. It actually lives up to it’s claims. It is a Brittish product named DVD FAB, or FAB DVD Copy.

http://www.dvdfab.com/

The DVD FAB download gives you a 30 day trial run for about every app they offer, and they offer a bunch of disc decrypting, encoding, decoding, bits for all discs… Yes. All discs. Blu ray too! PC and Mac as well I believe. They even offer a lifetime download and support for their all encompassing disc handler.

One cool thing is they don’t make you pay for it upfront either… only if you wish to keep it and register it…. That’s s it should be!

Wanna put a Blu ray onto a DVD? Wanna put several DVDs onto one Blu Ray blank disc? Wanna exact copy of any disc out there: Blu Ray, HD DVDs, DVD? Almost any way you can conjure up to rip encode, or burn a disc, DVD fab sells it.

DVD FAB however, works as promised though… the two drawbacks I found which gave me some pause were these …
1. DVD FAB copy & DVD FAB DVD Ripper are subscription based items, but then you’ll find most of the players in this industry are likewise.
2. On my 32 bit Pentium 4 3GHz CPU, and 4 Gigs of DDR RAM, it hangs up imtermittently as I migrate my mouse about it’s GUI clicking in or out whichever options I decide are best suited for my desired result. Obviously I’ve some conflict in shares or dedications to some other apps to look into.

It/they are both reliable. I haven’t received any coasters yet. The copy app is definitely quick. Start to finish takes roughly 20-30 minutes for a 9 DVD. Obviously the DVD copying app is quicker than the DVD Ripper (converter) which translates DVDs into WMV, AVI, MP4, MPG, MKV, etc., in hours, not minutes.

DVD Ripper has a number of dedicated conversion processes listed on it’s GUI. Ipod, iPhone, Nano, and several other portable devices, and you can customize just about any of them.
NOTE:
Any one particular app you may wish to try from DVD FAB comes in a complete singular download. It contains ALL their available software no matter which particular app you chose to download, so don’t worry when you see more than you bargained for get installed on your confuser or when you open the primary GUI DVD FAB QT 8,.

The Support team of DVD FAB, and 1 Click Copy Pro are reasonably accessible by email. Both responded to my queries more rapidly than does Cloner 9’s support arm.

A free solution for conversion & compression of DVDs is available too if you Google for ‘Any DVD Converter’ or just go to:

http://www.any-video-converter.com/

This is of course, if you are looking to convert raw dVD Vob files and retain much smaller sized files onto your devices/server/PC/Mac, etc. It is free… of course there are upgrades available. Available at extra cost. The free version works as advertised so far. The existing upgrades likely increase speed of conversion which BTW, is NOT blistering. Set it up for bed time operation as converting Apocolypse Now into AVI (part one), and then into WMV (part two) took some hours for each activity. About 3 in fact on a dual core Pentium E5300 2.6 - 3GHz CPU, with 4 GB of RAM. Ordinarily this is the music server in my main system and it’s the snappiest personal confuser on tap here. It’s also the least used.

As 1CCP + DVD 43 won’t decrypt some newer DVDs such as those often coming out now from Disney, Paramount and 20th Century, another solution was required. A secondary thought was for streaming these files once laid onto the hard drive of my personal confusers, and in both raw, uncompressed sorts and those with compression such as the newH264, MKV, and XDIVX containers.I wanted to replay them thru an Oppo BDP 93 or merely from my existing assortment of PCs so something more handy and fully featured with better decryption was required IMHO.

At about $70 US DVD FAB gives you both a DVD ripper which rips into a variety of compressed file containers, and a quick relatively easy to operate DVD duplicator which defys current built in DVD copying prevention measures. It can be yours for saving and gleaning more versatility from our shiny ‘spensive video fare, for 2 years before they come calling for a renewal fee.

For me and for now, DVD FAB Copy is the default app. … until some other app comes along which costs less and does as great a job.
Soooo….. what app have you been using or have found to do an exemplary job saving your video discs?

Or does DVD archiving present itself as an erstwhile endeavor at all?

Thanks much.