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RealNetworks To Introduce a Simple DVD Copier
langelgjm writes "The New York Times reports that RealNetworks will begin selling RealDVD today, a software program designed to make copying DVDs a trivial task for the average user. Unlike free alternatives, which generally require some technical knowledge and make it difficult to copy an entire DVD with extras, etc., RealDVD claims to be able to copy the entire DVD, menus and all. While sure to raise the ire of Hollywood, the program does have significant limitations: the DVDs it makes will only be playable on the computer where they were created; or, users can pay $20 per computer to play the DVDs on up to five additional computers."
If it won't produce something that will play on a standard stand-alone DVD player, then IT'S NOT A DVD AND THIS IS NOT A "DVD Copier." This is just a ripper that adds an annoying layer of DRM to the files (umm...no thanks). And you get to pay for the privilege, no less. Woo hoo!
There are any number of one-button DVD rippers that are just as good, just as simple, and produce an actual DVD. And many of them are free. DVDfab is just one example. It produces an actual DVD, it's as simple as it gets to use, and it doesn't cost a dime (unless you want the premium version).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Let me know when this DVD copier actually lets me copy DVDs that can be played on a DVD Player.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
AnyDVD + DVD shrink is brain dead easy to use if you really want to copy all the crap on the DVD.
Want just the movie on your laptop use handbrake. easy as pie.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
you mean like dvdshrink?
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
If this is a Slashvertisement, they've got the audience wrong. I'm pretty sure everyone here knows how to copy a DVD without having to pay 20 bucks to Real Networks
Make It Secret Protect your privacy
It uses DRM. No way can it be simple.
It's still a DVD and still a CD. However, if you add DRM to a CD it cannot bear the Compact Disk Digital Audio symbol since it violates the Red Book specification. DVD is also the same in the sense that it wouldn't allowed to be called DVD Video because it wouldn't be following the standard set aside for it. DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) is still the name of the actual medium being written to.
Attempting to bilk people for $30 software that makes a DRM'd copy of a movie just isn't going to fly when free and non-free tools already exist that rip DVDs to any format you like. Especially when Real Networks is reknowned for producing bloated spyware laced crap. If you want to go free, find DVD Decrypter & Handbrake and you can rip and encode movies suitable for a variety of formats and devices. If you want non-free then use AnyDVD and Nero Recode. The tools are not as simple as they could be but they work and they work extremely well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Two step process for me. Mac The Ripper to decrypt/rip the entire DVD (menus and all) to a VIDEO_TS folder on my hard drive. Insert CD, click a button. Not too technical.
From there I can use VLC to play it as much as I want on any computer I copy it to. Can have a large HD full of complete DVDs immediately accessible. (and there are apps that will jukebox them for you)
From there I have to use a commercial app like Roxio's Toast to burn it to a physical CD, that works in a real DVD player. But Toast has always been a very good product, worth the coin. Drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder into Toast and click burn. Only slightly more technical procedure than MTR.
Did I mention MTR strips out the NOOPs ("operation not permitted" when trying to FF past the FBI warning etc) and also removes region coding, during the rip?
Who on earth would pay for REALcrap?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The question is why one would use this program?
The timing couldn't have been more perfect. I have these 4,000-odd clips I need to save from this website...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink. How hard is it, really?
I could teach my wife to do that in about five minutes. As an added bonus, it's free, it removes region protection, it removes UOP's (possibly the most annoying part of the DVD format to most people), keeps all the menus, shrinks it onto the cheaper single-layer DVD-R's with virtually zero visible difference and it doesn't have silly restrictions. A program with silly restrictions to stop a particular format from having silly restrictions?
I just backed up a couple of my boxsets using this because they were slightly damaged when we took them on holiday with us and I don't want to pay for them again if we do damage them. The majority of the time was spent looking at a little window wending its way through the DVD and swapping discs (I only had the one DVD-writer drive plugged in at the time and had to swap original for blank constantly).
I even did it using WINE because the PC with the writer was a home Linux server, and it worked perfectly. I very much doubt you could make it THAT much simpler, except possibly joining the two programs together and incurring the wrath of the DVD industry by doing so (does this software strip region-protection? It doesn't mention it).
I can't see anybody using this... people "in-the-know" enough to distinguish between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM etc. and who know that this "is possible" are probably already doing it. I can't even get my parents to copy their CD's before they scratch them and that's a one-click operation. I can't see them doing it for their DVD's even if it's a one-click operation with this software. And, to be honest, I'd rather show them the "two-click" method that gets rids of the UOPS because that would astound them and they would kill to have that feature on their existing DVD's.
It's really lame that they make stuff like DVDDecrypter illegal but still insist on sticking to the region encoding crap. In the US, the only way I can get some foreign content is to purchase it from a foreign location and use DVDDecrypter to get rid of the region encoding so I can actually view it using my region 1 DVD player.
Why is it that in a so-called "global economy" we are limited to buying and viewing DVDs produced for our own region without circumventing the encryption on the disc (thereby technically violating the DMCA)?
When's the last time Real mattered? They chose the wrong path a long, long time ago and something as stupid as an automatic DRM inserter doesn't get them headed in the right direction. This company seems to have no clue about the realities of digital content use and management.
I don't think anyone was questioning why anyone would want to copy DVD's - just why they'd want to do so with this program. Doing so with the free stuff out there isn't THAT hard. When you figure that this software introduces DRM, locks to a single computer, and then tries to extort out $20 for the right to play on more computers, it's a pretty lousy deal.
PARTICULARLY nasty is the fact that Real seems to think that they can use DRM extortion tactics on content that don't own. That's a situation that is true regardless of whether or not the media is even pirated. If it's a major studio film, then Real has no legal ability to extra money from restricting rights to that. OR, even if it's just your wedding DVD you're copying - you are legally fine to copy it but you own the copyright yourself and Real has no legal right to restrict your usage of it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
What I need is a program that can automate that process so I can (for example) quickly and easily insert a Stargate DVD, and come back an hour later to 4 episode AVIs on my C: drive.
i=1
for title in {3,5,7,8}; do
mencoder "dvd://$title" -o "episode_$i.avi";
i=$(($i+1));
done
The problem with DVD shrink is that development stopped even before ARCoSS, which means that many newever DVDs can not be ripper directly without additional software. You can eiuther use DVD Decrypter (which is free, but introdues a very cumbersome step into the mix) or you can buy AnyDVD which sits just above the driver level and makes the DVD in the drive appear as a normal unencrypted, non copy-protected DVD. So even with DVDShrink, which is probably the best thing out there in my opinion, you either waste time or money, which is really the same thing anyway.
Brilliant- I just sent that code to my mom so now she'll be able to rip all of her DVDs on her Dell. Couldn't be simpler.