Introduction
Have you ever had the "assistance" of a grandchild or neighbors child in helping you to change the DVD movie in your player? Somehow, the phrase "handle it only by the edges" does not seem to have any meaning to these children, as they handle your $24.95 DVD like a "Frisbee".
When the copyright laws were revised to bring them into the "digital age," you retained the right to make a backup copy of your purchased CDs, VHS tapes, and DVD movies. Although you were granted this right, the movie studios and record companies then decided to "copy protect" these disks, leaving you the "right" to produce a backup copy for your personal use, but attempting to negate your rights through their copy protection scheme.
If you have expensive DVD movies and CD collections that you prefer to protect from "sticky fingers" and just ordinary "wear and tear," you may be interested in this product.
What You Receive
You receive a CD of the program, a single page containing "Installation Instructions," which start with "3" Insert the CD into your CD-Rom Drive, "2" Click the button labeled "Install DVD X Copy" (Install Driver Files if necessary), and "1" Follow and complete the installation instructions.
Installation and Activation
When the installation is completed, you attempt to start the program by "double-clicking" on the icon the program places upon your desktop. You then must enter the ID and Password while on-line for the program to be activated; alternately, you may enter the ID and Password and then telephone, toll-free, the 321 Studios.
Apparently, you have three activations before you must contact the vendor, via e-mail, for additional installations. My attempt to activate the program initially failed with the program being unable to contact the server. However, this was at 2am on a Saturday morning and the server was probably down for maintenance. When I attempted to activate the program the following Sunday morning, the activation was essentially instantaneous.
Operation
When the program is initialized, you are greeted with a warning that it is illegal to copy items that you do not own. You must click on the "Agree" button to continue. Next, the main screen appears, you scroll down to a "start" button and if you have not already done so, you are asked to insert your DVD movie into the drive and click okay. If the movie automatically starts, you should let it play a few seconds before stopping and exiting the player.
The program will automatically determine if the movie will fit on a single 120 minute DVD disk or must be split into two parts. If splitting is required, the program will automatically select the split point, although you can manually specifiy where the split will take place.
Note the four choices you have for the way in which the movie starts. For a single disk movie copy, just accept the default selection. In the event you have a movie split into two disks, you may need to experiment with the choices for the second disk. Initially, my two-disk set started the second disk with the movie and the director’s commentary.
The "Advanced Options" button will allow you to enable session logging, selection of Nero Burn instead of the default DVD burning program, and, in the case of movies split into multiple discs, to skip the first disk and go immediately to the second disk; this is useful if you have copied only the first of two disks and then exited the program.
You will also need to select a location for the temporary output files with sufficient free disk space to hold the contents of the movie.
Initial Copy
Being either cheap or frugal, I made my first copy of a movie 117 minutes in length, fitting on a single disk, on a DVD-RW (just in case something when wrong) and the result was a perfect copy of the movie with a prepended notice that this is a copy made by the owner of the original for backup purposes only.
Conclusion and Recommendations
I found the program easy to install and use by following the on-screen prompts. There was no manual included, but I found that none was needed. The only installation problem that I encountered was in the activation of the program. I assumed that the server used for on-line activation was down for maintenance when I initially attempted to register. I would suggest that the company include that information on their one-page "Installation Instructions." For those without computer experience, the absence of any manual may limit the ease with which they may operate the program.
The program performs as advertised and I was pleased with the copies that it produced. I had one movie with some scratches that initially could not be read in order to make a copy; careful cleaning of this original did allow me to copy and recover this damaged movie.
Fair Use Rights
Currently some Hollywood executives are working to remove your "fair use rights" to make copies of your CDs, VHS tapes, and DVD movies. The movie producers and recording companies are speaking up now. If you want to retain "fair use" rights to make backup copies, let your representatives know your opinion. For further information, visit ProtectFairUse.org and let your voice be heard.
DVD X COPY
321 Studios
MSRP: $99.99
