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by PCC Member Jan Fagerholm, DVD Dervish
DVD Copy Platinum software copies CD-ROMs and DVDs.
It does simple copying as well as transcoding CDs and DVDs to other video formats.
Features one-pass copying disk-to-disk.
Minimum system - 600 MHz Pentium III, 128 MB RAM. Recommended system - 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, 256 MB RAM.
Review system - 3 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, Sony DWU12A DVD writer.
The program comes in three versions, DVD Copy Silver, Gold, and Platinum. DVD Copy Platinum is reviewed here.
The Review:
So, you’ve filled your hard drive with movies from that new digital camcorder and now you’s like to put them on DVD. Or maybe you’ve amassed a costly collections of DVD movies and CD-ROM games for your kids, and you’d like some protection against scratching them. Or, you’d just like to back up your own collection of movies against disaster. InterVideo DVD Copy Platinum is a CD-ROM and DVD copy program that answers these needs.
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DVD Copy Platinum is InterVideo’s entry into the CDROM and DVD disk copying field. If you have a DVD drive on your PC, you may be familiar with their popular WinDVD player software. DVD Copy Platinum is their entry in the DVD copying field. It has the ability to copy CD-ROMs, DVDs, and hard disk files to DVD disks, CDR/ RW disks, or your hard drive. For writing, it supports any flavor of DVD disk that your burner can handle. If copy disks was all DVD Copy did, it would just be an overpriced copy program. Its copy capabilities are worthwhile, but it’s the other things it does that are interesting. Consider the following scenarios: |
1. You simply want to make a copy of a DVD movie that you have on a disk. Copy DVD is fast because it is one of only two products on the market that does one-pass copying of DVDs without creating an image file on the hard drive first.
2. You want to copy a DVD movie to the hard drive on your laptop, so you can watch the movie while you travel.
3. You want to copy a movie DVD, but you don’t have a DVD burner. Copy DVD will transcode the movie to other formats, so it can be burned to ordinary CD-R disks.
DVD Copy is particularly useful if you don’t have a DVD burner. While DVD drives for playback have been standard equipment on PCs for two years now, DVD burners remain fairly pricey, still about $300 for a quality dual standard drive. DVD Copy will allow you to transcode DVDs (Change from DVD format to some other), saving the files to hard disk or burning them directly to ordinary CDR disks. Let me be real clear about one thing, though; you cannot use DVD Copy to make copies or to transcode CSS-encrypted movies (like the ones you rent from the video store). However, I have used it to transcode several older movies on DVD that were not CSS encrypted, using DivX to fit them to one CD-R disk, and the resulting video is excellent.
DVD Copy’s draw is its simplicity. When you start the program, you are presented with a small windows that is organized much like a flow chart. There are basically only three steps: choose a source, choose a destination, choose a format; then push the go button. On the way from step 3 to the go button, there is a settings button which will open up a window where you can control the output. Step 3 is the only potentially confusing step because you have to decide on output format. That requires some prior knowledge. You need to know what DVD, VCD, SVCD, DivX, and M-DVD are. The Help file offers comprehensive explanations of the different standards handled by DVD Copy. DVD Copy is unique as the only DVD copying program that will transcode to DivX.
M-DVD is a feature found only in the Platinum version. You can select several titles from different disks or from files on your hard drive and merge them onto a single DVDdisk, and a DVD menu is automatically created for each title on the disk - a nice professional-looking touch for collecting video clips.
The settings window is surprisingly simple. You are presented with tabbed property sheets that let you make simple choices about each of the output formats. Options are few, but DVD Copy gets away with not having many adjustments available because its built-in copy routines and transcoding are very good. There is also a fly-out view box on the side that lets you see a thumbnail preview of the video files you’ve selected, which helps if the file name is less than descriptive. For transcoding, it produces better video quality than any of its Windows competitors I’ve used, though Linux software still rules the day on this issue.
DVD Copy Platinum is probably the best DVD copying program available for the Windows platform. It offers the best quality and the fastest speeds available behind a stone-simple interface. Its range of copying and transcoding options make it useful for a variety of projects. It’s one-of a kind M-DVD merge feature is unmatched by any of its competitors. It’s the only DVD copy program that supports DivX.
DVD Copy is like most DVD copying and transcoding software on the Windows platform - it does not copy or transcode CSS-encrypted DVDs. If you are looking for something to copy movies that you rent from BlockBuster, don’t look here. Even though some of the narrower court rulings on CSS decryption software were reversed late last year, you are not likely to find DeCSS in any of your DVD copying software anytime soon. There are still copyright issues that software makers don’t want to expose themselves to.
InterVideo’s DVD Copy Platinum is simply one of the best DVD utilities on the market. Get it. Now.
DVD Copy Platinum |
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Last Updated on May 1, 2005 6:05 PM by Webmaster