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Please note that some, if not many of the links on this page may be broken. This is just an archived copy of the news for this month. We cannot guarantee that the links will work because we remove old versions as we update. For the newest software releases please always refer to the main news and software pages. If you really need a file then please contact us and we'll do our best to help.

Date News
2/28 It looks like I didn't post the CCE Basic link yesterday so here is it again: CCE Basic info and download site. MPEG2Cut 1.15 has experimental VOB and MPEG2 video only cutting support, has AC3 playback, audio track selection during playback has been implemented and a bigger I/O buffer is used which should speed things up.
2/27 ImgTools 1.00.2 uses NeroAPI 5.5.9.14 - thus requires at least Nero 5.5.9.14 - it has better handling for non empty media, there's a button which will actualize the write speed upon inserting a new media and more burning options have been added in the other settings dialog. AVI-Mux GUI 1.12 fixes some bugs leading to crashes, should no longer create Open-DML which cannot be played in certain players, DTS muxing should work now, some more settings have been added and last but not least there's scripting functionality. Last but not least there's XMPEG 5.0 alpha2 and something I forgot yesterday. Cinemacraft has not only released CCE SP 2.67 - which by the way is still in beta status - but also CCE Basic. This new CCE version is to replace CCE lite and extend the featureset of the latter considerably. It has the same user interface as CCE SP, offers all functionality of CCE lite and additionally it supports 2 pass CBR and VBR, inverse 3:2 pulldown and ships with a Premiere Plugin. And the price makes the quality - remember that more passes = better quality up to a certain threshold - and speed of CCE affordable for everyone.
2/26 DoCCE4U 1.0.0.3 fixes a problem loading registry entries on W2K and has some additions in the settings dialog. CCE SP 2.67 is out. There's a new 1st pass of multipass VBR encoding mode, a multipass CBR mode, the upper field first option has been removed but there's a new offset field that seems to be doing pretty much the same. The new version is also not final despite the version number increase so use it with moderation. There's also a new tool adding ECL functionality to the CCE 2.66 version called EclCCE. It can be found in the CCE forum.
2/25 ImgTool 1.00.1 allows you to change the burning speed even after inserting a new disc, and it contains minor changes in the help file. MPEG2Cut 1.14 is now based on DVD2AVI 1.76 which means it's much faster and uses less CPU time and it should be less buggy. Preview and playback can also be stopped and restarted using the associated button now. Menuedit is a tool to delete (as in make inactive) edit buttons in DVD menus. You can find more info about it in the IfoEdit forum.
2/24 There's a new release of DoItFast4U which fixes a subtitle problem (1 frame per subtitle). The version number is still the same, the next version will then feature a full blown bitrate calculator and possibly full CCE encoding facilities based on DoCCE4U, the fully automated "take avs, encode in CCE & apply pulldown where required" tool. ChopperXP 2.3 is a VOB cutting tool with preview facilities. DVDToolbox is a new program allowing you to strip and split DVDs. It allows you to pick content you do not want on the final disc, then tells you how large your disc is going to be and in the end it can perform those stripping operation or split the DVD onto 2 DVD±Rs if you just can't get size down enough to fit on a single DVD±R.
2/23 Toolame 0.2k supports unlimited input filesizes, the end of the bitstream is fixed allowing to concatenate two MP2 files, the VBR mode is now stable, lower sampling frequency encoding also works with psy model 2 and some speedups have been made. The latest BeSweet beta already supports the new TooLame which makes it the first multipurpose audio encoding tool to use TooLame for MP2 encoding.
2/22 VirtualDub 1.5.1 fixes a number of bugs, has an improved audio filter dialog, has two additional audio filters: split and mix, in capturing mode it's possible to launch the Windows Volume control and saving segmented AVIs now attempts to cut before a keyframe in direct stream copy mode. MPEG2Cut is an MPEG2 cutter based on DVD2AVI. Dark Avenger has added code to allow wave output for the first MPA stream and fixed some bugs in the original release.
2/21 DVDx 2.2 contains 4:3 corrections in the GUI, improved monitoring, incorrect timing due to NTSC input has been fixed, there's a new codec management for AVI output, AVI output settings are now saved and there have been improvements in the 2 pass encoding area. Last but not least there's a new rate control for the internal MPEG encoder to better prevent VBV underflows and overflows. There's also a small update to DVD2One, it uses a new registration system since Outlook couldn't handle the registration emails sent out.
2/19 DVD2One 1.0.1 is out. It fixes some bugs, adds the ability to select a destination size (so your menus, etc can also be placed on the disc), supports a DVD burning program called CopyToDVD (though there's nothing wrong with using the program that shipped with your DVD burner) and the program has been translated into many languages.
2/18 DVD2SVCD 1.1.2 build1 fixes a number of bugs and introduces support for Canopus Procoder.
2/17 DoItFast4U 1.0.9 automatically processes subtitles (forced and regular) and Closed Captions, creates a folder containing all unused VTS files (and the menus for each VTS you're processing), the progressive stream detection for both PAL and NTSC has been improved, subs can now be ripped directly off the DVD (though ISO mode is still the preferred way of handling things), all apps are now installed in the program directory and the routines waiting for an application to finish have been improved. VirtualDub 1.5.0 loads and unloads filters on the fly, has better crash diagnostics, basic audio filter support, increased audio and video timing accuracy and contains a lot of bugfixes. A separate P4 release is also available.
2/16

IfoUpdate 0.69 fixes a bug which lead to incorrect dummy PGC identification and another one in moving certain tables from the original IFO. MakeItEasy 0.16 changes VOB IDs used to flag padding. The error in VTS sets having a VOB ID greater than 70 is now gone.

Doom9.nl, the official Dutch Doom9 mirror is still looking for translators. Don't hesitate to volunteer ;) The same also goes for the upcoming Traditional Chinese mirror.

2/15

OggMux 0.9.4.2 add support for audio delay, should fix the automatization support and Chinese audio and subtitle language selections have been added. Pinnacle InstantCopy 7.0 is a DVD transcoding utility allowing you to create full DVD backups with little manual interaction. It's not quite as fast as DVD2One but according to mb1 (German only so far) and c't it offers better quality despite keeping all the extras on a DVD.

We had another complete email blackout and have now moved all email accounts to another server. It could be that some emails got lost in the transfer though :(

2/13 YATS 1.2 is out. It fixes a major bug when loading parameters from a .vcf script, has an improved fade detection and contains some minor optimizations to various diamond related functions. I have also added the much requested MakeItEasy 0.15 which contains some small bugfixes.
2/12 All email accounts have been restored, please accept our apologies for the downtime.
2/11

eXtreme Movie Manager 1.2 is out. It has a new export engine, pressing the save/exit button in edit mode will only close the window if the movie name has been filled in, XviD and LaserDisc media types have been added, the cover manager has been improved and there are various bugfixes.

On the hardware front AMD has finally released the Barton processor at speed ratings up to 3000+.

2/10

After 3 days of work it's finally been done. I've completely rewritten the Full DVD Backup guide. It now uses all the latest tools (DIF4U, etc) explains every step in the backup of the chosen movie including transcoding every extra, forced subs, etc. And while I was messing with Scenarist again I've written a small tips & tricks article. Oh, and the encoding part has also been changed and now features a derivation of the RoBa method. The new guide is based on DoItFast4U 1.0.8 which has a revamped interface, right click explorer menus, can correctly demux subtitles from VOB IDs now, has a menu for common functions, shows subtitle and CC in VTS attributes, has the ability to autocreate folders for all VTSes with one mouseclick and fixes a variety of bugs. ReStream 0.8.7 can reset GOP timestamps, change Seq.Disp.Extensions, the default path of the matrices has been changed along with font sizes and font scaling.

Currently all @doom9.org email accounts are down (meaning feedback, submission and error hotline amongst others). Emails sent within the last 48 or 72h might be lost for good (the issue is still being worked on). Please apologize for any inconvenience this may case and I'll make another announcement once everything is back online.

2/9 IfoUpdate 0.67 fixes an error in the adjusted mode table updates which could cause navigational problems, adds angle indications to the graphic view, fixes an IFO file path update problem and adds an additional output file to the adjusted mode for IfoEdit authoring. MakeItEasy 0.14 allows you to use DVD2One to create DVD backups that contain extras and menus. For usage instructions check the DVD2One forum.
2/8 Eyes'Only has written a guide on how to convert Close Captioning to Scenarist subtitles.
2/7

PX3 is back with mpeg2avi 0.1.6a. It's bit faster, less buggy but otherwise there's no much new. More info in the mpeg2avi forum.

Hats off to Dell. They've decided to stop installing floppy disk drives on their computers starting next month. Instead they'll ship their computers with an USB memory stick. 5 years after Apple made the same move we might finally get rid of floppies for good. In fact I ordered a Dell business model in December and the floppy drive was already optional. Personally I have eliminated floppy drives from my computer collection more than 2 years ago and have yet to regret it.

2/5 ReDVD is a program that helps you create full DVD backups and automates a large part of the otherwise tedious procedure. It's still under heavy development and so far incapable of handling complicated discs (multiangles et al). jdobbs, author of IfoUpdate is about to release a tool called MakeItEasy which enables you to create full DVD backups using DVD2One.
2/4 DVDx 2.1 contains improved skinning capabilities, 2 pass encoding has been added, YUV2 output for XviD is working now as is DivX 5.03 output, the internal MPEG encoder has a faster motion search, quantizers are more accurate and the picture quality has been improved. DVDs with non consecutive cells can now be handled by the decoder, audio frequency detection has been added, 48Khz support has been added for Premiere plugins, along with support for CCE 2.66 and last but not least the P4 and non P4 binaries have been merged. DivX5Enc 1.11 supports DivX5.03 whereas DivXEnc 1.10 is still DivX 5.02 based and adds 1-pass quality mode, size prediction based on encoding a part of the movie, keyboard shortcuts and average quantizers can be calculated from the logfile. Both versions require VirtualDubMod installed.
2/3 DoItFast4U 1.7.0.2 fixes an issue with importing .Avs files into CCE. If you were having problems in this area make sure you get the update. It also separates the close function from the save as default function, so you can close without overwriting your default settings now. SubRip 1.15 supports the original DVD color palette, 2 textcolor subtitles are supported, color tags for the Ogg Vorbis Subtitle mixer can be enabled in srt output, commandline support for graphical output has been added along with an automatic text color detection and text color change detection and there are a couple more improvements.
2/2 Marc's ReMPEG Scale Factor-Calculator (RSC) is a tool to calculate the ReMPEG scalefactor for people using ReMPEG2 to transcode their movies and reassemble them using IfoEdit. IfoUpdate 0.65 keeps track of the path of the original, newly authored and backup file, a disable warnings option has been added which suppresses the warning messages before modifying an IFO file, CLI support has been added, an option to save chapters by VOB ID has been added to the save chapter files dialog and the current size and position of the program can now be saved.
2/1

DoItFast4U 1.0.7.1 removes popups from HDD mode.

Sony has released firmware 1.0g for the DRU-500a drive. The new firmware is supposed to improve reading efficiency. As the page is in Japanese here's a direct link to the new firmware.