DoItFast4U 1.7.0 adds VTS set functionality: All VTS sets can be demuxed at once, all can have different settings, a threshold has been added to determine which sets will be demuxed, the autodetect button now works for PAL as well, the aspect ratio has been added to the name of the .avs file, VOB ID / Cell ID harddisk demux capability has been added, unnecessary MPVs can be deleted after pulldown, the pulldown progress bar now accurately displays progress and starting up / changing the drive automatically selects the largest VTS set as starting point. DVD2SVCD 1.1.1 build 2 fixes a bug in external subtitles, the last subtitle is properly stopped and won't be displayed till the movie ends anymore, no selected subtitle languages will be left out in the svcdinfo.txt file and the CCE cancel button is really disappears now.

By the way, if you're wondering why sometime I link to a program's homepage rather to the local download location, this is a request by the respective program authors. The programs can of course still be found in the download section and at the beginning of the respective guides.

DVD2SVCD 1.1.1 build 1 is out. The missing last chapter bug has been fixed, there's an option to set the default subtitle stream, text subs can now be used to create permanent subs in the video stream, the CCE cancel button is made inactive so you can no longer unwillingly abort an encoding session and last but not least the CCE timecode setting can be changed now.

On a personal note I'm looking for people who could give me a hand using soon.exe to schedule tasks.

For those who haven't got it yet I have added TCMP 4.0 RC1 to the download archive.

The first reviews of the Geforce FX have started appearing. It looks like the card is less impressive than one might have thought...

DVD2One is a small tool that allows you to transcode the main movie of any DVD within 15-30 minutes and put it onto a single DVD±R. You can also keep any audio and subtitle tracks you want. While it doesn't reach CCE quality it's certainly the fastest ever DVD transcoding tool. More info about this tool can be found in the forum. And for a really detailed report make sure you read mb1's article on DVD2One (German only so far). Pinnacle Systems is about to release a similar tool called Pinnacle InstantCopy. InstantCopy will not only copy the main movie but allows you to create full DVD backups containing all menus and extras. Both tools will probably never reach CCE quality yet quality is in the eye of the beholder, and who knows, maybe you're quite satisfied with what you get.

The Core Media Player (TCMP) 4.0 RC1 should be released later today. This is the official successor to the popular PowerDivX Next Gen player which was the first player to enable proper AVI/AC3 playback without too much hassle. Until it's up you can find an overview and some screenshots here and there's also a full feature list. And once it gets released I'm sure you find a thread to discuss the player in the forum.

IfoUpdate 0.63's main window can be resized and there's a chapters for VOB authoring checkbox in the save chapter files dialogue.

There are currently more than 2500 inactive forum accounts because they have never been activated. If you are the owner of such an account please get in touch with us (contact details can be found at the bottom of the forum) as soon as possible. Two weeks from now, that is February 8th I'll be pruning inactive user accounts which have been created in 2002.

VCDEasy 1.1.4 better recognizes the Adaptec ASPI interface, Nero's ASPI layer can be used, there are some improvements and bugfixes for the media player box which should made that part of the program more robust, then there are some other bugfixes and some new language files. Beware, the above download is a whopping 9 MB and so far there's no VCDEasy-only release, only the full package with all the tools VCDEasy can use.

The RIAA chairwoman Hilary Rosen has announced she would leave the RIAA at the end of the year. The Register has already gone through the trouble of writing up her achievements.

Plextor, my favorite brand when it comes to CD burners, has announced their first DVD burner: The PX-504A is a DVD+R/W device offering a standard featureset: It writes DVD+R at 4x, DVD+RW at 2x, CD-R at 16x, CD-RW at 10x and it reads DVDs and CDs at 12x and 40x respectively.

There's a new wavelet based codec called VSS Video Codec created by a company called Vanguard Software solutions. The same company also makes a H.264 codec. You can find an ongoing discussion about these codecs in the forum. IfoUpdate 0.60 fix two bugs in the adjust cell mode.

DeXT has compiled a special version of VirtualDub which can directly open VOB and general MPEG files (SVCDs for instance) and it also includes built-in AC3 conversion.

A Chinese translation project has been started. Now we need lots of translators so don't be shy to sign up. And while we're at it there's a translation project overview page which can be useful if you're willing to volunteer. There are currently 6 projects already online, two more in the works (plus now the Chinese one which brings the total number up to 9).

DoItFast4U 1.0.6.1 fixes a bug in the CCE-processable autodetection and another one related to HDD demux. And the program can now auto create directories. IfoUpdate 0.59 has a new adjusted cell mode designed to enable backing up DVDs having duplicated cell addresses across PGCs. This mode even allows you to use non multi PGC capable tools (like SpruceUp) to reauthor a multi PGC movie. When using cell only autocorrect VTS sectors and autoset regionfree are enabled, an error in the frame computation for CCE chapter files in FILM mode was fixed and the code has been cleaned up.

And while this is old news it's still interesting: TDK's press release which officially confirms that there are fake TDK DVD-R media on the market produced by Princo.

DoItFast4U 1.06 autodetects the type of film (for NTSC) and automatically activated force film or decomb, a calculator to estimate the CCE bitrate settings has been added, avs files are now flagged according to the number of frames (too short clips can crash CCE), the renaming function has been fixed, there are some improvements regarding the working directory, a PDF guide now ships with the program, demuxing RAW subs via DVD Decrypter is now supported and there have been a couple of bugfixes.

And if you don't have a WSJ access, the official RIAA press release on the DRM laws. The MPAA also issued a statement.

The Greek Doom9 mirror is about to go official. If you speak Greek why not participate in the translations? Then there's an interesting new tool inspired by DoItFast4U called doItFaster4Me which tries to fill in some of the blanks in DVD-R reauthoring. It creates CCE ECL files including chapter stops, creates Scenarist scripts including tracks and scenes (so ScenChap is no longer needed).

And according to the Wall Street Journal the RIAA might join computer manufacturers and the BSA in their opposition against the Holling bill which demands DRM in every electronic device. Considering that this makes 2 organization which are staunch supporters of a hard line against copying this could turn out to be interesting. Of course, I don't expect the RIAA to suddenly support fair use proposals but I can only guess why such an organization would not want to achieve the holy grail of anti-copying by making DRM mandatory.

ZoomPlayer 3.0 beta 5 is out.

How about letting the RIAA pay for your next CD? What may sound like an April's fool joke is in fact a reality. 5 US music distributors and 3 retailers have agreed to pay $143 million in response to allegations of price fixing on CDs. So if you live in the US and have bought music on tape/CD/LP make sure you don't miss that opportunity.

DivXEnc 1.09 is now licensed under the GPL, MV files are supported in 2 pass mode, temporary files ca be created in a special directory (allows you to perform heavy I/O operations over 2 disks which speeds up these operations considerably), the jobinfo of the last job can be auto-saved (useful when you use autoshutdown), there are a couple of Avisynth info functions, the MV file is no longer written when you run a compressibility test and some bugs have been fixed. AviMux GUI 1.11 allows you to mux DTS audio into an AVI (requires special DirectShow filters and a DTS playback filter) but this feature is currently in beta stage. Though before you start muxing now allow me to ask a question: Why would you use an audio file which potentially has a higher bitrate than your video (Divx movies usually have a bitrate between 550 - 1200 kbit/s depending on the length, resolution and number of CDs)? AC3 tracks are normally half as large as DTS tracks (depending on the DTS bitrate it can also be less than one third) - is it really worth crippling the video quality, or use even more CDs? Personally I think that if you want DTS get a DVD burner. You can keep DTS tracks on these medias without having to switch CDs and sacrifice much picture quality. Other changes are resynching AC3 streams (fix broken Nandub output files), source file type is no longer identified by name extension, XviD is recognized, the AC3 interleaving pattern has been changed to prevent problems with SPDIF out on Creative cards, the free space calculation now takes files to be deleted into account, the program can report details on broken AC3 streams, set delay has been disabled for CBR MP3s and last but not least some bugs have been fixed. More info on DTS muxing can be found in the forum.

With all the news yesterday I forgot to present you my future PC case: the Shuttle SN41G2 is an NForce2 based XPC case for AthlonXP CPUs and the best SFF (small form factor) PC case you can get for the AMD platform today. It features almost everything but I hope that Shuttle will consider dropping the serial and PS/2 ports (or at least one) and offer the 5th and 6th USB2 port, the 2nd Ethernet port and an optical input in return when they release the successor of this case. And when it comes to VGA out, with a majority of people buying TFT screens these days at least one should be a DVI output - or what about dual DVI-D and a DVI-D to VGA adapter for people with legacy screen connectors?

BSPlayer 0.86 fixes various subtitle related issues, the video window will now stay resized and OSD messages can be drawn to the overlay surface (so they'll be visible even on TV). Microsoft has released the final version of Windows Media 9 today along with a much improved movie editing program: Movie Maker 2. And by the way, you can discuss WM9 in the forum.

Yesterday was a great day for the DVD backup community: Jon Johansen, one of the authors of the infamous DeCSS utility - the first program ever to decrypt a DVD - has been found not guilty on all charges (original and more extensive article in Norwegian is also available). The court found that it's not illegal to watch DVDs decrypted by DeCSS if you legally own the DVD and that there was no evidence that the accused used DeCSS for illegal purposes. All in all the new year hasn't started too good for the forces trying to ban DVD copying altogether with first the Californian DeCSS case being dismissed and now this, but the movie industry is hoping that once the EU copyright directive is implemented in all member states (so far only two states have done so, all the others have missed the December deadline) they'll have a much stronger stand against copying. If you happen to live in an EU state where the legislation isn't final I strongly suggest you seek out organizations in your country trying to protect fair use and help them lobby your government into allowing exception for private copies into the upcoming legislation (the EU directive leaves such exceptions up to each member state, so theoretically while cracking CSS could be illegal by law there could be a fair use exception allowing you to continue making backups of your own DVDs while making illegal copying even more illegal by adding another possible prison sentence for circumvention of a copy protection mechanism to a committed copyright violation).

Last but not least, if you're having problem reaching this site in recent days you might want to check out a thread on the issue in the forums. Unfortunately at the moment there isn't any direct action I can take against the problem :/

Oh, and last but not least, Tobias Waldvogel, author of the Ogg DS filters has joined Xiph.org to help them with their Ogg Theora media framework. His filters will become an official part of the framework and will be released under a BSD license in the future.

The probably oldest court case involving ripping program is once again in the press. Last week the Californian supreme court granted a stay which effectively backs a lower court's decision to ban the distribution of DeCSS for infringing trade secrets (The DVD CCA, control instance over CSS licenses, has sued Pavlovich, who offered DeCSS for download on his homepage, in 99 and Californian courts have subsequently barred Mr. Pavlovich from offering DeCSS for download). But last Friday the same judge who ordered the stay has withdrawn said stay and ruled that since Pavlovich does not live in California (and his website wasn't based there) he cannot be sued in the state of California.

ImgTool 0.99.8 calls the burn function in a different way when reallocation fails.

I know I've had this message up yesterday already but it can't hurt to say it again:

Once again a year has passed by faster than we thought. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in creating this site, starting with the people providing the hosting, people administrating servers and forum, the forum moderation team, all the programmers who have created all these little tools we use on a daily basis, the people who have made a donation one way or another, people submitting suggestions, corrections or simply sending a thank you letter and last but not least YOU! That's right, every visitor - without visitors there's no site so thank you so much for coming here and I hope to see you again soon.

ZoomPlayer 3.0 beta4 has been released. As usual the changelog can be found by following the link. ReClock 0.99 contains many bugfixes, support for video capture cards and DVD framerate detection, Win98 is better supported and experimental AC3 passthrough support has been added.