I was so excited having all the new guides out that I forgot one basic thing: updating some rippacks and put the new profiles online, but don't worry.. they'll come this week-end.

VirtualDub 1.4d has been released. So much things have changed that you should just read it up on your own.

azid GUI 0.2 saves paths and SectorExtractor 1.1 also descrambles now. Microsoft has also released the final of the Windows Media 8 Encoder.

On other news, and long overdue, a large part of my guides has been completely rewritten, now basing on the latest programs and hopefully be a lot easier to navigate. What is still missing is all FlaskMpeg VCD/SVCD encoding stuff as the latest Flask beta has a serious resizing problem for that format, which will be fixed in the 0.60final. Mpeg2avi will also soon get its new guide, as soon as PX3 makes the GUI version work without any command line arguments and fully interactive. The new TMPG guide is a complete cooperation with PurpleMan, and lots of the new guides are based on at least part of these documents. You can expect the same kind of structure for upcoming guides ;) Since the Flask (S)VCD stuff hasn't been rewritten yet you can still find the old guides for the time being but I hope that I can soon get rid of them completely. Anyways... enjoy!

EasyDivX 0.40 adds VOB-on-HD input, audio preview and choice of the output directory. CCParser 0.03b fixes even more bugs and azid users might like the azid GUI 0.1. VobSub 1.51 works in Graphedit again, allows disabling the auto-loading of subtitles and VirtualDub scripting has been restored. Programmers might want to check out Okami's Programmers Corner which contains a lot of good links to interesting resources for programmers.

SectorExtractor can be used to extract sectors from a DVD where regular rippers fail. DVDCopy will give you the start LBA and lenght of a VOB, you can simply enter these values into SectorExtractor and can now extract even 1.00GB if they're not encrypted (DVDCopy won't work with unscrambled VOBs).

CCParser 0.02b inproves the input string handling. The latest version of mpeg2mpeg contains small bugfixes in the GUI and the overal program, adds the ability to demux audio/video only and is quite a bit faster (up till 16%). DVD2AVI 1.74 includes several audio decoding improvements: append LFE channel to DD 5.1 decoding. The gain for LFE downmix is experimental (not defined in the AC3 specs) and currently set to the same level as the center channel. A bug in DD 2.0 decoding has been fixed. Quality should now be on SFSE level. Then a pre-scale decision for DD decoding has been added, which is designed to reduce the quanitzation error of DD decoding. Specify the track number and set the normalization value, then start pre-scale decision. This might take a while though. Then a few bugs have been fixed and the original MMX iDCT has been replaced by a faster iDCT which also passes the IEEE-1180 compliance tests. Last but not least a clipping filter has been added, which might speed up decoding speed. Keep in mind though that if you use this filter you can no longer use the regular resizing when encoding to VCD or SVCD, since the resizing calculations in guides assume that you frameserve the full VOB w/o making any changes on it. It might be helpful for divx decoding though where you can clip away the black bars right away. There's a limitation to clipping: Top, Bottom must be a multiple of 2, Left and Right a multiple of 8. Last but not least I've added the LAME 3.88 beta.

Scavenger Region Set 1.2 allows you to change the region of your RPC-2 DVD-Drive. This might be useful if there's no cracked firmware for your drive, so you could set your drive to region 0 which allows you to play all DVDs except for the few RCE-3 discs.

The latest version of mpeg2mpeg fixes bugs in the OpenDivX and bbdmux part and adds a deinterlacer. These changes make mpeg2mpg fully OpenDivX compatible. Furthermore the ability to transcode from VOB -> OpenDivX/AC3 has been added. The latest VobSub no longer needs graph for subtitle overlay in media player.

PX3 is giving me even more grey hair: mpeg2aviPX3 0.014 is out and mainly fixes bugs in the GUI. The next version will only be GUI based. BTW: The GUI still needs command line parameters, and there's a GUI because it makes the program faster. And more grey here: mpeg2aviPX3 0.015 is out and offers a certain interactivity for the GUI, plus it elimitates the pure CLI version. A special executable for those who need -r5 has also been included. The next release will hopefully include VirtualDub filters. Miha has released an iDCT plugin for FlaskMpeg 0.60. One thing about iDCTs in Flask: As written on this site quite a while back there's really no use to use anything than regular MMX iDCT but if you insist on theoretically superior stuff you should in any case use these Miha iDCTs.. these are fastest for ANY type of CPU, including AMD CPUs. Mpeg2avi GUI 0.20h adds support for the latest mpeg2aviPX3 version, auto-saves the VirtualDub Profile, adds autoresizier force mode and dual output.

The latest version of mpeg2mpeg adds an elementary GUI, the program is now initialized by several config files and support for FlaskMpeg MISMs was added so now you can open everything FlaskMpeg 0.6x can open. MicroDVD Player 1.1 is out. The changelog is so huge that I won't even bother to try and write down a compact version of it. Get the full specs of the new release at the official homepage. Another update to the VBR MP3 version of VirtualDub has been made. This time it fixes a logging bug. Look forward to a new version which can automatically fix freeze-frames soon (hopefully;).

DivX going mainstream? The Internet Archive has an online library of movies for download. They've captured a lot of material to MPEG-2 and offer that material for download, both in MPEG-2 and the DivX format. Their technical details page takes the DivX codec from this site.

A Quicktime plugin for TMPG has also been released, but it requires that you have QuickTime 4.0 already installed. Some of you might also like the MOV to AVI converter.

mpeg2aviPX3 0.13b adds a first simple GUI (no preview yet), a bugfix for -r5, a last (hopefully) bugfix for the remaining time indicator and support for LPCM demuxing (in beta state).

SmartRipper 2.25 fixes the error5 during authentication and the "can't copy ifo-file" problem. DVDReaper 2.64 has been released. Get it at the official page. It's a major bugfix release (English and German version have been fixed). VirtualDub 1.4c MP3 VBR now comes with a bad frame detector. The latest M4C Plugin for AviUtl fixes the input keyframe log and enables preview.

I just checked and we actually crossed the 1.1 million visitor border on the anniversary day :)

I think the German and French translation are pretty well equipped with people (but I'd not say that more isn't better) but the other translation projects still need your help. This site has brought you the latest in DVD ripping for a year now.. this is your chance to show your appreciation by also contributing something.

BSPlayer 0.832 fixes the not playing OpenDivX files bug.

Time to break out the champaign. This site has just turned 1 year old :) And you can be sure it's here to stay even longer.

SmartRipper 2.24 includes completely rewritten authentication routines.

DVD2AVI 1.68 brings a bit more speed, fixes a bug in the YUV-RGB TV scale conversion, fixes a few bugs in the AC3 decoder (burst noise and unnecessary normalization), appends a 7KHz low-pass filter for rear channels in DS downmix and last but not least: AC3 dynamic range coltrol. BSPlayer 0.831 improves bookmarks, adds recent file list and equalizer (requires DirectX8), fixes a resize bug in fullscreen, a bug where not all audio tracks would be shown and a seeking problem if overlay was checked and various other small bugfixes. DVDGenie 3.86 includes mainly fixes for the Cinemaster player and last but not least I've added an old Microsoft MPEG-4 codec source.

Oleg's DVD software archive has been closed down due to pressure by the BSA - the Business Software Alliance, not to be confused with BSE or mad cow disease ;)

Open Source fans rejoice: AviRevolution is now a GPL program so you can now get its source. mpeg2mpeg has also been updated, it now can transcode to opendivx, but atm only m2v files w/o B-frames can be transcoded. There's also some helper functions and additional modules but these are mainly interesting for developers.

To all those who have DVD discs which contain a 1.00GB VOB (size info in Explorer) which can't be ripped by todays to rippers: Could you try out this program and report your results to my forum? Thanks a lot.

In another note: I keep getting a lot of mail which is not conforming to my emailing rules: that is, questions which have been answered on this site already, questions without giving me enough background info so I have to ask back, etc. Nicky Page already stopped all email support, I won't go to such drastic measures but from now on my rules from the contact page will be strictly enforced. If you don't specify the info requested on the contact page you can no longer expect an answer! I hope this leads to a better support for those who really need it and go thru the trouble of actually reading my stuff before asking and providing the necessary information which allows for a quick solution for the problem at hand.

SubRip 0.94b added. It now includes fully WYSIWYG resizing/positioning and color remapping, zoom in/out in the picture preview area, change the order of the VOBs in the selection list, time elapsed & remaining fields, possibility to set a minumum interval between two subs, German correction for I and OCR errors, some bugfixes and it now contains several language files.

The CSS MISM has been updated, it's now thread safe and more stable.

I've removed the future page, it was way outdated and it's quite hard to keep these things really up-to-date as the situation sometimes changes on a daily base. I'll report about interesting trends in the news directly in the future.

Tsunami has discovered a workaround to the 1GB Problem. Read more about it in my forum. It may also be interesting to know that Fair Use can also deal with these movies. Then I have another Flask MISM which does CSS descrambling if you feed it with a known disc key. I've also added the lastest FlaskMpeg Tsunami, it contains about all the optimized code from any other version you can find.. still based on 0.594 though. With all these MISMs now coming in I think as soon as we have the final 0.6 version I can finally remove this whole collection of different Flask versions. In the future most extentions can be made by just supplying MISMs.

I just like to remind you that the FlaskMpeg preview you can get at the official FlaskMpeg homepage CAN NOT open IFOs (=> no DVD mode) or open multiple VOBs. The version on this page will allow you to do the former, and the Thunder MISM will also allow the latter. Just copy it into your FlaskMpeg directory. I've also added beta4 of the WME8 GUI which allows you to save/load profiles has an enhanced encoder locator, support for large fonts and diverse bugfixes. SmartRipper 2.23 contains additional fixes for the stream processing. Last but not least I have added the latest compiled lame binary.

I've found a new translation coordinator for the Dutch translation and I've added a few ongoing translation projects to the volunteer page. I can't stress enough how much the success of these projects depends on your contributions. In order to be some day able to this complete page in another language which you're more familiar with we need your support. Please check out the volunteer page to find out how you can sign up. Remember.. without your support there won't be any translations.

And it has happened: FlaskMpeg 0.60 preview is out. And it features a bunch of new options: SMP support, iDCT API, IEEE1180 testing, Control Panel, Audio Player, Jobs, Quality improvements, MISM API, OpenDML Output, Profiles, Dynamic Range Compression for Audio, Audio extraction, MMX, 3DNOW and SSE2 optimizations, and much more. Another interesting feature is that it seems able to handle hybrid movies, at least I didn't have any problems with my 4 test cases I have available. This doesn't mean FlaskMpeg now contains IVTC, it doesn't, but you can now encode a lot more movies in 23.976fps without hassle. The DRC should satisfy all the people unhappy with the current audio volume level and of course all the latest code from the various Flask versions is in this new version (except for CSS descrambling of course). An important point to remember: Due to legal issues the ability to read DVD files has been exported into a special MISM plugin. The version on this page comes with that additional MISM plugin so you can actually process DVDs as well. Should you have downloaded a version which comes without that plugin you can download it separately, it also comes with the sourcecode. The full source will eventually be added as soon as it's been released.

On other news the VirtualDub MP3 has been updated and now contains the full source so that you can compile without any problems. It also contains a quality meter which allows you to better compare the quality of your rips. This meter can be found in the file information dialog box. Also stand by for a new FU version soon :)

Pulldown.exe has been updated. The new version shouldn't give you any underflows anymore, it can calculate timecodes, sets the field type accordingly,etc. Fair Use 0.26 increases timeouts, fixed a problem in the data demuxer which would result to skipped video parts, made the error detector more sensitive, changed anamorphic detection which hopefully works with all movies now and the AVI writer should now be more compatible with streams generated by other programs.

Last but not least: I removed DivX 3.22 since it was nothing but a rebranded 3.11VKI release and in fact created more problems that it solved.

SmartRipper 2.22 is another bugfix release and now the authentication works on my machine as well. DVD2AVI 1.65 has also been released. The version you can find on this page is older but it's a more stable release whereas the latest release can be considered in beta stage. Get it at the official homepage.

mpeg2avi PX3 0.012 fixes bugs in the range and split options. PX3Conv 0.4 now supports Dolby Surround downmix. SmartRipper 2.21 adds audio processing for all kind of streams, eject button and built-in authentication (which doesn't work for me).

I've finished the Fair Use guide. While the program itself might be easy to use it mentions a few issues which haven't been in the FAQ as of yet and it also teaches you how to do the audio part w/o having to re-rip the whole movie again.

mpeg2avi PX3 0.011 adds Larini's dual output code, a seek LBA function, a bit more speed and a force mode for cropping. DVD2AVI 1.62 fixes the DD 2.0 rematrixing bug of the AC3 decoder. TMPG 12d is mainly a bugfix release. As usual: don't forget the VFP plugin. ZoomPlayer 1.30 has so many new features that I don't even know where to begin with.

On another note we've started a Portugese translation and are looking for translators for all the ongoing project. Furthermore the project leader of the Dutch version has quit so we need a replacement for him (and would he please mail me and give me the material I requested!). For more information please check out the volunteer page.

DVD2AVI 1.61 fixes a potentional bug when random accessing FILM/Hybrid sources. CCParser 0.01b can be used to process Close Captioned DVDs. Please read the instructions which come with the program. The latest OpenDivX including the fixed DS filter (no more stop -> crash problem) has also been added. And Glenn would be delighted since the updated source is also available.

We're still looking for people willing to work on the various translations. Please check out the volunteer page for more info. Don't just lie back and assume that the job will eventually be done.. we really need more people. It's a tremendous amount of work to be done and any contribution would be welcome. Clearly you should be able to do the work quickly, we can't wait forever for you to deliver a guide, so only serious offers please.