But opinions aside, you may be wondering how copy protection software works. The answer to that question varies depends from one disc to the next, but there are a number of general categories into which copy protection software can be grouped.

Region Locked Copy Protection

Optical media, particularly in the form of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, are often “region locked”.  This means that they contain a form of copy protection that prevents a disc from playing if it is inserted into a player that contains a different region code than the disc.

There are some “region-free” players, and in the case of players such as computers, it is sometimes possible to change the region code of your optical drive. Players such as PowerDVD will ask you to change your region if you insert a region locked DVD, and players such as VLC Player ignore region locks completely (if the firmware of your optical drive allows it).

Disc Encryption

An incredibly popular form of copy protection, disc encryption protects content by encrypting it using one of a number of set encryption keys. The encryption can only be broken (in theory) if a valid key is used to decrypt the content, making it available for viewing. If a valid key isn’t used the content will be unplayable or scrambled. This also prevents users from copying a disc or burning it to another storage device such as a hard drive.

Encryption is a running game, however. The encryption keys used can be compromised, often through reverse engineering. Encryption can also become vulnerable to brute-force attacks as computing power increases. Agreed encryption standards often don’t change as quickly as computer hardware progresses. The creation of software capable of bypassing copy protection is illegal in many parts of the world, but there are still free decryption programs available.

Registration Keys and Online Product Activation

Computer software is very difficult to protect against piracy because of its nature; the software must be installed on a computer in order to function, and once installed it can be copied or altered.

Registration keys used to be the standard method of protecting software, either on disc or downloaded, but such keys are also vulnerable to being compromised. The keys are usually generated using an algorithm, and that algorithm can be reversed-engineered or otherwise compromised. This is why “key generators” are capable of creating a valid registration key for some programs.

As a result, companies such as Microsoft have moved towards online production activation. When you buy a Microsoft Windows 7 disc, for example, you receive a key in the box. This key is activated through an online server that not only checks that the key is valid but also checks that the key hasn’t been used before. If the key has been used before, the server tries to determine if the key is being used by the original buyer.

This sort of activation remains controversial. Some forms of it, such as that used by Ubisoft, require that a PC be connected to the Internet during the entire duration of the software’s use. Hence the controversy; many users feel they shouldn’t be restricted to using their software only when online.

Device Driver Copy Protection

Another form of copy protection that relates primarily to computer software, device driver copy protection installs a new driver on a computer as part of a program’s installation process. The responsibility of this drive is to validate the software and also to protect the software from attempts to circumvent it or run it without a proper registration key or disc. Some examples of this technology include Starforce and SafeDisc.

These forms of copy protection are controversial because the device driver can interfere with a computer’s normal operation in some cases. Users of software protected through this method have sometimes experienced a degradation of optical drive performance. The device drivers can also be a security risk; in 2007, Microsoft patched a SafeDisc related vulnerability in Windows XP. The driver could be exploited by malware to gain administrative access.

High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection

Developed by Intel, HDCP is a relatively recent form of copy protection. It circumvents the traditional problems associated with content encryption by moving the responsibility of encryption from the content itself (the disc, file, or other media) to the devices playing the content.

HDCP is designed to protect content that travels across a digital connection such as DisplayPort, DVI or HDMI. The device sending the content and the device displaying the content must have valid HDCP encryption keys and must authenticate. As you might have guessed, this is the form of content protection used to control Blu-Ray. Like other forms of encryption before it, HDCP has been cracked through the release of a master HDCP key, which was most likely reverse-engineered.

Conclusion

Remember, these are just the forms of copyright protection that most commonly apply to CDs and DVDs. There are other forms of authentication and encryption that are frequently used to protect digital content, such as music downloaded from the iTunes store.

This is where WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe comes in with its all round solution for converting all High Definition and HD-Camcorder videos, to both portable and console players. Plus, it puts a DVD Burner and Website Video Downloader in your hands.

This week, we will be giving away 10 licenses for WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe worth almost $300. Read on to find out how you can get one.

WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe for Windows is your all-in-one tool because it comes with 160 video codecs and 50 audio codecs, so you don’t have to install anything from anywhere else. It is these codecs that allow the video conversion software to handle all common (and a few uncommon) format conversion jobs like Blu-ray M2TS to MKV, AVCHD to AVI, MKV to AVI, MTS to AVI/MP4, MOD TOD to MPEG/DVD, convert AVCHD to MPEG, DVD, OGG, WMV, FLV, MOV”¦ and more.

The array of formats supported is mind-boggling, so check out the complete listing given on the software page.

The Main Window and the Easy Three Step Start Process

A user-friendly interface and a three step process ““ Select manually or drag “˜n drop your file. You have 15 output options on view. Each format tab has a few more format options under it.  When done with the selection, click on Start. WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe goes to work with a real time video converting speed of 15x.

Choose and Tweak Output Format

If you want a simple conversion, a dropdown gives you list of few presets. But for those who want to fine-tune the video further, the slew of options under Audio Settings and Video Settings is the place. For instance, check out the variety at hand when it comes to converting a video to any of the popular cell phone formats.

A checkmark sets up the powerful CPU Core Use, Advanced De-interlace Accelerator for progressive scanning, High Quality Engine for better image quality, and audio-video synchronization too.

Choose a Track When It’s a Multi-Track Video

Quite often, videos come with multiple audio tracks. When you don’t need all of them, WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe lets you pick the one you want.

Burn to DVD

WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe is a quick and easy DVD burning tool too. With a couple of clicks, any video can be burned straight to DVD.

Online Video Downloader

Paste the video URL from YouTube video, Myspace, Metacafe etc and click OK to download the video. It’s that simple.

Little features like clipping a section for conversion or extracting just the audio from a video file are convenient to have around. The final word says that WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe is a one stop solution for your video conversion jobs.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, October 22nd at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Digiarty Software for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum extracts (rips) a DVD and converts it to a popular format of your choice. Pick one from the 15 available formats. Then, the DVD ripper easily creates 1:1 DVD backups, without quality loss in video or audio. The backup job from source to a copy will take just 5 minutes. Even the copy protection technology of today’s DVDs doesn’t stump the ripping powers of WinXDVD Ripper as it comes with support for CSS protected DVDs. No worries too for Sony ArccOS DVDs and all Region 1-6 DVDs.

This week, we will be giving away 10 copies of this software, worth almost $300 in total. But first let’s take a short tour and get acquainted with the app.

A Slick Easy To Grasp Interface

Whether it’s a plain and simple DVD copy or a rip to any of the popular formats, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum does it in three steps. Thanks to the intuitive interface, it comes down to just selecting the source disc, picking the output format, and clicking on the Start button.

All Popular Formats Find a Place

1. Rip to popular video formats (AVI, WMV, MOV, MPEG1/2, MP4 and FLV).
2. Rip to popular portable device and device formats (iPod, iPhone, iPad, PSP, Zune, Apple TV, Zune, Zen, and 3GP).
3. Rip DVD audio track to MP3.

Each format gets a tab of its own with customizable output settings for picture perfect conversions. You can pick selections from the dropdown to vary audio-video quality, volume levels, sample rates, video resolution, aspect ratio, and more. The DVD ripping tool allows you to selectively trim any segment and optimize it for the output device or for an archive. A simple cropping tool removes unwanted areas around a frame to get full screen images.

A Slew of Intelligent Capabilities

With support for multi-core CPUs, you can streamline the performance of WinX DVD Ripper Platinum for high-speed ripping and conversion.

The app has several distinctive features: the Advanced De-interlaced Accelerator helps to improve the picture quality by progressively scanning the movie and smoothening out distortions. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum has an Intelligent A/V Synchronizer which automatically syncs the DVD’s audio with the movie. A conversion process can stutter due to many reasons. The Safe Mode prevents any problems during conversion by running at a slower but surer speed. A one-click screen capture button is there next to the preview screen if you want to take quick JPEG/BMP screenshots.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is a good thing and worth every byte of its 9.4MB download. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is supported by Windows 98, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista (32 & 64 bit), Windows 7 (32 & 64 bit).

The clinching argument for a software is whether it can be used alike by the rookie and the expert. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum’s user friendliness answers that.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, October 15th at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank the team at Digiarty Software for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

Whatever the problem, we have some simple tips to try to fix DVD or Blu-Ray drive errors.

Dust – An Optical Drive’s Worst Enemy

Even though a DVD or Blu-Ray drive is mostly enclosed, dust still has an opportunity to invade through small openings and also while the drive is open. This depends heavily on how dusty the environment is but it can really wreak havoc on a drive.

In my experience, when a drive gets dusty, a disc will either take a long time to read initially or it will show random errors and slowdowns while the disc is being read from.

It helps to know how a optical drive, such as a CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drive works to know why this happens. The disc is a round plastic disk with a shiny reflective coating on the top and several layers of plastic. The way data is read from the drive is that there is a tiny laser which shoots up onto the disc, and depending on the configuration of the plastic and reflective layer, data is returned and read back to the drive. In reality it is much more complicated than that, but at the core this is what is happening.

When dust gets into the drive, specifically around the laser, it can block or refract that light causing a number of errors to be returned, and make the drive and/or disc unreadable.

There are several ways to get rid of dust. The first is with compressed air. It is available at many stores and is very cheap to buy. You can also get a special optical drive cleaner disk. This is comprised of a disc with tiny little brushes on it. The DVD disc usually has a program on it to ensure that the laser read head will move over the brushes several times to clean off any dust.

Disc Scratches

Most of the time, the drive isn’t even the problem! Discs become scratched fairly easily and this can cause a lot of read problems on the drive. The way to check is two-fold:

• visually inspect the disc to see if there are any scratches.
• check the drive with another disc, alternatively try the disc in another drive.

Once you have confirmed the disc is scratched you can try a few things to fix the problem.

The first is to use a wet or dry cloth to clean the disc. Use circular motions to clean it, or wipe from out-to-inside or inside to out. Never wipe in the direction around the tracks, as this can cause track skippage and actually make the problem worse.

The second is to use some sort of abrasive compound, such as toothpaste (not gel) to grind out scratches. I’ve never actually used this method but I have heard it works well.

The final one, and preferred, is to use a motorized disc cleaner. They are available from retail stores for about $20-$30 and automate the above procedures for maximum effect. I think this is the safest way to clean a disk, as there is less chance of human error.

Is Your Firmware Old?

Sometimes there are bugs within the firmware of the optical drive. The firmware is like an operating system for the drive, telling it when to spin, where to move the read/write head, and so on. Sometimes this is a last ditch effort but updating the firmware has raised several drives from the dead for me.

Check the manufacturer’s website to see if there are firmware updates. It might involve burning a CD with the firmware and rebooting the computer or player off of the disc, or there might be a way to update it right in your normal OS – it just depends on the manufacturer’s process.

If you have a Blu-Ray drive – in your PC or as a Home Theater component – then there is a good chance you will need to flash new firmware. This is due to the encryption keys stored on the drive. New protections are put out all of the time on new discs and if you have an older drive you simply might not have the right keys to decrypt the disc. A sign of this is if you have no problem playing older Blu-Rays, but new ones simply don’t work.

Is It A Hardware Problem?

Finally if all else fails, you could simply have a hardware problem. This goes anywhere from a cable that was unseated, to a bad drive or motherboard connection somewhere down the line.

The first step is to try a new cable and connection port on the motherboard to see if that fixes your problem. If it doesn’t you can try to plug another know-good drive in to see if the problem is coming from the old drive or the motherboard.

If it turns out that your DVD or Blu-Ray drive is bad, then it is bad. You can try to send it in for warranty service, but depending on the age of the drive and how much it would cost to replace it, it could just make sense to buy a new one. Buying a new one has other benefits: faster access times, transfer speeds and new features.

Whatever the issue, the steps above should be enough to try to fix your DVD drive on your own. Let us know your own tips and tricks to reviving zombie DVD drives!

Photo Credits: William Hook, czarcats, nickwheeleroz, and Don Fulano.

There are other good video converters out there too. Some manage to get their name known, while some are still flying below the radar. Two of them are DVD Ripper and Video Converter from MacX. The combination of these two will be able to fulfill the ripping and converting needs of every movie lover who uses a Mac.

Rip & Backup

The first member of the dynamic duo is a DVD ripping app. As the name suggests, this one will help you rip and back up your DVD movie collection. But it is no ordinary DVD ripper, because it allows you not only to rip but also to convert the result into the format that you want. So you can go directly from a DVD disc to an iPhone compatible file without any additional effort.

The first step in using the app is to click the “DVD Disc” button at the top left of the window. A small window will appear, letting you choose what disc you want to rip from the drop down menu.

The app will analyze your disc and display all the available segments. The app will also automatically choose the recommended segment to rip (usually this would be the longest part).

From my experiment I can safely say that this app handles copy protected DVDs better than Handbrake. While both apps can handle ordinary DVDs just fine, Handbrake freezes with most of the copy protected ones.

Aside from the available segments, there are other settings that you can tweak from the interface such as audio settings, subtitles, start and end time, and also the location where the conversion result should be saved.

The next step is to choose the video output settings. There are some pre-configured settings available for users to choose from: MP4, iTunes, MOV, Music, MPEG, and FLV. Even though you have to upgrade to the Pro version to have more ready to use settings, the available ones on the free version are enough to cater to our daily needs. Moreover, the available settings are also adjustable should you find the need to change.

But please note that changing the settings are not advisable if you don’t know what you are doing. After everything is set, click the “Start” button.

A small progress window will appear, giving you overall information about the ripping process. There are also options to shut down the computer and open the output folder after the process is complete. All that’s left for you to do is wait for the conversion to finish.

Another bonus feature of the app is the ability to view and take screenshot(s) from the movie. Just move the slider to the position that you want and click the camera button to the right of the slider.

Convert Video Files

The second member of the team is the Video Converter. This one specifically handles file to file conversion and will be especially useful for those who want to bring their movies to mobile devices. The working principle is basically the same with the DVD Ripper; but instead of choosing a DVD to rip, this one will ask you to find video files to convert.

From my simple experiment, I found that the conversion process took more or less the same time as Handbrake. There are some cases where Handbrake is slightly faster than the Video Converter.

Another difference between the Video Converter and the DVD Ripper are the number of pre-configured settings. There are options in the Video Converter that are not present in the DVD Ripper, such as: iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry and Android.

The Good, The Bad & The Verdict

To sum up, I will try to quickly compare the DVD Ripper – Video Converter combo with Handbrake.

First, the good. As I’ve mentioned above, DVD Ripper handles copy-protected DVDs better than Handbrake while Video Converter has more pre-configured settings than Handbrake.

Second, the bad. I personally think that the developer could just combine the two apps into one, so users could do everything using just one app – just like Handbrake. As for the conversion speed, we could say that Handbrake is faster – even though the difference is not too significant.

And for the verdict, I think it’s up to the end users to choose which app they prefer to use. But whatever the choice is, it’s always good to have options.

This week, we will be giving away 10 licenses for Video Converter Ultimate and 10 licenses for DVD Creator for Mac, worth almost $1100 in total!

Find out how you can grab yourself a copy.

Giveaway #1: Video Converter Ultimate (reviewed by Jonathan Bennett)

Throughout testing, Daniusoft Video Converter Ultimate worked flawlessly. It supports an impressive amount of file formats, more than you will probably ever need. This software has the ability to rip and burn DVDs for backups, convert one file format into another, remove DRM licenses, and easily transfer files to media devices like the iPod or PSP.

For this review, we devised three scenarios.

1. Convert a YouTube video to Quicktime .MOV format.
2. Convert a video to audio MP3 format.
3. Rip a DVD and convert it to an iPod format.

Converting A Video To Another Video Format

The first test was to convert a YouTube video to another format. After downloading the “Will it Blend” YouTube video using DownloadHelper, the FLV was added to the queue.

You can view and change some options to suit your output preference.

Now all that’s left to do is click “Start” and let it go.

The software gives you an estimated file size and as shown above, the conversion is in process. It took about 20 seconds to convert this video on a relatively new computer, but these times can vary depending on your computer specifications.

As expected, the converted file worked great.

In case you’re curious ““ yes, the iPad will blend, so be careful where you place it down while in the kitchen.

Converting A Video To MP3 Format

Next, I wanted to convert the video to MP3 audio, so I could transfer it to my iPod and listen to it blend while I’m doing my semi-annual 15-minute jog outside. I followed the same procedure as before, but chose the MP3 format for my output.

Again, the software lets you change a number of settings that pertain to whatever file type you choose. Converting video to audio MP3 only took about five seconds, which is much quicker than converting it to another video format. The audio quality sounded just as good as the original video.

Ripping a DVD For The iPod

For my final test I wanted to backup a DVD. The movie I grabbed from my shelf was Casanova, which coincidentally is what I unsuccessfully encourage girlfriends to call me. Anyway, simply load the DVD into the software as shown below.

The software will scan the disk and ask which tracks you want to backup. You can also see a preview of the video, if needed.

After this, select the file format. I went with an iPod MP4 file.

Great! As shown below, the estimated file size for this 2-hour movie is 820MB, which will fit easily on a 8GB iPod.

Conversion of this movie took around 45 minutes, which is reasonable for a video of this length.

I highly recommend Daniusoft Video Converter Ultimate to anyone who is looking to extend the portability of their files. It has worked great for me and I’m happy it passed my tests. If you’re interested, give the free trial a go and see how it works for you.

Giveaway #2: DVD Creator for Mac

If you’re the kind of person who likes to burn your own homemade DVDs or create fun slideshows of your photos – Daniusoft DVD Creator for Mac has all the features you could possibly ask for, and then some.

Daniusoft DVD Creator for Mac allows you to convert just about any format video into a DVD. Using the software you can also burn videos from your AVCHD videos (MTS, M2TS), TP and TRP. Supported video formats include AVI, MP4, MPG, 3GP, WMV, ASF, RM, RMVB, DAT, MOV, FLV and MKV.

If you’re a photography enthusiast, and want to show off your photos in a larger than life slideshow, Daniusoft DVD Creator makes it easy to create a stunning slideshow of your photos. Supported image formats include PNG, JPG, TIFF and BMP. Just select all the photos you want included in the slideshow and drag them into Daniusoft DVD Creator. Editing the slideshow allows you to include music and add dynamic transitions.

The software will also come in handy when putting together home-made films, with a built-in video editor. The editing suite has a long list of features including trimming your files, adding effects, increasing brightness, contrast, cropping the size of your frame, rotating and adding a watermark.

Once your video is ready to be burned to a DVD, you can create a personalised DVD menu, adding your own text, frame and buttons.

Daniusoft DVD Creator allows you to select the background picture, video thumbnail, and music.

The software is easy to use, with its drag and drop interface, and is compatible with DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, DVD-RAM, DVD”“5 and DVD”“9.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, 3rd September at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Daniusoft for their generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.

Now to burn discs, you’ll want to use some good DVD authoring software. Lucky for you, we’re giving away 50 copies of WinX DVD Author worth $1500 to MakeUseOf readers!

WinX DVD Author

WinX DVD Author is a popular application that lets you easily create and burn your own discs. It can burn a full 4.3 GB DVD within an hour, and can handle many formats like AVI, MP4, WMV, DivX, Xvid, and RM. This means that no matter how you backed up your media, you can easily burn it to a disc to enjoy anywhere.

After you’ve installed WinX DVD Author, you can get started by clicking the Video DVD Author button.

You will be presented with an easy to use compilation window where you can assemble video clips and configure the DVD you’d like to burn. To add clips, click the large + (plus) button.

If you’re including multiple clips (like episodes of a TV show), WinX DVD Author has a useful progress bar that shows how much space on the disc you have used.

WinX DVD Author also includes the ability to create custom DVD menus, which is very cool if you’re assembling a compilation of clips or creating a disc as a gift. You can add custom backgrounds, text, and even an audio track. You can also let the application create a DVD menu automatically for you.

For those who like to get their hands dirty, WinX DVD Author gives you the ability to customize all attributes of your project. You can change image ratio, video format, disc type, and even add custom subtitles.

WinX DVD Author is a powerful but easy-to-use application that lets you easily create custom discs to enjoy whenever you like. With support for all major formats, a built-in menu editor, and incredibly fast converting and burning, WinX DVD Author is all you need to manage your digital media collection.

How do I win a copy?

It’s simple, just follow the instructions.

This giveaway begins now and ends Friday, 16th July at 2100hrs PST. The winners will be selected at random and announced via email.

Spread the word to your friends and have fun!

MakeUseOf would like to thank Sophia from Digiarty Software for her generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email.