Fast DVD Copy 4.0.4 — Make protective personal backups of your movies and some games                  

reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad

Developer: Velan Software http://www.fastdvdcopy.com/en/products.php Support: Accessed from the Website $100 USD Requirements: Any Macintosh running Mac OS X version 10.2.x to 10.4.x (Jaguar, Panther and Tiger), 17 GB free disk space. An Apple SuperDrive or burner compatible with Mac OS X; Blank discs: DVD-R (W) or CD-R (W). PPC/Intel Macintosh compliant. An internet connection is required to activate the software. Released: 31 May 2006 Download Size: 7.7 MB Uninstaller included? No need, just drag the application folder in the trash Audience: All user levels Strength — One-click copying to DVD-R type media while letting lets users select what parts of a DVD to copy; fast. Weakness — Some users and reviewers have had a less fortunate experience with the product than I have. In part they were using earlier versions then I reviewed.
The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under Mac OS X 10.4.7.
Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Publisher’s Summary

“The first software built for Mac OS X that allows users to copy their DVD video collections, Audio CD collections, PlayStation 2 games (with an installed modchip in the hardware), DVD-ROMs or CD-ROMs without losing any quality from the original. Fast DVD Copy is the most powerful digital technology copy software for Mac OS X available on the market today. Copied CDs are compatible with any CD player DVDs work on DVD-R and DVD-RW compatible players. Older DVD player models may not be DVD-R and DVD-RW compatible.”

Introduction

If you're a road warrior who prefers to take copies of movies with you so the originals don't get scratched, or your tired of you kids tearing up their game DVDs you've probably wondered how to make easy backup copies of your commercial DVDs. You know all about Toast or Popcorn by Roxio, and Apple’s burner software and have likely been exposited to DVD ripping software. The later places (rips) the contents of a DVD to your had disk. 

I have a couple or more high school game addicts around the house most days after school and weekends that use both movie and game CDs with our electronics.   Our out of town visiting grandsons ranging from 10 to 15+ use both the computer(s) and game machine to do their thing.  Therefore I am continuously somewhat concerned about the health of the DVDs we so expensively provide them.  When I came across Fast DVD Copy, I figured that by allowing the boys, yes they are all boys, to use backups; I could protect our investment in game software and my movie collection.

I was especially intrigued by the fact that the publisher noted that the product could copy the new dual-layer movies to a single layer DVD.  It could also copy single-layer DVD video DVD-ROM, PS2 games, digital audio compact discs and data storage compact discs.

My focus of course was only movies and games, including the occasional foreign language movies shared by friends — those that were not created for our region and therefore would not play on either my players or my computer. I also reflected that the software included with my OS and Toast, my favorite burner software, can handle most audio and data CDs and data DVDs but not encrypted (err. protected) or out of region DVDs.

Around my favorite hellions, disk lifetime is sometimes poor and doesn’t seem to increase as the boys progress from elementary school into their teens.  I’ve never figured out how the act of inserting and removing a DVD from a player or computer can lead to scratched media, but grandkids and their friends manage to do it. Perhaps the dog did it?

I’ve spent several months on and off working with the product, with mixed results. Some of the problems were of my doing, some were related to my equipment limitations, but more about that later.

Working With the Product

The software is easy to install and start to use its one-click copy interface.

Based on the mistakes I made when attempting to learn the software I recommend you read file product specifications before you start section of the help using fast DVD Copy. In addition, take the time to set your preferences to meet your specific copying  needs.

An easily fixed problem that you should know about is that Apple’s  “DVD Player Application conflicts with FAST DVD COPY since both try to access the same OS DVD framework.

In addition, “you should check that you are able to see and select your DVD burner(s) in the Drive preference. If you do not see your DVD burner listed in the options or if it is listed under a different name, please check the "Notice about Fast DVD Copy's compatibility with DVD burners" located in this manual.”

Fast DVD Copy Works Quite Well for Me — Copying any DVD is a cinch—pop in a DVD-R or DVD-RW disc and press the Copy button. If you’re copying from a dual-layer disc, Fast DVD Copy lets you copy directly to another dual-layer disc if your Mac’s DVD drive has that capability (mine does not). You have other simple to implement options if the amount of content you’re copying exceeds 4.7 GB

I was able to compress the content of a dual-layer DVD to a size that fit on a standard DVD-R, without deleting any material on the original, but the picture quality suffered.  By eliminating material I had no interest in before the copy-compression process I got high quality copy that did not affect my viewing of movies on my standard 2-year old low-definition JVC 36” TV set. [Indeed the picture was better than what I had obtained when copying the same movie from VHS tape to DVD.]

To preserve as much video quality as possible, and minimize compression, you can pick and choose only the material you want to copy. By omitting the extras (previews, and behind-the-scenes footage) and even the trailers and other propaganda from the front of the DVD you greatly reduce disk space needs. You can also choose to remove the HiFi “surround” audio tracks leaving only the smaller size standard “stereo” audio. This is important because the product does not compress the audio tracks.

I was amazed on how good the copy looks and sounds.

Oh, of course I’m not going to name the names of the items I copied, since they were only for test purposes, but why should I give the Motion Picture Association of America another target?

Gottchas — I did make one very series mistake when I first started to test the software for copying DVD movies, and some games. I started to duplicate movies onto DVD+R media and of course failed.

My mistaken rationale for using DVD+R was that these many of my movie and game copies were going to be also tested on a PC, which accepts DVD+R media. Excuse, I’d read somewhere that more DVD players were compatible with the DVD+R format than with the DVD-R. That’s for the most part not true, even now. Harry caused problems:

Problem List

First, my Macintosh internal superdrive did and will not recognize the DVD+R media.

Second, although the Velan software is designed to burn to DVD+R media, my total system is not. 

Third, my LaCie external firewire drive appeared to recognize the DVD+R media but of course could not copy to it. 

Dumb with 20-20 hindsight! Sometimes you have to at least read the product specifications, if not the whole manual. However, if you have a newer Macintosh, forget my DVD+R troubles. According a friend who works in Mac support for a major local company, the new Macs work fine with DVD+R (W) type media.

After I finally checked the developers web site and then, just to be sure, the users guide and found my mistakes --- I got the software to work in the manner described by the developer.

Simple Tests That Mostly Succeeded:

I was able to copy, onto 4.7 GB DVD-R media, a half-dozen movies whose purchase date ranged from 1993 to a new release bought last week.  Many of these were on single-layer medium but two were created with the newer double-layer disks.  For the most part, I only copied the movie itself, using Movie Only feature, to copy only the main feature without menus or bonuses. Alternatively, I copied only the movie with the DVD player accusable menus. I preferred to minimize the compression needed to complete the copy enhancing picture quality. I don’t watch the rest of the stuff anyway; its on the original DVD anyway.

I did try to duplicate a number of computer game CDs both PC and PC/Mac combos with both Toast and Fast DVD Copy.  My success rate was higher with Fast DVD Copy, but I didn’t really keep score.

Features and More Features — Specific Software Capabilities — The software can function in a number of modes, some of which I successfully tested to limitations of my equipment. [Using only DVD-R media and no ability yet to burn to double-layer DVDs.]

“Copy: FAST DVD COPY will make a copy from a DVD onto a blank DVD+/-R (W) media performing all three steps: ripping or extracting the information from the original DVD, optimization that includes compressing and rebuilding of the DVD structure when necessary, and burning the result on the blank DVD.

Rip Only: FAST DVD COPY will only rip the information from the original DVD and the result will be stored as a VIDEO_TS Folder in the working volume or folder you previously selected. This VIDEO_TS folder will not be compressed or optimized, so it will be an exact copy of the content of the original DVD's VIDEO_TS folder.

Rip & Compress: FAST DVD COPY will rip the information of the original DVD, and, if the resulting VIDEO_TS folder is larger than a single layer blank DVD-R media, it will be optimized (compressing and/or rebuilding of the DVD structure) in order to make it fit onto a single layer DVD+/-R (W). When selecting the Rip & Compress option you will have the chance to remove bonuses and features if the original DVD is Dual Layer, just as if you were copying the DVD. The idea is that using this option you will obtain a VIDEO_TS folder that is ready to burn onto a Single Layer DVD media using FAST DVD COPY or any other burning engine or application that allows you to burn DVD Video. This VIDEO_TS folder will be stored in the working volume or folder you previously selected.”

Kudo for The Users Manual — The 21-page PDF Help file Velan provides is clearly written and well illustrated. Topics, deserving attention, not previously mentioned in this review include:

**Notice about copying music DVDs**

**Notice about copying Episodic DVDs**

**Notice about the quality of blank media**

Other DVD Associated Product Features

Your privacy guaranteed — no digital mark or traceable code written on your copied discs.

Copies an entire dual-layer DVD video to one single-layer DVD-R (W) disc by your maximizing compression ratios

Freedom to choose all items or specific items to copy including menus, trailers, audio streams, subtitles, bonus material and special features

Copied DVD videos can be played on any recent DVD player

Option to send copy logs to technical support

Fully copies multi-channel audio (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS, THX)

Apple iDVD compatible

NTSC and PAL video formats supported

Widescreen and Full Screen sizes supported

DVD copies are region free, but be aware of operating system limitation on regionalization discussed in the manual.

Protection Related —

Removes CSS encryption and Macrovision protection

Provides support for copying ARccOS-protected DVDs

Can handle RCE protection

Review Limitations

I was apparently able to make functional copies PlayStation 2 games (e.g., the process worked) to a DVD-R disc, but with no modchip installed in my grandsons system I could not verify this. I also had no easy access to other game system’s manufacturer’s games. So try the software before you buy, and figure out which games systems you can backup. Then tell the good folks at Velan all about it.

Discomforts

Legality Issues — There one hitch to this product, although the product works great, there’s one catch: The software isn’t technically legal. According to Anton Linecker’s review in MacWorld, http://www.macworld.com/2005/10/reviews/fastdvdcopy4/index.php —

 “All DVD-copying programs feature the ability to recompress a dual-layer DVD into a format that can fit onto a standard 4.7GB single-layer DVD-R. Other DVD-copying programs—namely Roxio’s Popcorn) and DVD2one’s DVD2oneX —circumvent the legal issues by omitting the ability to strip out copy protection. But Fast DVD Copy takes its chances with the law by including the power to remove CSS (Content Scrambling System) and Macrovision protection. The result? Velan has created an application that’s much more efficient than Popcorn and DVD2oneX, both of which require a second application to crack copy protection on DVDs.

According to the DMCA, it’s not legal for consumers to override the copy protection on DVDs. Yet it is OK to make personal copies of materials you own. That means that legally, things are up in the air. So far, the MPAA has not gone after individuals. But at this point, you’re using the software at your own risk.”

Velan’s disclaimer is very clear about the legality issue —

“It is against the law to reproduce copyrighted material for the purpose of selling it to third parties. To make one backup copy of any software or media for personal and an archival purpose is the ONLY intended use for this software. This program is not meant for those who intend on breaking copyright laws; in no way we will be held responsible if you do. Any other use of this software is strictly prohibited!”

The Users Manual - The 21-page PDF Help file Velan provides is clearly written and well illustrated, but unfortunately contains NO bookmarks to ease browsing. It could be searched using Adobe’s find function. All web links in the manual are active.

Conclusions

Although I had occasional failures trying to copy some of my grandson or his friends, games, overall the product (albeit slow on my G4 Macintosh) performed well, albeit more slowly than I would have liked. Actually the program was faster copying a movie than when copying a VHS tape to DVD on my stand-alone GO Video VR3840 recorder.

I agree with Anton Linecker’s conclusion for MacWorld.

“The biggest problem with Fast DVD Copy is the current state of legal limbo surrounding these types of products. Ironically, as a company promoting software that breaks other copy-protection systems, Velan has very strong security for its own product, limiting each activation to only one computer. Legal issues aside, Fast DVD Copy 4 is easy to use and intuitive. And even though it costs almost twice as much as other, similar applications, it is also much more streamlined.”

I rate this product 4.0 macCs.

After Thoughts

After finishing my testing, I did a Google check on the product and was somewhat surprised on what I found.  Some user had results comparable to mine. Others including David Biedny of MacAddict magazine http://www.macaddict.com/issues/2006/1/reviews/fastdvd had a less fortunate experiences when testing an earlier version of the product available at the time his January 2006 review was published . [Versions 3.x to 4.01.]

David’s bottom line, if you need to back up your DVDs, you might want to consider using the freeware program MacTheRipper (MTR) 2.6.6 lLast update 03-13-05) to rip DVD to your hard drive and then commercial Roxio Popcorn 2.0 [$50] or Toast 7 software [$80-$100] to burn the ripped copy to DVD. It’s a cheaper method that requires a little more effort, but it’s faster and more reliable than using Fast DVD Copy.

Note that MacTheRipper http://www.mactheripper.org/ has not been recently updated, but a version 3.0 is under development.is no longer being supported. Perhaps the Motion Picture Association of America has struck again?  I took a quick look at MTR version 2.6.6 and it appears to be more complicated to use than I’d like. Perhaps we’ll get someone else to review MTR for macC.

“MacTheRipper is a free DVD ripper (extractor) for Mac OS X. It can extract commercial DVD movies to your hard drive, minus all the copy protections and region controls put in place by DVD publishers. You can then use various tools to burn the movie back to DVD-R for use in DVD players, or convert the movie to different formats for playback with a variety of devices. MacTheRipper is intended to backup DVDs you have legally purchased for personal use. Any copyright-infringing activity you choose to perpetrate using this application is illegal, immoral, and beyond our control.”

It was that uncertainty that lead to my only rating the program 4.0 macC’s.