|
Once again it's CyberLink to the
rescue when it comes to copying your media. PowerDVD Copy is a no frills
powerful copying utility that will let even the novice backup any non
protected DVDs. Whilst we are sure that you could backup your commercial
release movies if you could bypass the encryption on them, the primary focus
of the software is ease of making duplicates of movies that YOU have created.
Installation took but a couple of
moments and then after a reboot (I always do that, old habits die hard), I was
ready to copy some of the DV of my kids playing in the backyard. You have a
couple of options with the software and that is to backup your files onto your
hard drive, allowing playback from there, or to burn on the fly to DVD.
Remember that to do this you will need both a DVD Rom and a DVD burner. So
many people write into us saying that a program doesn't work when missing the
obvious.
The thing that impressed me was
the ability of the software to compress an 8.5 gb dual layer disc down to a
standard 4.7 gb disc with all menu items intact. You can even select what
parts of the DVD that you want to duplicate. It's simple and actually a bit of
fun to do.
PowerDVD Copy also has a media
player built in where you can view your movies and see how they are going to
turn out before you commit them to disc. The interface for the player is
intuitive and all users should have no problems using any part of this
software. In the tests that we carried out in both shrinking a dual layer disc
and just copying on the fly there were not any problems and the end result was
a crystal clear reproduction of our DVDs.
Finally we tested the software on
three different branded DVD burners to check the software's claim of being
compatible with just about everything. We tried Sony, Liteon and Mitsubishi
burners that were in laptops and desktop units and there was not a hiccup on
any of them.
I'd recommend this software to
anyone looking to make backups of their DVDs. Bear in mind that this is not a
DVD editing suite and the cropping facility is about all there is to it.
Remember that it will not copy everything that you put in the player due to
the encryption on some discs, however for home movies you will be more than
able to make good looking discs for the whole family.
- Tory Favro | 
