Digital Home Thoughts: Video Vault PVP from Diversified Multimedia

Comes in Many Sizes
Video Vault PVP is a flavour of the Video Vault product line aimed at the portable video player market. They have different versions that rise in price and also in functionality, including a PSP version ($29.95 USD), a PDA/Smartphone version ($29.95) an iPod version ($39.95), the PVP version I'm reviewing ($49.99), and finally the full version of the product simply dubbed Video Vault that sells for $99. You buy the one that most closely matches your device needs - Video Vault PVP is a good overall choice for someone that wants to be able to work with almost any sort of portable device.

Video Vault PVP in Use
So what does Video Vault PVP do? You need to download the free trial to really find out, because the very sparse product page contains few details about the application. It's a very powerful application - I tested version 3.5.0.0166.

The first thing I noticed after starting the program was the, uh, rather unique user interface (image 1). You'll either love it because it's different from most Windows applications, or hate it because it looks so cheesy. I'm in the latter group - I'm all for making cool-looking applications, but I think Video Vault looks horribly tacky. Looks aside, how does it actually work? This is where Video Vault PVP really shines - it's a very powerful program. To start with, it can import video from non-encrypted DVDs, VCDs, SVCDs, even analog/digital video cameras with suitable hardware. Once you pair it with the awesome AnyDVD [affiliate], you can rip commercial DVDs with ease.

It's not just limited to importing DVDs: you can import a AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, ASF, WMV, DVR-MS, VOB, TIVO, and other files. About the only popular format it doesn't support is Quicktime. I used the DVR-MS import extensively, and it worked great for taking TV shows and preparing them for my Zen Vision:M. There are numerous options (image 2) that can be set to further tweak your experience.

Not only can it import a variety of video formats, it can export a variety as well - you first pick your device (image 3), then you pick your preferred video format for that player (image 4). In the case of my Zen Vision:M, if I'm planning on connecting the player to a TV set, I'll go for the 640 x 480 DivX at 1500 kbps. If I'm going to watch it on the device only, I would pick the 320 x 240 WMV at 640 kbps. If I'm in a rush to get it transcoded, I'd pick a 320 x 240 DivX at 750 kbps. There are options for 4:3 content and 16:9 content, allowing you to optimize for DVDs or regular TV shows.

If you're ripping a DVD, you have granular control over what content you want to rip (image 5) - the video according to the DVD Info file, the largest file on the DVD, selection from all the movies, or even specific chapters. There's also control over subtitles, aspect ratio, even sound track - it's not easy to find though, you have to click on the item, then click again to get a drop-down menu with the options. I didn't know this until I happened to randomly click around a bit. That's just not good application design.

Management of video files is also something that Video Vault PVP offers - when you rip a DVD or encode a video file, it adds that file to the library. You can then connect your portable player and use the application to move the file onto the device. Unfortunately when you delete files from the library it's permanent - they don't go into the Recyle Bin like they should. It might be that the developers thought because video files are large it's best to delete them, but I'd prefer to have the files in Recyle Bin as a fall-back.