Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

TMPGEnc MovieStyle ($39.95 USD) is video encoding software created for device-specific encoding. It has a slick, user-friendly interface that's quite easy to use - once you get it working. TMPGEnc MovieStyle, like its more expensive big brother TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress, has an extremely irritating online activation security scheme. I won't repeat myself here - you can read about my dislike of this sort of software protection in my other TMPGEnc review - but I find myself especially irritated because I installed this software to test it while I was a passenger in a car driving back home after visiting some friends in the countryside, and I wasn't able to use the software because I didn't have Internet access. I thought maybe on this cheaper, consumer-focused video encoding product, they'd have a more relaxed approach. There's not even a graceful limited trial mode for the software when it can't be activated - it simply won't load until the license is activated online. These sort of heavy-handed, "treat your customers like thieves" tactics are frustrating to see. But let's get on with the review, shall we? Read more...

"On RealDVD's product site, a message now reads: "Due to recent legal action taken by the Hollywood Movie studios against us, RealDVD is temporarily unavailable. Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of DVDs for your own use." Last week, Real filed for a declaratory judgment on its RealDVD product in anticipation of a suit that was filed later that same day by the MPAA. The filmmaking group charged Real with willful violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in making a product that illegally bypasses copyright protection."

When lawsuits start flying back and forth, it's not uncommon to see products get temporarily pulled until the dust settles, and that's exactly what's happened here. I guess I should have picked up a copy while I could - the concept definitely interested me, even with all of my DVD ripping tools. The question is, will we see this product offered again?

"The RIAA and music labels gained a bit more notoriety when one of its associates, Sony BMG's head of litigation Jennifer Pariser, remarked during a case, "When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy'." Now the MPAA, which typically follows closely in the RIAA's footsteps, is suing software maker RealNetworks and making similar remarks. In a similar mentality, which some say punishes the paying customer, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, the Walt Disney Company and Sony have all filed suit against the company, which claims it only wants to provide content owners with a means of backing up their DVDs."

This isn't surprising to me, and hopefully it's not surprising to RealNetworks either, because I want them to mount a vigorous defense. If RealNetworks has the fortitude to pursue this all the way, this could be the type of case we've been waiting for: something that would set the legal precedent needed to allow the legal proliferation of DVD copying tools. I haven't purchased RealDVD myself, but by all accounts they seem to have followed all the rules necessary for maintaining the copyright protection on the DVDs - they're just taking the encrypted bits from the plastic platter we call a DVD and moving those bits to a hard drive. As if on orchestrated cue, the movie industry reacts like the ignorant buffons they are, launching a lawsuit against RealNetworks. I hope RealNetworks fights this to the very end!

Here's our third giveaway, courtesy of Corel: two copies of Corel DVD Copy 6 Plus, valued at $49.99 USD each. Here's a bit about the product:

"Corel® DVD Copy 6 Plus makes copying DVDs and converting video easy. Enjoy full disc copying features, and convert video in three simple steps for sharing by email, on the Web, iPod®, iPhone™, PSP®, Zune™, mobile phones or portable media players. Easy, fast and reliable, DVD Copy 6 lets you take your video where you want to go. DVD Copy offers a simple process to complete most tasks: Just choose Source, Target drive and Format, click Start, and you're on your way to a perfect copy!? Copy video directly from the internet, make perfect 1:1 copies of DVDs, or select just the chapters you want to copy."


Here's how to enter: just post a message as a reply telling me either what features in Corel DVD Copy 6 Plus would be the most useful to you. There's one post per person allowed, and two winners will be randomly chosen. The contest will stay open for entries until April 7th, 2008.

Special thanks to Corel for their donation of this software!