Customer Reviews

DVD X Copy Xpress - Make High Quality Backup Copies of DVD - PC software

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I've seen quite a few reviews by people who either love this software, or those that can't get it to work. Download the demo and try it first. If it works, you'll like it. If the demo doesn't work, don't buy it.

The demo worked just fine for me, so I purchased the software. It does what it says it will do with absolutely no hassle. In fact, the lack of setup options may almost be a drawback. There are really almost no options available at all. You put the disc in, hit copy, and you get a copy.

What you get a copy of is the movie on the disc. You get no menus, (although the chapters are there for skipping through the disc) no additional audio tracks, no special features, and only 1 subtitle track. If the movie is still too big for a single disc, it compresses it (suprisingly quickly at that). For me, this is perfectly adequate. All I really need is the ability to create a copy of the actual movie. The video and audio qualities of the resulting discs looked as good as the original. I noticed no additional dithering in the picture and the dolby digital surround stream was completely intact.

Speed depends more on your system than the software. Mine took a little over an hour to copy a disc on a P4-1.7 with 256MB and a Sony DRU-510A Dvd burner using 4x media.

If you want additional features, you have to buy the non-express copy of the software. With that you'll get options to pick and choose what features to keep. Unfortunately the non-Express version has no compression feature, so many DVD's will be split to 2 discs. What they really need to do is combine the features of both programs. They offer a Gold version, but it's really just copies of both programs, but still not sharing features.

If you want to make no-hassle copies of ANY dvd on a single disc, and don't care about extra features on the disc, this product works great and couldn't be easier.

I bought this because I have around 50 DVD's and do not want to purchase the same ones if they damage becuase, like so many people out there I value my stuff. I installed it, it didn't work. I called the tech support at their NON 800 number, even though they say in the DVD package that they have one, but they really don't, it's a long distance number depending where you live. Anyway, the tech said that I had to get rid of some things such as my Roxio Cd Creator Drag to Disc feature becuase it blocks the DVD X copy from getting the info to the DVD burner, I also had to disable my Norton Anti-virus, which was no problem. So I go to make a copy but now I am faced with more problems. I am getting every image heavily pixelated and the movie is unbearable to watch so I had to download some more software to stop the pixelation. I did not mention that I had to unistall & install the DVD X Copy Express about 7 times and I had to purchase a 2.0 USB because it WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY with just a 1.1. Some movies like Animatrix and the Gladiator would not play in some players while they worked fine in others(would not play in my Sony DVD player but played in my Playstation 2? Weird),
but as of late the DVD's are coming out ok. It's just a lot of aggrevation, work, and money at first that you want to stick the software up back up their ass. Buy with caution, time, and patience.

Ok, backing up DVD movies is a bit of an art. The problem is that the movies you buy on DVD are a different resolution than the DVD blank media you can buy this was done on purpose to keep you from doing a 1:1 perfect copy. DVDXCopy Xpress handles this problem for you by stripping away menus, non-English tracks, bonus material, etc and it re-encodes the movie recompresses it at a small loss of quality over the original (you won't notice). That's great and all, the problem is that there is an much better shareware program called DVD-Shrink that does this exact same thing much better! DVD-Shrink is like DVD XCopy XPress on steriods, it lets you decide what to keep and what to ditch. You can keep the menus and bonus stuff, chapter selection, etc.. much better product than this and best of all it's free, only requirement of DVD-Shrink is that you must have a program like Nero 6 that can burn a ISO DVD-Video.

Another problem with DVDXCopy Xpress is that it's not compatible with all players and all media types (this is because it can't always tell that you have say 2.4x blank DVD+R media in your DVD burner that supports up to 4x) it can burn coasters. Using the two program approach DVD-Shrink + Nero allows you to rely on the top shelf DVD burning engine of Nero to do the burning work and other software to do the ripp.

As reviewer Jeremy notes, there is a freeware product that is much superior to everything.

The problem one reviewer was having is that he had his DVD-Drive on "auto-load" this causes the CSS encryption to kick in. You have use a program like AnyDVD which runs in the background and automatically decrypts and blocks that Macrovision crap.

but why pay $55 bucks and THEN have to use another product?

No reason. Use DVDShrink as Jeremy notes.

The web address for the newest version is: http://www.burnworld.com/software/dvdburning/dvdshrink.htm

However, many of use prefer the last beta which can be found at Doom9's site which provides detailed instructions for making your LEGAL backup copies of the DVDs you've spent your hard earned money upon.

Remember, it is perfectly legal to make a cassettte tape back up of your latest NSYNC CD; by the legal doctrine of analogy, it's perfectly legal to make an archival copy of software--and that's all a DVD is: a recepticle of software.

Given that the MPAA appears to have caught the RIAA's rabes infection, grab all of this software from US companies while you can; shortly the only place it may be available is Russia, China and Eastern Europe.

There is no argument that holds any water that denies me the right to create back ups of the $1000+ I've invested in my DVD collection. What is there's a fire? Why should I have to buy all my DVDs AGAIN? Of course, I shouldn't and I won't have to.

Piracy is copyright violation for money.

Back-up copies are a consumer's inherent right to protect his investment in his collection.

I take heart. For every content "protection" rackett they come up with, some fifteen year old cracks it within a few days. These incipient Big Brethren will never beat the cleverness of the dateless adolescent with a compiler and all the time in the world on his hands.

So, again, there's no reason to buy this product.

Doom9's site will provide links to all the software as well as directions on how to copy 9GB discs to 5GB discs. While his instructions are prefaced on the overall excellent NERO suite of burning software/tools, but I've found it works with other burning software. If you've got a little experience with burners, it shouldn't be a problem.

Many people have trouble installing and running DVD X Copy and this may be because it has been known to clash with other CD/DVD writing programs like Roxio Easy CD Creator and Nero. I actually removed these before installing DVD X Copy XPress so I had no problems with the installation process whatsoever. This program will copy the entire movie onto one disc, but just the movie and nothing else like scene selections, trailers, commentary, etc. If you'd like to add these to your DVD you need the regular DVD X Copy or the Gold or Platinum versions. This program takes about 45-50 minutes to burn one DVD which is not too bad.

Another problem others have mentioned before is that the DVDs they made with this program showed heavy pixelation and stopped working when played in their DVD player. I think this isn't because of the program or the burner they used, rather it's due to a dirty disc. This actually happened to me recently, I burned a copy of one of my DVD movies and then played it on my Sony player. It was perfect till the end when it showed heavy pixelation and stopped working. I then took it out and cleaned it with a towel and all was well again.

I would highly recommend this product to anyone even remotely interested in burning DVDs. All you have to do is to keep the caveats mentioned before in mind in order to avoid hours upon hours of frustration.

This product does what it promises, which is not the case with several other DVD-copying apps. It will copy all soundtracks, menus, subtitles and special features.

Squeezing regular DVDs onto 4.7 GB DVDs is done by smart and impossible-to-tell compression.

The Platinum version also came with a DVD rescue application that will help you salvage your damaged DVDs.

The bottom line: this is the software you want to backup DVDs

This is one great program. I did have a bit of a problem, and ruined 3 discs. But it turned out to be a conflict with Roxio
6.0. I uninstalled Roxio and it has been clear sailing ever since.The program is so simple. It takes two steps. I just backed up Spartacus which runs 196m. I clicked on "entire disc" and it recorded everything on 1 disc.Menus..commentary...everything. And the quality is wonderful (at least on a 36 inch tv). So, it will do just the movie, or everything if you want it.

Just remember if you are backing up a tv series like 24, make sure you click on "entire disc" to get it all. Otherwise you'll only get one episode.
Happy backing-up.

Beware of 321 Studios "Unconditional Money Back Guarantee" ads on their website. There is a time limit and a bunch of conditions that they don't tell you about until you try to get a refund. I tried to get a refund after their software did not work as advertised but was unsuccessful.

The program would (apparently) copy the DVD, but when a blank DVD was placed in the burner...NOTHING happened. The "start" button is supposed to change from gray to green, indicating that it is ready to burn on the DVD.

The long distance support line kept me on hold for an extended period of time, so I used the email support address from their web site. I got a very quick response saying that they could not provide support for requests without a license id and password (which would be nice for them to specify on their web site). I then immediately supplied the information, and... nothing. I supplied the info 3 times and have yet to hear back from them.

Buyers should also know that there is NO documentation included with this software, neither hard copy nor electronic file, so it is almost impossible to try to figure out how to obtain help.

Got this product in December and have only had a few minor problems. Backed up 45 of my dvds with only 1 disk being bad. (for some reason it decided to finalize the whole cd) But 45 out of my 46 attempts to back up my dvds were successful.

My computer is a 2Ghz/512 RAM/ and Sony-510A dvd-burner. But I've heard that this software is not compatible with everything.

The program first reads the dvd which takes anywhere from 22 to 47 minutes. Then insert blank dvd and it'll write it in no time. The 'backup' dvd is very good quality, hard to notice the difference.