Has anybody seen this software - "CopyDVDPro"- loo

[Hojobey]

This software, which is located at www.copydvdpro.com looks almost too good to be true. For $37 is appears to do everything that DVD Encryptor, DVD2ONE and DVDXCOPY does. It alleges to:
1) Make an exact copy of a DVD Movie (either NTSC or PAL)
2) If it is large, it will put it on 2 DVDs (just like DVDXCOPY)
3) Or, it will re-render and put it on one DVD (exactly like DVD Encryptor and DVD2ONE).

All for $37. Has anybody seen or heard about this software? Does anybody see any down side to this software?

[Hojobey]

I meant DVD Decrypter, not Encrypter. Sorry.

[jake88]

I believe this is just a program with a bunch of links to freeware and instructions on how to use them. I purchased this or somethong with a very similar name and was very disappointed with it...Beware...

Jake

[pmaizitis]

Hi ... I agree 200% with Jake88 to beware of buying COPYDVDPRO .... I would suggest you look at DVDShrink as it is freeware and I have already done 14 DVDs with no issues at all.

Cudos … I have been using DVDShrink for the 14 DVDs and have had no problems with decrypting, encoding, and authoring and I have had absolutely no playability issues with the software using Nero to burn Verbatim and Fuji 2.4X DVD+Rs. This is a fun and fast and easy program to use and it blows the competition away. You are truly on the cutting edge with this software. I have never seen a program encode so fast (less than an hour) with such great results.
I had been using COPYDVDPRO which in my opinion I would never recommend again. I have had various problems with most of the DVDs I burned from copies made using their suggested software which they provide on their site or refer to other sites. In all fairness you can be the judge as here is a transcript of my last email to them and their last email to me. Perhaps I may be wrong but in my opinion I would not use them again. They have refused me further technical support saying that mine has run out. I have the email address out.
________________________________________________
“-----Original Message-----
...............................................
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2003 7:16 AM
..........................
Subject: Re: Refund


Gregory:
Your advertisement states:
"Our guarantee is straight forward. We stand behind our packages because we know they work and we support you after the sale. In the rare case that your hardware configuration isn't supported, we'll promptly refund your purchase."
1. We had provided you with information that our discs would not burn and you stated that was a firmware issue with the Sony DRX500ULX. This was not true in our case and we resolved the issue outside of your technical support. In that case NERO did not burn the discs successfully ... Record DX did. You stated (RE: 4/8/2003 9:14:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time): "I know that if a customer can't burn a DVD with Nero, I really shouldn't feel too bad because Nero is the defacto burning tool and it's supposed to be compatible with everything, but I do feel like crap and I always refund the purchase.". Not clear why you are not refunding our money.
2. We provided Copy DVD Pro technical support with information that many of the DVDs we burned would not play in our standalone player. All you offered was that we visit your competitor's site to view their forums for support on our issues. Copy DVD Pro did not provide technical support.
3. We requested information on converting PAL to NTSC as none of these would play on our players after conversion. You stated (RE: 4/21/2003 9:32:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time): "We don't have any information in our tutorials to help you convert PAL to NTSC." At the time of the sale there was no disclaimer that Copy DVD Pro was NTSC specific.
4. None of the DVDs processed through your tutorial will play in our standalone player. Those processed through DVDShrink will play. Therefore our hardware configuration isn't supported by Copy DVD Pro.

Your software has been removed from our PC. We again request a refund. We have made an appointment with legal council.
Pete Maizitis “
_______________________________________________

“Subj: RE: Refund
Date: 5/8/2003 6:31:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time
..............

Pete,

I checked the 18 emails that I (Gregory) sent you, none of them contain the information you provided in your first point (1). You got a little creative with my words and added some of your own, my original words were:

"I've done some looking on the Sony website and a lot of other forums (not to mention all the customers of mine that own the DRU500) and there are some serious firmware issues with this drive. Many sites that sell DVDs also tell you that you'll need to update the firmware before their recordable DVD media will work with this drive. Nero is the defacto standard in DVD burning and you're telling me you have trouble with it, I'm not surprised.

I wish I have an answer for you other than make sure you've got the latest firmware in the writer. Also, I've read that you have to disable the DMA on the drive controller before you do the firmware upgrade, so be careful.

I will say that I've got several customers who've been successful making copies with this drive after getting the latest firmware, so I'm confident that it's possible to use this writer, but I'm not an expert on the drive myself."


From what I can see, there is a reference to Nero not being able to burn a DVD, however you are not required to use Nero and we recommend using DVD Decrypter together with ImgTools as the primary method of burning a DVD. If you had provided evidence of not being able to burn with DVD Decrypter to me, I would have refunded your purchase as I always do when there is a hardware compatibility issue that prevents a customer from using the software. Instead however you provided me the following:

"Actually the issue was not so much the firmware but the Hypermedia discs. It is just curious and Sony has no answer why only the 1st 6 could be burned. I did the firmware upgrade and it did not help. In one case I had success making a data disc with the included Veritas Record Now DX software (drop the whole video subdirectory into folders).I switched to Verbatim DVD+Rs 2.4X and they work great so far. I will also be trying the Fuji DVD+Rs 2.4X ."

This indicated to me that your problem was actually related to bad media. You can't expect me to be responsible for bad media.

2) Support comes in many forms, we don't claim to possess all the answers for software we didn't write. In this case however I did not send you to a competitors forum page looking for answers, I only mentioned that you are not the only one to have trouble copying a DVD, some DVDs are simply too difficult to copy no matter which tool you possess, including the competitions. I said you could confirm this if you looked on their forum pages. You have a knack for putting a spin on the original content of each email, which I preserve for cases such as this. We don't have all the answers, this is not the definition of support. Support is there to help you, we can't hold your hand through every step and make sure you do everything right.

3) You can copy a PAL DVD or an NTSC DVD, the tools we provide do both. Conversion between formats is not something we show you how to do, since none of the tools provide this capability. We don't make any claims that you can convert a DVD from one format to another.

4) DVD Shrink does not come with a burning tool, so if you can burn a "VIDEO_TS" folder with whatever tool you are using, you can do so with the "VIDEO_TS" folder produced by our tutorials. You said yourself that they played perfectly in WinDVD, which is all anyone can expect. After that, it's a question of media compatibility and quality and of course your standalone DVD player's ability to effectively player recordable media. Your "hardware configuration" doesn't include your television, your fridge and stove, nor your standalone DVD player, only your computer and the ability to use the software on it to copy a DVD. We don't guarantee you can play a DVD, only that you can copy one.

All of this comes as somewhat of a surprise given the fact that on 5/4/2003 you said the following:

"Hi Gregory:
Just wanted to say what a great tutorial ... I keep it open as I do my processing ... very informative for this complex process."

This came after all the problems you had and you only changed your tone once you found another shareware tool that it easier to use. If you buy a computer today, then in 3 weeks a better and cheaper model comes out, you can't expect the manufacturer to give you a refund. Since we don't have any control over the copying process once it's in your hands and since we can't guarantee that every tool will work flawlessly, we warn you of this in the disclaimer and you have to agree to it before you purchase the product, you did.

A refund will not be forthcoming, neither will any more correspondence from our company since you have obtained far more support than anyone I've ever dealt with, and I don't want the rest of my customers to have to wait unnecessarily for their answers. Free support is not for an indefinite time, yours has run out.

Gregory."”


__________________
Druidmeister

[Hardcoreruss]

Smells like mackerel to me

[pmaizitis]

That's a new twist on a fishy subject!

[Quigonsean]

Well, I've never seen it, but if it's one of those apps that contains freeware and shareware from other people without permission, as is often the case. Then not only should it not be purchased, but the people marketing it should be flogged flayeled, and drawn and quartered then there head put on London bridge oh thats now in Arizona, okay put the head on Tower Bridge.

Sean

[pmaizitis]

Hi Quigonsean:
Good point ... the shame of it is that COPYDVDPRO claims: "We don't hide the fact that our packages include freeware, in fact we say so in several places, most notably on our product comparison page: http://www.copydvdpro.com/compare.htm (refer to the second row of the table, as well as the link that follows1) I think we are alone in this regard, as all the other competitors hide this fact from you. We don't charge any money for the freeware, however the package price is reflected in the convenience of getting all the freeware from our server instead of having to scour the internet looking for the appropriate versions. We also mention that you need to go elsewhere for the decrypters. In addition, you get two well written and rock solid tutorials, that have been tested extensively. As well, in the case of the Copy DVD Pro - DVD tutorial, you get video demos for each step of the copying process. Lastly, we provide support after the sale."
As far as a refund and technical support their last response to me was:
"A refund will not be forthcoming, neither will any more correspondence from our company since you have obtained far more support than anyone I've ever dealt with, and I don't want the rest of my customers to have to wait unnecessarily for their answers. Free support is not for an indefinite time, yours has run out."
We notified the authorities regarding this and our credit card has issues us a credit.

[jarvis1781]

Nice dude.
That is what I like about credit cards...they are there for you when a company tries to rip you off.

Those pricks want to give you the "brush off" because they think you have been given too much support already.

I say to them!!!!

The money you pay for their product is for the tutorials and if they don't work...you didn't get what you paid for!

Congrats man on getting your credit from your credit card company.

And again to Gregory

[mrbass]

dvdcopypro and many others hopefully if I get my way you and many others will be shutdown
I'm contacting registrars, isps, and fbi
http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/

[pmaizitis]

Hi jarvis1781!
Thanks much for the words of encouragement. Being laid off since last May we are counting all our pennies (I organized over 15 employees to contribute to 911 efforts and was reprimanded by management and then we were told that the company could not put priority over one disaster over another! The news media would not even touch the story I sent them!).
PayPal has basically washed their hands of the whole thing claiming that my claim is over their 30 day limit. But I have evedence in the form of emails that I was having problems withn the software since day one, although I made the stupid mistake of compliementing COPYDVDPRO on their tutorial.
And there is still the chance that the credit card company could come back and say they could not resolve this.
Hey, cool Emoticon you've! It rocks!
__________________________________________
Hi mrbass:
Cool, I did not realize that there was such a thing (man whhat a newbie I am).
Please do not forget to nail COPYDVDPRO as well. They're URL is: http://www.copydvdpro.com/compare.htm#
Hey, I saw a reference to DVD2SVCD by your name .... I have used this for over a year now and the program rocks!
______________________________________________
Thanks again for the words of encourement!

[pmaizitis]

Incidentally aparently there are some dissatisfied former customers of COPYDVDPRO on the U.K website DVD Reviewer ... see the threads at: http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/forums/thread.asp?Forum=214&Thread=162230

Beware of CopyDVDPro software
posted by crucian1 on Wednesday, 12th March 2003, 00:33
Beware of the Competition! I recently purchased a copy of CopyDVDPro and to my horror they refused to refund the full amount ($37.00) after I tried their program for only one day. read below...A word to the wise...

Dear Sir,
I wish to request an immediate refund for my purchase $37.00 (U.S.)
of the copy of CopyDVDPro . I understood this
program to be a simple stand alone DVD copy program. I do not
understand anything about copying a DVD with these complex methods
described in the tutorial. I cannot absolutely nor do I wish to use this
program ever again...thank you very much...please inform me how I can
obtain my refund price for this purchase.
Sales wrote:

Hi H,

I can certainly understand your frustration if you thought you were buying a
"one click" application, but that's not what's advertised on our website.

Our home page says: "Each package comes with a step-by-step illustrated
tutorial that shows you how to copy a DVD."

On our "Product Comparison" page (www.copydvdpro/compare.htm#0) we give you
a lot more information. For example, the first row shows that unlike
DVDXCopy, Copy DVD Pro is not a single application. The second line tells
you that we include: Freeware utilities (like DVD Copy Plus, DVD Squeeze,
DVD Wizard Pro, DVD Echo, and many others)0.

If you follow the link at the end of each row, you'll get even more in depth
information. For example, the link above leads to this:

"Each Copy DVD Pro package includes an illustrated step-by-step tutorial
with links to download freeware from our website."

In case you missed this information, we also provide additional information
in our disclaimer. To enable the purchase button on our website, you were
required to indicate that you read and agreed to the terms in our
disclaimer. Among other things, we state this in our disclaimer:

"Each package includes a step-by-step illustrated tutorial and access to our
website to download the freeware utilities. We also provide links to
download a decrypter utility from an alternate website."
www.copydvdpro/disclaimer.htm

This information was available to you prior to you purchasing the product. I
can't force you to read this, but it is there for your protection. When you
created your PayPal account, you were also required to read and agree to the
terms in their disclaimer. These are legally binding and are meant to
protect both the consumer and the seller. Once you agreed to these terms and
purchase our product, you are bound by this agreement.

Our site has been carefully reviewed by PayPal and we've been informed that
it does provide adequate information for the customer to make an informed
decision before purchasing the packages. We also provide additional
information in our disclaimer in case the customer missed something
important.

H, I do as much as I can to inform my customers about what to expect
from my DVD copying packages. I am far more forthcoming than my competitors
about what is included and what are the limitations. If you still feel that
I have misrepresented my product, you may wish to talk with my PayPal
account manager, and inform him of the situation. His name is Tony Ward and
you can reach him by email at: tonyw@paypal.com

I pay considerable pay-per-click advertising fees to put my product on
various search engines and since I also have no verifiable way to remove
these tutorials once they are installed and registered on your machine, I'm
not able to issue a full refund.

I have given refunds in the past when a customer has experienced a hardware
conflict. This doesn't appear to be the case for you. I'm a reasonable guy
so I'm willing to compromise. In cases such as yours I can offer you a
refund but I'll have to hold back $15 as a virtual restocking charge. I pay
on average at least $20 in pay-per-click advertising on search engines, so
this money is already spent.

If this is acceptable to you, let me know and I'll process your refund.

Sincerely,

Gregory

-----Original Message-----
From: HWM
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:00 AM
To: sales@copydvdpro.com
Subject: Immediate Refund Request

Dear Gregory,
I am willing to accept your offer as indicated below. However, I would like your company to make it absolutely clear to consumers that your DVD copy program is NOT a stand alone application, such as "DVDXCopy," and a few others. I'm certain that I am not the first person, neither the last, to complain about this situation. You obviously must have had sufficient experience by now to create an appropriate response form letter for this type of situation. Thank You...HWM...








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RE: Beware of CopyDVDPro software
posted by spin on Wednesday, 12th March 2003, 07:16
Get on to your credit car company they may be able to reverse the transaction,explain to them as above and I think you will get a full refund from them.

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RE: Beware of CopyDVDPro software
posted by Shaun P on Wednesday, 12th March 2003, 08:00
I doubt the credit card company will be interested... the protection you get from using a CC doesn't usually kick in unless you're spending more than £50 AFAIK. The fact the transaction went through PayPal probably won't help matters, either - too many other parties for each one to blame!

Just goes to prove you should always read the small print - and I'm not trying to rub it in...