15-Minute Reviews :: Agogo DVD Copy v4.78

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review. Today’s review is on Agogo DVD Copy version 4.78 by Agogo Software – An application to allow the copying of DVDs for backup functionality.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Agogo DVD Copy is a useful and up-to-date software that provides a fast and easy way to make copies of the DVD movies in your collection. Backing up of your favorite DVD movies to DVD-R(RW)and DVD+R(RW) Disc takes only 30 minutes. No basic knowledge needed! Agogo DVD Copy is the most efficient way to create backup copies of your DVD collection.

These working copies allow you to play your DVD movies every day without the inevitable risk of getting your originals scratched or damaged.”

Quick Pros

• Easy one-page design
• Options explain themselves nicely
• Relatively quick processing

Quick Cons

• msvcrtd.dll bug during first launch
• Many fonts are unclear and difficult to read
• Not a lot of options
• Does not work well with modern copy protection schemes
• Progress window’s cancel button half off the screen
• Could burn to ISO as well as directory structure

Expansion

This application is a very basic DVD copy program. When you get past the initial install issue with the missing msvcrtd.dll bug (download msvcrtd.dll here and install to C:\Windows\System folder or wherever your System folder is), you are greeted by a simple one-page design. Its interface is simple – There isn’t a lot of options to choose from; As the description states, “No basic knowledge needed!” It is pretty much a no-brainer, but their descriptions could still be a bit better (Some people may not know what a D5 disc is for example.) While the interface is easy to use (The input source and options on the top, the output destination and options on the bottom with a huge ‘play button in the middle,) the fonts were very hard to read for the most part (The options fonts and the titles on the source/destination icons are the worst.)

There are not a lot of options to this application at all; The options that are important are ‘Include DTS Audio,’ ‘Include Subtitles,’ ‘Include Movie Menu and Extras,’ ‘Copy to dual layer disc’ and ‘Compress to 1 D5 disc’ (The last two are more like radio buttons). With a few of the options, pop-ups come up telling you what you are enabling or disabling, providing more information – They do provide useful information for those new to backing up their DVDs although some may disagree with some of the reasonings.

Going through the usual collection of DVDs it appears that, as with many previous titles, this application does not work well with many of the newer copy protection schemes; Most of the time it would come back with ‘Can not read ’. However, two older (Quite a bit older) DVDs did copy properly, and when they did, they did process quite quickly and with good results, even with the compression. 16 minutes for one, and 18 for the other. One issue I did have was with the progress window; The cancel button was almost clear off the window (See image on the side) – A bit of an annoyance for sure.

One last note; For archival purposes, it may make far more sense if the DVD could be written to an ISO format instead of a directory structure; A lot less chance of user error possible, and easier to handle at a later time.

Final Verdict

While simplicity is the aim of this application, the application does miss this mark with poor fonts and poorly-titled options. The fact that the application does not copy more recent DVDs without add-ons (Which would mean more work and more end-user knowledge required) does deter use for some. For free, I would likely steer people towards applications such as DVD Shrink instead for the same level of usability with copy protection schemes and better functionality unless you really need something this simple (DVD Shrink isn’t difficult to use either). As for paying $39.98, I would find it difficult to recommend this title at all with an unfinished feel to this title as well as a lack of support for more modern copy protection schemes.

Posted by BladedThoth on Monday, January 14, 2008