15-Minute Reviews :: AVS DVD Copy 1.4

Hello everybody and welcome to today’s 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is AVS DVD Copy version 1.4 by Online Media Technologies – An application not only to backup DVD movies, but to copy CDs, create data CDs/DVDs and burn ISOs as well.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Simple and intuitive interface, a variety of hot features and supported media types make AVS DVD Copy a most convenient and demanded software to make home video DVD copies, create DVD discs for home DVD Players and perform other burning tasks.”

Quick Pros

• Useful alternative to other all-in-one applications such as Nero and Roxio
• Selection of tasks possible (Copy DVD/CD, Burn DVD/DATA/ISO)
• DVD shrinking process surprisingly quick
• Quality comes out very well

Quick Cons

• Lacking a music CD burning application built-in
• Choice of settings a little slim across the application (could be a benefit too)
• No information on how much shrinking would be needed based on copy mode of DVD
• Does not allow for backing up of copywritten DVD titles

Expansion

With the market flooded with either free, small-fee or full-blown CD/DVD applications, this one ends up wriggling itself into an interesting market. The selection of tasks possible is nice. Not only does it copy DVDs (Non-copywritten titles only without alternate software,) it also copies CDs, lets you create DVDs and data CDs (Sorry, no music CD creation) and burn ISO files as well. A little bit of what most people need in a burner. My biggest quip with it however is that it lacks a lot of advanced features/options you may find littered throughout other freeware titles such as more detailed shrink policies, file formats and so forth. With this however, this makes this application easy to use for people who are a little more intimidated by alternatives out there (Nero can be a lot to chew off for someone new to burning or has no desire to learn what it all is.) It may be nice to see a ‘maturing’ of this application to include an advanced mode with more settings for a little more ‘kick.’

I was surprised at the shrinking process. It took a video I produced (About 130 minutes) on a dual-layer disc, shrunk it and burnt it to a single-layer DVD in 20 minutes. With that said, the resulting quality ends up turning out well as well; A plus, since some do not re-encode very well at all.

Another small issue I do have, is while the ‘simple’ interface for copying DVDs is in place, it would be nice if you could at least see how much shrinking is going to take place for the three copy modes and languages included. If nothing else, represent it as a percentage as opposed to a size to maintain the ‘simplicity’ aspect, and maybe even color-code it based on how badly it will degrade the video.

Final Verdict

While the application does work, it is ‘lighter’ than Nero, but has more options (besides the music CD portion,) than some of the freeware on tha market, but is definitely easier to wield. That said, while free, you may want to pick it up; Not so much for the DVD copying (Who really has un-copywritten DVDs to copy? Not many,) but for the other features such as DVD/CD burning, iISO burning and CD copying. While I’m sure you could use a workaround for the DVD copying for your own personal backup, I’m not going to step into that for this review. As for $29, I’d likely not pick up this title alone – The plus however, is that for $29 for a year, or $59 for a lifetime licence to this and all of AVS’ other titles (Counting at 21 currently,) which may make it more than worthwhile for some. This would be the kind of application I’d set grandma up with for copying her photos off her computer.

Posted by BladedThoth on Friday, June 01, 2007