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CinemaHD 4 Giveaway
$39.99
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — CinemaHD 4

CinemaHD converts your videos and movies in a way that they will be displayed optimal on your respective device.
$39.99 EXPIRED
User rating: 375 66 comments

CinemaHD 4 was available as a giveaway on April 3, 2015!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$49.95
free today
Helps you get back all kinds of lost or deleted data on Android devices.

Have you saved your videos or your movies on your computer and now you would like to watch it on your TV? CinemaHD converts your videos and movies in a way that they will be displayed optimal on your respective device. Additionally, you can choose comfortably your device from a list.

Furthermore, the software converts your videos to high definition and achieves the best possible resolution. The background of this innovative performance is the ODU-technology (Object Detection Upscaling), which is able to resolve scaling errors and scaling artifacts visibly and better than common methods from Spline or Lanczos. With only a few mouse clicks you can create HD-files out of DVD-videos (or single chapters).

System Requirements:

Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8; RAM: Min. 512 MB (1 GB recommended); CPU: at least 1 GHz; for high defined videos a modern dual core CPU is recommended, or at least a processor with 2 GHz; MP3 Codec; MP3 Codecs from Windows Media Player 10/11/12 as well as lame_enc.dll are supported Graphic Card with overlay-function

Publisher:

Engelmann Media GmbH

Homepage:

http://www.engelmann.com/en-us/cinemahd.php?affChecked=1

File Size:

21 MB

Price:

$39.99

Comments on CinemaHD 4

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#39

Installed,registered through a labrynthine process,you would have thought they were giving away the Crown Jewels,as opposed to a crippleware program that they,themselves,label as free,that has to phone home every time it starts.Things that make you go Hmmmmm.Schweinehunds!!

Reply   |   Comment by vanierstein  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#38

This seemed like a keeper, adequate for my needs. Install and registration went like charms, but then the trouble started.
I like to be in charge of what programs that are allowed to connect to the internet and so most are blocked as there's really no need for them to go on the net afaic.

Not so with Cinema HD 4 which even after I had told it not to check for updates still hung for a few seconds during startup trying to connect to the net, and here's the BIG letdown.
The program unregisters itself after 2-3 starts if there is no internet available. What can I say, after having to re-register CinemaHD 4 no less than 5 times today while working on just two videos, I finally gave up and uninstalled the program. Simply aint worth it! Why on earth is internet connection a requirement when working locally? Checking the registration every time the program starts? You sure put a lot of trust in your customers!

The way I see it, the main advantages of registering a program should be to get rid of nags, but registering with you brought the nags and hazzle in rather than getting rid of it. You may of course argue that Microsoft is worst in class on the subject, but they don't unregister Windows or Office even though most of their programs (including many processes in Windows and its subfolders) are nicely tied down to just this machine or just the local network unless I see a clear reason why they need access to the internet and from my viewpoint, phoning home is not a reason in itself.

Knowing which programs are allowed access the internet at any given time is just taking IT security seriously, but judging from the registration scheme introduced here, anyone who does so have to be a hacker?
What you do in the CinemaHD 4 program on the other hand is bordering to hacking as you are spending the customers bandwidth without informing them that it is going to happen. The fact that you are a company ad that it, due the forces of the market is legal to do so does not change that fact.



Rather troublesome I must say

Reply   |   Comment by Egil  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#37

I installed and registered the program and used it to increase the frame size of a downloaded video. CinemaHD 4 increased the frame size and also smoothed out much of the blocky pixelation that one normally sees when a small-frame video is converted to a larger frame size or is displayed at a larger size. CinemaHD 4 couldn't replace the detail lost when the video was compressed to a small frame size, but there was a noticeable improvement in the playback quality of the video. The setup file for this program created firewall rules which allowed CinemaHD 4 to call home and display ads every time the program was used. When I changed the firewall rules to block CinemaHD 4, CinemaHD 4 stopped working, and became unregistered. CinemaHD 4 is a good program, but not good enough to make me willing to have Engelmann's ads displayed every time I use the program, and it isn't good enough to make me willing to put up with having my firewall rules changed. I'm about to Revo CinemaHD 4.

Reply   |   Comment by Walter Snodgrass  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#36

I am not a big user of video converters but this is exactly what I needed today of all days. I shot our church service last night and burned it on to a DVD. Some of the members wanted it in a different format so they could watch in on PC's or that we could post it to our web site. The installation and registration went exactly as described. During install there was an option to change the install location as well and the output folder. I converted a 60 minute video shot in HD to mp4 in 50 minutes. (Downsized I do realize) After this I realized that I could cut portions and break it into smaller files. Each one of these required about the same amount of time as the video was long. I would like to be able to cut a file such as a mp4 file into parts without having to do a conversion each time. A big thumbs us from me and I seldom give those to any product. But I very seldom give a thumbs down either.

Reply   |   Comment by FuzzyTigger  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#35

My TV requires a converter box, which I have, and an antenna. It is at least ten years old. I do not watch TV that often and I do not need the latest technology.

I have a Samsung DVD Recorder R120. How do I convert files to work on that configuration?

Please keep in mind that I am not into videos. I do word processing mainly in English but also in Russian, French, and occasionally Greek, and I do photography.

By the way, I had absolutely no problem downloading and installing the program.

Thank you.

Reply   |   Comment by Father Deacon Michael Bishop  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#34

The original German,"Ihre Anfrage konnte nicht bearbeitet werden. Die eingegebene E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht akzeptiert."Translated to English,Means:"Your request could not be processed. The entered e-mail address will not be accepted."Translated via Google Translate.As to how to rectify this problemtry a different email addy ???Like I said before,Engelmann's registration process can be............."Problematic."....At best.This is NOT the first time I have run into this,and unless Engelmann changes their ways,which,unless there is an Grass-Roots uproar by paying customers,I don't see them changing their Registration Protocol / Problems ,at all.This has been the case for at least five years,and it is starting to leave a bad taste in MY mouth,and perhaps some fellow GAOTD visitors,I suspect....

Reply   |   Comment by vanierstein  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#33

So, I install, it shows the registration pop-up window, does the "mandatory" 10-second wait described by Brian in #6, then the text shows, then I enter first/second name/email address (I always use this one for registering software, it IS valid), and I get an answer (Deutsch), that my email address wird nicth akzeptierte, or something of the like ... so why was my email address not accepted?

OK, here's the actual text:
Ihre Anfrage konnte nicht bearbeitet werden. Die eingegebene E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht akzeptiert.

Reply   |   Comment by Hobo  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#32

Disregard #30 comment. Downloaded and installed anyway. No MKV option. Correction to my #30 I can stream AVI to the DVD player not MKV. So I converted an MP4 twice, first using AVI MPEG4 (16:9)with 'Adjust Resolution' checked and used defaults. Results were badly degraded video and NO audio. I retried using AVI MPEG4 (HD) and unchecked 'Adjust Resolution'. Results were excellent video but still NO audio. Original MP4 does have good audio. What am I doing wrong?

Reply   |   Comment by Carl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#31

Regarding Engelmann' problematic installs,(ie,program registration window not showing), if I remember correctly,sometimes a change of Browser allows us to -Voila !! See the window which was not visible.Will try install when I get home,I use Maxthon Browser ALMOST exclusively,except when I am forced to do otherwise by some program that insists on using IE.Good luck !!!

Reply   |   Comment by vanierstein  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-4)

Engelmann's software, on installation, creates firewall rules to give itself access to the internet. If your firewall or browser prevents Engelmann's software from accessing the Internet, Engelmann's software won't work. If Engelmann's software is not prevented from calling home, you'll have to put up with Engelmann's advertising.

Reply   |   Comment by Walter Snodgrass  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#30

'Currently no service available or internet connection is broken' is the message I get when I click the 'Request the Free Full Version'. HELP! PLEASE! as I'd love to get this software!

Reply   |   Comment by Geoff  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

It is a pity the developer did not participate in the discussion so as to help resolve the problem we are having with the registration. Judging by the fair number of positive comments to my original post earlier today there must exist a fair number of people with this issue.

I tried registering this on another machine running a different version of XP, different default web browser (IE vs Firefox) and different anti-virus package (AVG vs Avast!) which I also disabled, restarted the machine after install to clear/reset internet stuff, etc.; but had the same results.

(I did not try registering in SAFE MODE with networking turned on. If it requires that to work on my machine, I don't want software so delicate installed!)

I checked their website to see if there were any FAQs or support blog, etc., where others may have encountered and resolved this situation; but they only offer e-mail support with a 24 hour or less response time. That's too bad: had I contacted them earlier today, maybe I would have had a solution to share tonight. But too late now... going to uninstall.

Thanks, anyway, for the interesting offer.

Reply   |   Comment by harpo2448  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#29

Entered name and email in pop up window. No registration email with license key arrived. Did this 2x. What gives?

Reply   |   Comment by Drudge D  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)

took 1/2 hr for mine did it twice

Reply   |   Comment by lol 99  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#28

"Upscaling and downscaling videos" from the features list on their website.
Sorry I don't think so. If you have a very low quality source, it can never be upscaled into a very high quality output. Any HIFI enthusiast will know that.
Any meaningless attempt will likely turn a 1 MB file into a 30GB file and the result will still be hopelessly bad.
For normal conversion to other formats, there are much better converter alternatives elsewhere that are both paidware and freeware.
Don't waste time with this.

Reply   |   Comment by ric  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#27

I got the "Currently no service available or internet connection is broken."

Since someone else reported this same issue and my Internet connection works fine, it looks like it's just yet another poorly executed license key giveaway (far from the first time this has happened). This is probably a small operation with insufficient server capacity. There may be other comments saying the same thing, but who knows when we'll see them since comments often take a long time to get moderated.

I'll try again tonight and if it doesn't work then, I'll delete this program and add it to my list of apps I will never try again.

Reply   |   Comment by Jake  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#26

Same problem as Harpo2448. What can I do before the free license runs out?

Reply   |   Comment by Leon Magill  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#25

No option for install location, you accept the EULA and it starts installing. Deal breaker. And when I cancelled the install two instances of setup.exe were left running in processes, I could cancel one but not the other, it apparently even blocked Unlocker from running; had to restart windoze to get out of this mess. Not impressed.

Reply   |   Comment by JGF  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#24

No registration problems; each set of 4 digits had to be separately pasted into appropriate boxes.
When applied to amateur 1024x576 MP4 video, for example text on posters was unimproved.
The video camera had been tripod-mounted, and a complete lack of background motion among frames hampers superresolution,
but slow pans appeared no sharper than simply displaying 1024x576 MP4 in a VLC or Google Chrome window zoomed to the same size.
Some noise reduction should have been possible, but was unobvious.

FWIW, the same .avi is distinctly more pleasantly displayed in VLC 2.2.0.0
than in Windows Media Player 12.0.9600.17415, which boosts and smears reds.

Reply   |   Comment by Bleken Bleu  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#23

CinemaHD 4 Free
This was offered on GIVEAWAY OF THE DAY at 8:00am BST, available only for 24 hours.
I installed it and was met by a blank window with a little key, on the left in the title bar.
It also opened your website, but neither did anything to activate the program. The blank window was caused by WebReg.exe, and had 'Close' greyed out so I had to kill it with a taskmanager.
Retried, reinstalled, no result. At that time, there were no comments on their feedback section, so I sent a comment ~ 8:45am, explaining the problem and hoping that they would have this sorted by the time I woke up again.

I read the rest of the comments, and someone who had got it running explained it had no edit facility, which for most uses, renders it useless, but I have an interest in Video2TV, so I wonder Can YOU help?

PS https://www.engelmann.com/en-us/feedback.php has no price on display, and comes with a complaints pop-up in German. I'd plenty complaints, but I don't speak German.

Reply   |   Comment by a John  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#22

The web serial request feature dont work in windows xp with internet explorer 8, pls specify it properly next time. It work for windows 7 though.

Reply   |   Comment by Tom  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+8)
#21

"This is the original installer. No wrapper. Many registry changes…"

In a VBox win7 32 bit VM I recorded 2359 new entries, though many of those are meaningless garbage [e.g. \Shell\Bags\ ]. Engelmann's media apps generally rely on 3rd party Direct Show filters, & particularly for those that use .NET, installation files or routine that use Windows Installer. Both of those mean more registry entries -- sometimes a lot more, depending partly on if those Direct Show filters have already been added by another Engelmann app. The main *potential* downside that I'm aware of would be if those Direct Show filters conflict with other DS filters that might already be installed, or might be installed in the future. That's not a mark against Engelmann -- it's something you can run into whenever you add DS filters.

"Enlarging the video takes some time, each single frame has to be enlarged and reencoded:... The original film has 55 MB – The resulting film is about 1,5 GB!"

Our PC's graphics cards, tablets, HDTVs, and Blu-Ray & Media players all upscale video fine. You can upscale in software beforehand, but as you've noted, Karl, it takes time & the result will be a bigger file -- how could it not be bigger when you're storing more pixels?

You'll have to trust your own eyes on your own hardware to see which method you prefer -- my opinion is that letting the hardware do the upscaling works better for us. We've watched several old movies that have been allegedly remastered for Blu-Ray -- one or two did look better than just playing the equivalent DVD, quite a few had artifacts from the process [the actors' eyes look creepy on the "Mummy 1 & 2"], & some IMHO looked worse [e.g. "The Princess Bride"].

Regarding the file size, encoding to mpg2 takes less processing horsepower, so it takes less time to encode, and it looks as good if/when you use a quality encoder [e.g. Mainconcept], but file sizes can be bigger than AVC/H.264 video, & many media players & tablets/cells etc. do not handle mpg2 as well. AVC video file size for the most part depends on frame size & bit rate, though using multiple passes when encoding VBR [Variable Bit Rate] can help reduce file sizes further. For what bit rate to use, again trust your eyes.

A good bit rate for 1080p AVC video that was originally 1080p or greater is around 20 - 30 depending on how sharp or good the original video is. With upscaled video you're missing data -- there are 1728000 more pixels in a 1080p frame vs. a NTSC [US] DVD -- so it will never look as good as video shot at 1080p or greater. The optimal 1080p AVC bit rate then would be the lowest bit rate that didn't reduce the quality further. Depending on the source, it might be 4-5 or as high as 9-12.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+17)
#20

Decided to uninstall and try again. It asked if I wanted to repair the software instead.
As I really wanted this software I decided to try that. It took 20 minutes updating net framework then asked to reboot.
Screwed up my internet settings. System restore saved the day.
As Karl is wont to say..uninstalled via ...(revo).
First time this has ever happened, maybe its cause I still use XP.
Still a big fan of GAOTD.
Happy Easter !

Reply   |   Comment by Charlie  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#19

This program is great! My camera takes videos in mpeg1, I had a 1.6 gig file. This program converted to DVD in 50 minutes. WOW! No more converting mpeg1 to mpeg4, then finally to DVD. That process took about 10 hours. Thanks GOTD!

Reply   |   Comment by Crazy Denny  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#18

My Panasonic DVD player will play streaming vids in MKV format only. I see no mention of MKV either here or on the Homepage. Will this convert to MKV?

Reply   |   Comment by Carl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#17

Hi - sry - still sick - DUAL-booT - Installed on both partitions (Win10 10049 & Win8.1.3) Program likes both environments - ran small vid - & same results from both (even with all the problems in build 10049 - still working - c u tomorrow - HAGD

Reply   |   Comment by Thomas Roberts  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#16

Not bad for me just needs the ability to hard or soft code subtitles. I can't watch movies without subs since I have demon spawn (children) :D.

Reply   |   Comment by Ian Pride  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

DVD & Blu-Ray video discs have separate files with pictures or graphics of the words themselves that's overlaid on the picture when you have subs turned on. Broadcast video has the captioning embedded in the video stream itself.

To display subs one way is to put the video into a DVD or Blu-Ray layout or format & use a DVD/Blu-Ray player. BDSup2Sub will resize graphics based subs & save them in the proper DVD/Blu-Ray format.

The most common way is to use .srt files, which are simple text files that include the captions + timing info -- quite a few players will generate & display subs when they see a .srt file with the same name as the video. SubtitleEdit can OCR graphics based sub files to .srt, or if you have broadcast with embedded captioning [usually from recording], ccextractor can strip it out & convert it. You may also find .srt files on-line, though be aware that many countries consider them (C), so there may be legal issues.

It is possible to take the graphics based sub files & overlay them permanently on the video, e.g. the tools are available to do this using VirtualDub, but most of the converters we've seen on GOTD I think require subs in .srt files to do the same thing. IMHO if you've got the .srt file already, it's better/easier to just use it as is in a player that will display subs in a .srt file -- that way you can not only turn subs on/off, but they'll always be displayed at the proper resolution for the display.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

Yeah I do that already, I was just saying it would be nice to do it all in just this program like in WinX HD Converter etc...

Reply   |   Comment by Ian Pride  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#15

Must be a popular download. On launching program, a blue-colored window "Registration & News" pops up over the main green-colored window. Both have a registration option showing.

Clicking on the blue window's "Request free full version" (under the heading "Status: Not registered (0 days remaining)") results in a third window with a brief flash of something too quick to see, then very briefly displays "Navigation to the web page was cancelled", then finally the following message appears (every time, so far):

"Currently no service available or internet connection is broken"

My internet service is working fine: clicking on any of the choices (under the heading "News: 3 Messages"), say, the choice "A modern PC?" opens a page on the Engelmann site.

I have tried disabling my anti-malware AVG and Ad Muncher (which normally do not interfere anyway) with no change in results.

Closing the blue windows also closes and exits the main program's green window, so I could not try the other Registration menu option shown in the green window.

A faint, far-off bell is ringing in my memory -- think, think! -- it seems I have had a similar issue not long ago when registering another software where I had to temporarily change a web browser setting (or stop or disable a system service or something similar) to allow an application's built-in registration feature to properly work...

Will try again later on today.

Reply   |   Comment by harpo2448  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+8)

Try solution In #6 by @XP-Man. The link he provides gave me the activation e-mail.

Reply   |   Comment by Lawrence Warman  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

The setup.exe for CinemaHD 4 creates firewall rules to give CinamaHD 4 access to the Internet. If your firewall won't allow setup.exe to make changes, CinemaHD 4 won't work. Turning off your security software after installation won't help, because the firewall rules are created by setup.exe. I suppose you can run setup.exe again, or change your firewall rules, but then you'll have to put up with Engelmann Software's ads. I've used Revo Uninstaller to get rid of CinemaHD 4.

Reply   |   Comment by Walter Snodgrass  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#14

Playstation 3 settings for video not adjustable to 1920 X 1080? But the PS4 IS? Did I miss something devs?

Reply   |   Comment by Jim  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-3)
#13

@ Keymaster. Tried that. Still says same thing ??
This has never happened before on any GAOTD downloads.
Puzzling.

Reply   |   Comment by Charlie  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#12

I noticed that the interface has NTSC and PAL DVD options. Does anyone know if it can effectively convert between the two?

Reply   |   Comment by stanzibar  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

What you're talking about is a can of worms. The best way to do it is to create 2 versions from the same source, & really that's the only way you can manage things like DVD menus. There is special hardware that can convert the video itself -- AFAIK there is no good software to do the same thing without somewhat heavy losses.

That said, **if** the original video was shot at 24 fps, & **if** you can convert the PAL [25 fps] or NTSC [29.976 fps] video to 24 fps, a combination of cropping & re-sizing can work.

The easiest way to handle it is to use a player that can play both NTSC & PAL.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+15)
#11

I've been using paid software ConvertXtoDVD for years - loaded with features, but costs @ 50

This seems to be a decent free alternate, but keep in mind the source video MUST be good to excellent quality, i.e. not some youtube 360p file

Reply   |   Comment by Franke  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

have not used convertx2dvd for about a year ( used to use it quite regularly before that time ) but could not do full hd videos they always did a max of 720p ntsc !
has things changed or they are still limited to 720p or less resolution ?

Reply   |   Comment by justchuck69  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#10

Used options when installing but was unable to change install directory. Do not like programs that force install to c:.

Reply   |   Comment by Bill  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)

Thanks, Bill. You hate them -- I LOATHE them!
Your warning is much appreciated.

Reply   |   Comment by Allie Oops  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#9

Upscale? Really? No. The information doesn't exist. You can't create hi-def from lo-def. Sure you can make it bigger. But with that the artifacts are bigger as well. If you're good with grainy, fuzzy, blotchy, then upscaling might work for you.

Reply   |   Comment by kari  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+11)

Video generally allows for superresolution, combining information from multiple frames.
Beyond that, crisp edges can be maintained without nearest-neighbor jaggies e.g. for titles superimposed on imagery.
With sufficiently powerful hardware, these and other techniques may be applied in near-real time during playback,
avoiding increased storage requirements. As a general rule-of thumb, such techniques should be expected to at
best double apparent resolution (4x uncompressed storage).

Reply   |   Comment by Bleken Bleu  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+7)
#8

Download, installation and registration, no problems.
Tried a test of a 30 second .WMV file, didn't time it,
but reasonable time.
However when testing on a 2 hour DVD, the ramining time
increases during the periods between percentage updates,
i.e. at 1%, the remaining time showed 08:50:00, then at
2% showed 06:10:00. I, of course cancelled the test.

Reply   |   Comment by Psidium  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-10)

I should clarify remaining time steps down at % points then increases until next % update.

Reply   |   Comment by Psidium  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-10)
#7

I strongly recommend this software because it's one of the very few video programs not based on ffdshow. If you got some video that other converters won't handle (errors, crashes, unable to load), this will process them.

Reply   |   Comment by Woody Curl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+21)

Perhaps you mean ffmpeg?

ffmpeg is mainly a set of code for decoding/encoding & playback. The comparative advantage is that it's pretty much all-inclusive, not requiring many [if any] registry entries, and sticking to itself, without the possibility that it'll muck up video handling with your Windows install.

ffdshow OTOH is a collection of Direct Show filters & VFW codecs to give your Windows install added capabilities at the risk of mucking something up.

That said, as both ffdshow & ffmpeg are available as source code, parts of the source code for either or both can be incorporated into an app in ways that maybe weren't originally intended.

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+20)

Yes, sorry. I noticed that almost all video converters are based on ffmpeg. Once I got an error with one (Aiseesoft), the same happened with Tipard, Leawo, MacX, Aneesoft, Daniusoft (all given away here for years, and I know, someone is going to ask why I kept all of them. The answer is: to discover that they are all based on the same engine :-)

The only software able to process that problematic video has been CinemaHD 2.0 given away here in the past.

So I confirm my suggestion to download this program today, even to people who don't want to keep a collection of video converters... :-)

Reply   |   Comment by Woody Curl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#6

Installed as instructed. Ran the program. Yes, I got a popup window as described, but it did not have an option to request a free key. If I clicked on any other link, I got a message popup which told me I had no internet connection. Interesting message, considering I had just downloaded the zipped file, which required an internet connection.

Any ideas anyone?

Reply   |   Comment by John O  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+18)

Juat a thought
I had the window blank at first, and it did take at least 10 seconds for the message to show for some odd reason, towards the top right of the window, pale colours, and I almost missed where to click for the application for a key. Perhaps re install?

I have only just downloaded so this is not a review, but a quick test on an old family video impressed me enough to want to keep this.
Thank you GOTD and Engelmann

Reply   |   Comment by Brian  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)

Yes, that is what it was. I have a different email account via GMail and it worked. Instead of - dashes (hyphens) I use dots (periods) as the separators between the names in the email address and Registration came through.

Reply   |   Comment by MrRob  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)

John, open the program again and you'll see a screen which has a list of options. Somewhere there will be a small link which says something about registering. Click on that link and give your name and email addie. Soon afterwards you'll receive an email asking you to click on a link for verification. Then you'll receive another email with the program key. Go back to the program and you'll see 'continue' down the bottom of that option screen - or something like that. Click on that and the program will open and you'll see a row of white menu items up the top starting with 'registration'. After you click on registration, cut and paste the product key four numbers at a time into the four boxes and then click on 'ok' or something like that. This will give you the full program. If you don't see any option screen when you first open the program, go directly to the 'registration' menu option screen.

Reply   |   Comment by Wendy  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+9)

John Q you can also go to the installed directory usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Engelmann Media\CinemaHD 4 Free and in that directory you will see a file called webreg.exe it will have a key for an icon run that program and it will let you enter for a free key.

Reply   |   Comment by Keymaster  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)

Tried your idea Keymaster but unfortunately webreg.exe is the program that is claiming there is no Internet connection.
It claimed this at the same time I was downloading a video, nice one Engelmann Media GmbH :-)

Reply   |   Comment by XP-Man  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+14)

@XP-Man

The same problem here. Solution: Simply go with your web browser to the following address:

http://promo.engelmann.com/cinemahd4-unlock

Reply   |   Comment by Wiz  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+19)

Wiz, thanks for your information. Solved my problem. It never ceases to amaze me that the internet has so many helpful people.

Reply   |   Comment by John O  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)

Thanks for the direct link Wiz! I was having same problem with registration. And I was hoping someone would help just like you've done.

Reply   |   Comment by LG  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#5

Addition: Despite of this program being useless to me: other clips seem to be upscaled ok (no hickups there). Conversion speed is, considering the work that is being done, good.

Reply   |   Comment by Hasta la vista  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+19)
#4

This program can convert and upscale video's (from lower to higher resolution). Interface is intuitive, but export formats are limited, mostly because lack of resolution options in output choice. Program has no video editing options. To me, this makes this program useless. If you want to get good quality, the input should be as close to the original source as possible (meaning not converted in any way). In the case of a home-made video (it won't do copyrighted dvds), lots of things might have to be changed to your liking, clipping, cropping, aspectratio, brightness. This program can't do it. So, you'll have to edit it in uncompressed format, or use another converter who can clip, crop etc.
Tested the program with a short clip, upscaled 352x288 to dvd pal format; result was a video with lots of sound hickups and freezed frames (not caused by limitations pc or graphics card). It seems an easy way to get better video quality, but the easy way is not often the best way.

Reply   |   Comment by Hasta la vista  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+39)

How could you POSSIBLY upscale (CHANGE) the resolution of any video WITHOUT "converting in any way?" That is technically impossible!

Reply   |   Comment by William  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+6)
#3

Most of my "must get for free" DVD video software:

MakeMKV - Effective free Blu-ray decrypter. Also works to decrypt DVD's and rip to mkv format.

DVDFab Passkey Lite - limited edition of DVDFab Passkey, which is a Blu-ray and DVD decryption program.

WinX Video Converter - the only free video converter supports 1080p MKV M2TS AVCHD etc.

VidCoder - conversion to H264 mkv or mp4. Based on Handbrake, but has more options.

No, thank you GOTD.

Reply   |   Comment by Syndia  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-30)

Make MKV
http://www.videohelp.com/software?toolsearch=makemkv&submit=Search&portable=&s=&orderby=Name&hits=50

"Converting or streaming Blu-ray discs is shareware functionality."

Reply   |   Comment by mike  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+16)

What do you mean, "No thank you GAOTD?" You provided a list of software that does NOT do what this software does. Furthermore, you stated that MakeMKV is freeware that works to decrypt DVDs when in fact you must PAY for that option. So, NO thank you for your comment, but instead, a very big YES thank you for GAOTD!

Reply   |   Comment by William  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+43)

MakeMKV is free while in beta. its not fully freeware.

Reply   |   Comment by maynak00  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#2

Nice simple interface. Looks fresh and useable.

Keeper for me.

B

Reply   |   Comment by Brent  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-18)
#1

Installed and registered without problems on a Win 8.1.3 Pro 64 bit system.(*) This is the original installer. No wrapper. Many registry changes...

A German company with all legal information. We had a previous version of CinemaHD 2.0 in 2011. Here are the old reviews, too old...
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/cinemahd-2-0/

"Because of strict copyright laws in Germany, CinemaHD 4 is not able to convert DVD-videos or other videos with effective copy protection."

The installer calls this software Cinema HD 4 free

A clear structured resizable window opens. In the settings you can switch the language between German and English and disable the automatic updates. You select a file, a folder or a DVD, choose the output options and start:
http://i.imgur.com/tqkglCQ.png

Enlarging the video takes some time, each single frame has to be enlarged and reencoded:
http://i.imgur.com/McNaQVF.png

The original film has 55 MB - The resulting film is about 1,5 GB!

Here an original frame (320x240)
http://i.imgur.com/RngPJ4N.jpg

Here the big version (3840x2160)
http://i.imgur.com/Hbp0Ku2.jpg

Simply: Whow!

Does, what it claims, with better results than I expected. I'll keep it...

(*) Engelmann, read about the verdict of a German court concerning double opt emails! AG Berlin Pankow/Weißensee (AG Berlin Pankow/Weißensee (Urt. v. 16.12.2014, 101 C 1005/14)

Reply   |   Comment by Karl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+188)

I forgot to inform about my test film. So you can exactly reproduce my test.

You can download it from here - in French language, but the pictures speak for themselves:
http://www.neufchatel-aoc.org/film/index.html

It is about cheese manufacturing from one of the oldest cheese in France:
Neufchâtel is a soft, slightly crumbly, mould-ripened cheese made in the French region of Normandy. One of the oldest cheeses in France, its production is believed to date back to the 6th century. It looks similar to Camembert, with a dry, white, edible rind, but the taste is saltier and sharper. It has the aroma and taste of mushrooms. Unlike other soft-white-rinded cheeses, Neufchâtel has a grainy texture.[1] It is most usually sold in heart shapes but is also produced in other forms, such as logs and boxes. It is typically matured for 8–10 weeks.

Have fun!

Reply   |   Comment by Karl  –  8 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+58)
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