I went a little further checking out today's DVD Copy in part because some of the comments on the download page seemed misleading -- I don't think anyone intentionally tried to mislead anyone, but regardless...
The Good... Leawo DVD Copy works, seems to work fine, & it's on GOTD, a huge plus. :)
The **Maybe to some folks** Bad... Leawo DVD Copy is a limited version of a more full-featured app or apps, & there are files/folders installed that you don't need with this limited version. The decryption end of things **might** also lag behind what you see in DVDFab &/or AnyDVD, though if it's server-based as is the trend, it's quite possible those servers were getting hammered pretty hard today with GOTD folks trying DVD Copy out.
The Ugly... Installation in win7's XP Mode VM left behind all sorts of installation related files for one of Microsoft's C/C++ runtimes, & it left them all in root [C:\]! TO add insult they're an old version -- check Windows Update if you install this app. I tried it out in win7 ult 64 SP1, obviously leaving all that junk behind, just copying the files over & re-registering [DVD Copy's registration seems tied to your hardware].
Now several comments noted that Leawo DVD Copy was slow -- it's not... at least when copying the files on a video DVD to your hard drive -- it was no faster nor slower than anything else, which is as expected since you are after all just copying files from point A to point B. When I tested, where DVD Copy took longer was with the DRM on a fairly nasty DRM-wise DVD. I get no amusement watching progress bars, so I set DVD Copy about its task & walked away -- 2 out of the 12 times I checked back, DVD Copy was working away yet the progress was stalled as it presumably worked out the DRM. I don't know if it was just that type of DRM [this disc was designed to appear broken to any software other than players], if some servers with DRM info were swamped, if the app is a bit weak when it comes to DRM compared to other software, and so on. So yeah, in that instance Leawo DVD Copy took longer to copy the DVD, but it wasn't because the app is slow -- you or I might not experience the same thing with another disc, on another day, or in the future. If my only choices were to try Leawo DVD Copy or pay the cash for DVDFab or AnyDVD, I'd not only try it but I'd put up with it stalling once in a while on the DRM -- after all it only added a few minutes delay. If I was thinking about paying for Leawo DVD Copy OTOH, I'd certainly check it out further once the GOTD was over so I could compare price/DRM performance with the competition.
One comment noted that Leawo DVD Copy used only one core of a CPU & that there was no GPU assist -- it didn't say whether that was during conversion [re-encoding], but I assume so, since copying files from one place to another takes very little CPU & zero graphics horsepower -- besides, what little CPU today's GOTD used testing the DVD Copy part was spread across 4 cores. I didn't test the option to convert [re-encode] the DVD to fit on a single layer blank because frankly I consider it more than a little silly. :)
A single layer blank costs ~$0.20 while a dual layer blank costs ~$0.50, when cake boxes of either are on sale -- if/when I'm backing up a DVD that I bought because I wanted to watch decent quality video, I'm not going to spend time & effort throwing that quality away to save $0.30! And if my concern was/is the hard drive space to store the movie, I'm going to use AVC/H.264 rather than old, inefficient mpg2 -- an almost equal quality to the original Nero Digital file would usually take <1/2 hour using Recode & fit on a CD! [I have a hard time figuring out why that option's even there, though it is included with more apps than just Leawo's -- the last several, few years every drive I've seen could burn dual layer as well as single, cost as little as $12, & the average lifespan of a DVD drive is around 3 years before it starts introducing errors on the discs you burn.]
Where Leawo DVD Copy is weaker than it should be is main movie or single title copy -- I think it should display more of the titles on the DVD, tell you how long they are, tell you which audio & sub tracks are available, give you the option to include all those other tracks or not. That said, whenever possible I think folks should avoid trying to copy just the main movie anyway. One reason [with DVDs & Blu-Ray] is that fake titles are not uncommon, & should you [or the software] pick the wrong one, you've got to copy it again using a drive that's slower than your hard disk -- you can easily run the same or a different copy app on the files already on your hard drive, if nothing else using trial & error with different, similar length titles. Once it's on your hard drive you can also use DVD Shrink to preview & copy individual titles wherever you want, & they'll be in the format you can burn to a DVD if desired.
A video geek's or nerd's impressions... Personally I don't like all of the extra files for some other version of the app that Leawo DVD Copy installs in its program folder, though I doubt they'll cause many people problems. The included DVD Author's usually fine, but I've run into problems myself with the Cygwin added [both files & registry entries] so the Linux code can work in Windows [that's why I've only used the portable version of The GIMP for years] -- I don't know if any other apps will pick up on those registry entries & try to use it. Otherwise it just strikes me as a bit sloppy &/or lazy, like leaving the C/C++ runtime install files laying around, with stuff like the Blu-Ray only tsMuxR present, or the 301 menu template files you'll never get to use because authoring discs is not included in today's app.
But that's me... A chance to get more than a trial copy of an app that can bypass DVD DRM for free doesn't happen every day. DVDFab's free version is limited, won't handle newer discs, & WinX for example will give you a free copy of their DVD Ripper today, but it won't copy DVDs -- to do that costs $40. The company behind DVDFab tests discs from around the world to scope out new types & methods of DRM -- I'd be surprised if anyone did the same sort of thing but didn't expect to at least recover their costs for all those discs, so I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to free alternatives unless they're a PR move like those limited version DVDFab & WinX apps.
