THie is pretty cool what you do

i went to use and ask for lic.# and code?with out you can only do 30 seconds of it.

Don't know if anyway reads these after the fact, but this
Plato product was an absolutely fantastic giveaway. Owning a Zune
I was unsure that iot would be of any benefit, but I now have
Bruce Willis (Diehard) and James Bond (Casino Royale) living in my
little machine. Great deal, thank you.

does anyone know the licence key for this product, i installed it and put in the key , now when i use it it keeps asking for the key and i cant find the file where i kept it.


cheers

Cheryl your right it is a free download if you wan the shareware version but for the full version it costs $39.99.

Wow, what an incredible program. Easy to use and does what I've wanted to do for months - puts my own movies on my ipod!!
Thanks so much!

Hi I used it, it works, it does the job, a bit slow but hey....is free, licenced, what more can we ask for??

Just downloaded it. And it worked smoothly on my vista laptop. Impressed by its pretty interface and fast speed.
However I still prefer wondershare dvd to ipod ripper, also from GAOTD. The sparkling feature is that it offers a built-in ipod video transfer, which can let me transfer files between ipod and PC in a more convenient way.
Anyway, look forward to better dvd to ipod converter program from GAOTD.
Thanks!

Unfortunately after installation (which went the same as their previous 2 or 3 giveaways, no worse and no better), I was unable to convert *anything* because when I hit the go button, it immediately reports that it is complete - with a 0-sized output file having been created. Probably a codec problem but not one i'm going to waste time working on since we've had so many GAOTDs recently that have this functionality and more. (Not really sure what was the point of GAOTD publishing this which is a subset of previous ones, so soon after)

I can appreciate that it's hard work finding a new vendor every single day of the year and that when you find a vendor who is willing to publish multiple products that you'll get a day off from chasing up new vendors... I'd do the same in your shoes. Doesn't mean that it isn't a bit disappointing for the users though.

I'd like to thank everyone for the excellent suggestions made. I'll give them a look and again... thanks! ;)

#8, Kyle: Thanks for the info. I left my comment (#7) this morning when only 2 comments were visible. Apparently 4 other persons were writing faster than I was so I didn't see the comments that answered my question. Thanks, and thanks to GAOTD.

Nice interface, fast work.
Thanks GAOD

#30-Harry As stated earlier thats why i use Starburn free version it decrypts dvds as well and was featured here a month or so back. Starburn replaces any and all other burners/decrypters i have tried...

I'm going to install this at home tonight. I couldn't find much info on the web (the usual video sites like AfterDawn were nearly mum), but it seems that this program somehow allows what most commercial software won't -- the ripping of an encrypted DVD (and nearly all DVD's are encrypted). Most other software (like the incredible SUPER mentioned earlier) work great, but refer you to the (illegal and underground) freeware program DVDDecrypter to decrypt the files. I wonder how these guys at Plato do it legally? Anyway, I watch a lot of video on my PocketPC using the freeware TCPMP, which will play any format thrown at it, and I'm hoping that Plato will make it easier to get a usable file.

Thanks GAOTD!

Works great! Simple, basic interface. Everything you need, nothing you don't. Works in Vista, which is a big plus. I opened the movie in my DVD drive, customized the settings for widescreen, the FPS, etc. and hit play. It converted it into a file no bigger than 580mb. I used a different program in the past which 'shrunk' the movie to 3GB! So, this is a lot better. Transferred it to my iPod with ease, and it played perfectly. I did get an odd 'Error 70' when it finished, but the final product was fine and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. I'm happy. Thanks GOTD!

#6- DVD On C:\ Drive? Is that not your system hard drive? Did You Mean Other? If its not DVD ROM or DVD RW it surely will not read any DVD... CD Reads CD's DVD ROM Reads CD's & DVDs but wont write to them. Good for movie watching. DVD RW Will write CD's & DVD's I know most people know this but just FYI #6-FreeBird31

I personally have given up any and all CD DVD burners themselves in favour of a previous giveaway called StarBurn. Starburn free edition V10+ is available www.starburn.com commercial liscense is 495$ yes thats right NOT 4.95$ BUT Four Hundred and Ninety Five Dollars... It does what all others have failed to do I only use it to burn cd's & dvds now (PERIOD) ~<(___)~

Download and installation went great. I am converting a dvd now for my zune. If this does as good a job as my Cucusoft coverting program then I'll finnaly have two programs to switch back and forth with incase one wont work on a certain dvd. I've tried lots of freeware and couldnt find anything that gave me the quality of picture as the cucusoft. (ya tried those listed in forums) and although the quality wasnt bad on some, it doesnt compare to what i have now.
gaotd if you could try to get some software from Cucusoft, that would rock.

Well, I'm not sure what all these negative reviews are about. I've installed this program without a glitch last night shortly after it became available. I'm running win XP sp2, home built rig. Popped in a DVD ("The Tailor of Panama") and opened the DVD from within the PDiC and pressed the Play button. In about 30 mins, the mp4 file was created for the entire movie and it was just 483 MB. Think about it for a minute. Most short film videos (average about half an hour) I get from iTunes are in excess of 1 GB (although in different resolution). PDiC's conversion to less than half a gig for an entire feature length movie is worth the price right there.
I then added the file to my iTunes and then transferred that to my iPhone. Wonderful image, no lag, no audio synch issue. Even had an option to add the closed captioning which I opted out. Played it in bed until I got sleepy. This will allow me to transfer many of my video collection to my iTunes and then to iPhone for long flights.

This is a wonderful product and I appreciate the effort of the developers, and thank you GAotD.

I don't have a ipod but can still play Mp4's from the computer using VLC. The software works pretty well if a DVD needs to be compressed by a lot. I still got excellent results from just 10% of the original DVD size.

Well the program seemed to convert a dvd to the mp4 format and then I opened my Zune program to transfer the movie to my unit and it showed the upload starting but then just kind of sat there.

For some reason or other the program also renamed my movie "dvd movie project1.mp4" I then renamed it Misery.mp4, so I could find it on the player later, but when the Zune program got it, it named it back to "dvd movie project1.mp4" again. It started to upload onto the player and then it just sat there again. I have tried a few times and the same thing has happened.

I just tried another homemade dvd, from family videos, and the program didn't copy all the chapters just the first one. There are nine on the dvd. Any idea why it doesn't copy the whole dvd or why it won't load the final results onto the Zune player even though the Zune is supposed to able to play mp4s as well as wmv files?? I would really like to be able to put family movies on my player so that I can show them to my family and friends without dragging along some dvds and a dvd player. Any ideas out there as how to fix this problem?

Thanks for the nice toy GAOTD, but I may have to uninstall it if I can't figure out how to get it to do the things I need it to do.

I'm heading on a trip this afternoon, needed something to watch on my iPod, and decided to give this a whirl. Very very poor picture and audio quality.

Pass

continuing comment #16,

The conversion of my 118 minute film took 110 minutes after I left my computer alone for the last hour - even though I didn't close anything to free up any more of my RAM.

The think the result was decent for a 4GB+ movie compressed to 527MB.

Later on today, I'm going to use the free alternatives from today's comments to compare quality and speed.

I downloaded this program, and it seems to be decent, I have yet to start using it though. You can easily convert the files from the ipod format to something like the Zune (LONG LIVE THE ZUNE) to something else. I use Super to do most of the work. Googling "Super" will bring it up near the start of your search.

um..... it will only let me convert 30% of my dvd's =(

I use Mediacoder... it is open source FREE software that will give you just about ANY format you could want... find it at mediacoder.sourceforge.net and as you might have guessed it is part of the Sourceforge open source group of projects.

#6 freebird31 - any time your having problems with these kinds of programs taking hours to convert/encode, be sure to check and see that your DMA is set on ULTRA. That's usually the problem.

I don't have a iPod, so i don't have a use for this conversion.

However, thank you GAOTD and Plato! :)

freebird31 (#6) says, "It might work for you"

In response, I have to say that the installation went smoothly. I didn't have any trouble selecting any of my physical or virtual (Virtual DAEMON Manager v3.47) DVD drives - although I must note that after clicking the menu item "Open", then clicking the dropdown arrow to choose a source drive, the scroll bar on the right is hard to see on my system (XP Home SP2, 1GB RAM).

I left most of the options alone. I chose a different output folder and I chose to preview the video as the conversion takes place.

When I started to convert a 2 hour long film, Plato DVD to iPod Converter showed that it would take about 90 minutes to convert. As I noted above, I have 1GB RAM. However, I have about half of that in use with dozens of Firefox tabs open, a few office suite documents open, a graphics program open, and more. As I went back to using Firefox, the processing time increased to about 150 minutes.

I don't know if turning off the preview would speed up the processing, but I would guess that it would - as well as freeing up my RAM could be helpful.

The GUI is an Apple QuickTime copy and the conversion time is reasonable.

The conversion won't be complete for a couple of hours, but I am thus far satisfied with the quality of this application.

To #11
From
http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/5/5/f55d0877-f762-4636-94e8-a3b3f13a6788/DeviceSpec_English.pdf

Video Support for the Zune:
WMV (320X240), h.264, MPEG-4 and DVR-MS will transcode at the time of sync

From
http://support.apple.com/specs/ipod/iPod_Fifth_Generation_Late_2006.html

Fifth Generation IPod Video supported:
H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

Since todays giveaway will create MP4 files (the default Ipod video format) and according to the owners manual for the Zune on Microsoft’s web site “MPEG-4 and DVR-MS will transcode at the time of sync” this giveaway does in fact support the Zune.

From the information, we know both zune and ipod support mpeg4,but they have some difference, the iPod video also has some drm protection, so we can not enjoy any video on both iPod and Zune. But I alway use some all-in-one software to do the work. Hope it helps:http://www.dvdtoipodtouch.org/dvdvideoconverter/cucusoft-ultimate-dvd-video-converter-suite.html

Some features of the software:
# Various kinds of video crop mode. eg. 16:9, 4:3, full screen and so on.
# Various kinds of video resize mode, eg. "Keep aspect ratio" and "stretch to fix screen".
# Support splitting output video by DVD chapters, and titles. Fully support MTV DVDs and Episodic DVDs.
# Support customize output video file size and video quality.
# Provide flexible output profiles, user can easily customize the video properties.
# Support Dolby, DTS Surround audio track.
# Support convert DVDs/Video to any audio format including AC3, AAC, MP2, MP3, MP4, RA, WMA, etc.
# Support convert DVDs/Video to any video format including H264, MP4, WMV, AVI, MOV, RM, 3GP, flv, SWF, mpeg1, mpeg2, VideoCD, SuperVideoCD, DVD, etc.
# Support convert DVDs/Video to any (portable) device including iPod, Zune, PSP, iPhone, Apple TV, PPC, PDA, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, etc.

Looks useful so will it give it a try. Has anyone come across or used MobiDVD?
http://www.xulsoft.org/mobidvd/

http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

the best ipod converter i have ever used. User-friendly interface and easy to use

Installed no problem.

#6 have you checked the correct box when trying to open files as by default it looks for dvd drive.

Had no problems converts fine reasonable quick but already have IMTOO ipod suite which i prefer but still a great giveaway.

From
http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/5/5/f55d0877-f762-4636-94e8-a3b3f13a6788/DeviceSpec_English.pdf

Video Support for the Zune:
WMV (320X240), h.264, MPEG-4 and DVR-MS will transcode at the time of sync



From
http://support.apple.com/specs/ipod/iPod_Fifth_Generation_Late_2006.html

Fifth Generation IPod Video supported:
H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Low-Complexity Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; H.264 video, up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats


Since todays giveaway will create MP4 files (the default Ipod video format) and according to the owners manual for the Zune on Microsoft's web site "MPEG-4 and DVR-MS will transcode at the time of sync" this giveaway does in fact support the Zune.

To #2 Tony, you can download free zune converter from here www.freedvdripper.net, it can help you convert video and dvd to wmv video for zune. Here are the key features that I quote from the website:

1. Support almost all kinds of DVD to Zune Movie / Zune Video format (MP4 format)
2. Support almost all video file including DVD, vob, DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, WMV, AVI to Zune video (MP4 format)
3. Support various Zune video formats including Windows Media Video (.wmv): Main Profile, CBR or VBR, up to 1.5 Mbps peak video bitrate, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., with Windows Media Audio up to 192 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo audio; Simple Profile, CBR, up to 736 Kbps video bitrate, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per sec., with Windows Media Audio up to 192 Kbps, 44.1 kHz, stereo audio.
4. Support "Drag and Drop"
5. Support for Subtitle Selection through DVD menu, eg. English Subtitle, French Subtitle ....
6. Support for Audio Track Selection through DVD menu, eg. English audio track, French audio track.....
7. Various kinds of video crop mode. eg. 16:9, 4:3, full screen and so on.
8. Support splitting output video by DVD chapters…

I think some of the posters are getting confused with other Plato products. This is understandable looking at the web page for this product but the bit that says "Convert DVD, WMF etc etc to ipod etc" refers to the bundle of this product (DVD to iPod converter) with Video to iPod converter which is not what we're getting for free today. We only get the DVD part for free.

That's how I understand it anyway, correct me if I'm wrong (I know you will) but please read the sites carefully before you flame me :-)

Dave said (#7):

For what it’s worth. ditto comment of #2.

Yes! It works with Microsoft too! (ZUNE)
From their website...

Convert almost all kinds of video to iPod PSP 3GP Zune WMV FLV.

For what it's worth. ditto comment of #2.

downloaded and installed easily. However. On my pc it behaves not quite perfectly. In the ui there is a slight bug in my opinion. When I open the program it partly takes on the background colors... right through the program.

Tried converting anyway, but it will only correctly accept my dvd from the E:/ drive. Any Dvd I have on my c drive it will not recognize.
Conversion itself also gave some trouble. My Freefall: flight 174 dvd, would take 8 hours to convert... The window in which the program tells you how long it's gonna take is wonderful... it made me decide very easily to quickly uninstall this program.

I did wait 20 minutes to see if the conversion time would become less... it did not. I have a 1gb ram on my win xp sp 2. Lots of free space on my harddrives and nothing else running.

Conclusion: Not quite up to my standards. A bug in the ui, and not quick enough to be reasonable. This is just my personal situation and opinion.
It might work for you :-)

sorry, thumbs down.

Yes! It works with Microsoft too! (ZUNE)
From thier website....

Convert almost all kinds of video to iPod PSP 3GP Zune WMV FLV.
Plato Video to iPod PSP 3GP is an idea program for anyone. It enables you convert almost all kinds of video files such as rm, divx, xvid, avi, wmv, asf, mpg, mpeg, vob, mov, qt, flv, 3gp, swf, nsv to Apple iPod /Sony PSP /Cellphone 3GP/Microsoft Zune /FLV video.


Now you can enjoy the versatile movies on your Apple iPod ( or just about any video capable device - picture frames maybe.... Zunes definately!) wherever and whenever ! Simple settings ,high speed, friendly interface , go to download it and have a wonderful try.
Key Feature :
Support wmv , asf to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
Support mov , qt to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
Support rm , rmvb to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
Support mpg , mpeg , vob ,vcd , svcd to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
Support avi , divx , xvid to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
Support flv, swf , nsv to iPod/PSP/3GP/Zune/FLV video.
conversion speed is more than 2 times of the playback speed.
Set the start position and end position of source file to convert.
Support batch files conversion
Support many predefined profile setting for MP4 video.
Customize the quality of output video.
Automatically shutdown your computer after long time conversion.

good software, thank GAOTD.
if it lost after converted, still there is EASEUS, great!

Hey, Tony, #2; Check-out "All-in-One DVD Converter at www.ConvertFiles.org. It says it's free. Or did you want to stick with the Plato Software? Hope it helps you. Toodles! Cheryl

Hmm... too bad they didn't offer Plato DVD to Zune Converter as an alternate choice. They are the same price and I have a Zune.

Is it really any different from the earlier softwares that did the same job, on GAOTD? Is it worth a try?