Here you select the source DVD with a click on the arrow at the end of the Source DVD form and the location for the target ISO image. Most users can leave the remaining settings activated. They remove the DVD region code, FBI warnings and anti-piracy ads that cannot be skipped or fast-forwarded, CSS encryption and checks for Disney’s fake protection.

A click on Run initiates the process, a progress bar indicates the conversion progress. The conversion speed depends largely on the read speed of the DVD drive and a few additional factors like the computer utilization during the process.

The program stores the DVD into the selected target directory. Users can mount the ISO image directly to view it in a DVD-capable media player on the computer, or burn it again to disc to create a backup copy of the original DVD movie.

The second screen, accessible with a click on the ISO to DVD tab basically burns a movie DVD to a blank DVD disc.

BDlot DVD ISO Master is a handy program if you want to rip DVD movies to the ISO format. It is a DVD cloning software that creates 1:1 copies of DVD movies sans the restrictions and annoyances. Options to convert the DVD or save its Video_TS folder would have been handy, as would have been options to support the same operations for Blu-Ray movies. Lastly, an option to create a DVD copy and burn that copy back to disc would be handy as well.

We have covered alternatives in the past including DVDFab HD Encrypter which converts movies into Video_TS or Blu-Ray folders or Auto Gordian Knot which converts DVDs into Avi movies to save space.

Interested users can download BDlot DVD ISO Master from the developer website. Please note that you need to click on the Download link next to the program’s listing on the second page of the download process.

DEG’s figures aren’t just for outright sales of DVDs, but also include DVD rentals and Blu-Ray disc sales. Rental revenue stayed nearly constant from previous year’s figures but sales pretty much took a nosedive. While it’s easy to blame dismal sales on the old monster of piracy, I personally think there are a lot of factors for this loss. Here are some of them.

Economics: There’s no denying that DVD sales have in part been affected by the recession. With money starting to get tight, fun spending is the first to be cut and DVDs are definitely not ‘essential’.

Content: For me, barring 2-3 flicks, I can’t think of many movies that I found memorable this year. So I don’t see the point of owning them on DVD because I certainly don’t want to watch them over and over.

Digital Downloads: Nowadays, plenty of TV shows and movies can be legally purchased in a digital format of your choice. In the case of TV shows, consumers have the option of purchasing only the episodes they want. This is a definite advantage over buying an entire season on DVD for a few episodes.

Transition to High Definition: Falling prices of HDTVs, Blu-Ray players, and discs means that a lot of people no longer prefer to invest in standard-definition media like DVDs. It’s similar to tapes dying out once CDs became more affordable.

I’m not much of a DVD person myself. If a movie catches my fancy, I’ll watch it in a theatre. If not, I can just wait a few months and catch it when it’s broadcast on cable. What about you? Have you bought less DVDs this year? Why do you think sales are down? Let me know.

I had to update the firmware of the DVD drive with a altered firmware that would make the DVD drive region free. Here is how I did it. First I wrote down the exact type of my drive. You can find that information by pressing Windows Pause, clicking on Hardware and there on Device Manager.

Locate the DVD / CD-Rom drives entry and expand it. If you look at the picture below mine is called GSA-H10N and was manufactured by LG. (You find the company logo on the drive itself normally).

Now that I had the information needed I went to the Firmware page which is a repository for many altered firmwares for a lot of DVD drives. I searched for my drive and found it on that page. I downloaded the new firmware and executed the file. I was able to change the firmware with the click of a button (the only button available is Update) and the new region free drive was available immediately.

I did check the region of my dvd drive with Drive Region.

With more than 2000 books and hundreds of CDs and DVDs it would just be a pretty boring process and I don’t want to waste that much time. Libra could be a solution for me. It is a free software that organizes collections offering several features that make it stick out of the masses.

The first is a unique one that I never heard about before. It can use a webcam to scan a barcode and identify the item by itself. No more typing and searching through the results to find the item that you bought. This is really useful.

Libra supports other search options besides keyword searches, those are: UPC, ISBN, EAN and Jan in case the barcode reader can’t be used or the item does not have a barcode which is the case for many of my books that I own.

Libra currently searches six Amazon databases which should be fine for most Books, Games, CDs and DVDs but could pose problems for older items. The search itself is very fast and displays covers as well as information about the item. All items are shown as if they were lying on a bookshelf which is also how they are shown in your collection.

Several other features include a way to keep track of borrowed items, print options, create web pages with your collection, import possibilities for existing collections and xml support.

External Links:

Libra Homepage

As the CD’s contents are preserved, a scratched CD can be recovered by polishing its plastic surface. If, after carrying out the above cleansing, the CD persists in giving reading errors, just polish the CD with toothpaste. That’s right, toothpaste. It works wonders, and you won’t spend a fortune buying professional cleaning kits. Polish the scratches with a cotton swab, rubbing gently the paste-imbued swab over the scratches until they disappear or until you notice that you have removed them as far as possible. Sometimes the paste may cause new scratching, but it will be merely superficial and easily removed. After clearing the scratches, wash the CD in water.

[tags]CD, Recover, scratched cd, repair, scratched dvd[/tags]