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Is AnyDVD actually necessary for copying DVD's?

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superboyac:
I don't want to turn this into a pirating topic, I'm just curious about the program AnyDVD.  I've never copied a commercial DVD, so I don't know how this all works.  All I know is that AnyDVD allows you to somehow bypass whatever copyright protection there is on a DVD so you can copy it, or make a backup.  My question is, I swear I know a bunch of people who copy DVD's and don't know anything about AnyDVD.  So what does it do exactly?

I've heard people using programs like DVD Shrink without AnyDVD and they are able to copy.  So i don't get it.  From what I understand, Anydvd doesn't do anything except run in the background and quietly remove any DVD restrictions.

So, can anyone clearly explain to me what the program does?


PS  The reason why I ask is because someone asked me about copying DVD's.  And being such a smartass software knowitall, I said I don't know because I've never done, but I've heard that you have to have this AnyDVD program to do it.  Someone else said they do it using just DVD Shrink.  And so forth...

f0dder:
There's different levels of protection on DVDs.

Some have none at all, and those can be simply copied with whatever tool you like.

A lot use the CSS (Content Scrambling System) protection, which requires decryption in order to be copied. The CSS protection was pretty flawed, though, so there's multiple ways of breaking it. Used to take some time and specialized software, but is now built into standard stuff like DVD Shrink (iirc) and whatnot.

The evil media guys started using Klever Trikz in order to foil DeCSS programs (I assume it's the same kinds of standards-violation as with the copy protected audio CDs, that technically aren't CDs because they violate specs!), and this led to crap like ARccOS... but that was defeated as well, don't remember the history but it wouldn't surprise me if AnyDVD were some of the first to support it. The free version of DVDFab Platinum handles it as well.

mwb1100:
My understanding is that DVDShrink circumvents CSS and some older additional copy protections.  However, since it has not be maintained for quite sometime, newer DVDs (with newer protections) do not work so well with DVDShrink.

AnyDVD is a drive filter, so it removes protections for any program which reads DVDs.

There are other DVD copy/backup which incorporate their own protection circumvention (such as DVDfab).  With those you would not need AnyDVD.

And there's no requirement that DVDs be copy-protected (though I think that the Blue-Ray licensing does require publihsers to encrypt BD releases - but I'm not certain about that).  I'm not sure what percentage are - I'm pretty sure that a large majority of major consumer DVD releases are protected at least with CSS.

superboyac:
it sounds like AnyDVD is not completely necessary for all DVD's.  And since the people I've heard from don't know anything about AnyDVD, I assume that most DVD's can just be copied fine without AnyDVD.

4wd:
A free alternative to AnyDVD is DVD43 which works in the same way - not as updated as AnyDVD so any really recent copy protection scheme will probably confound it, (and basically there really is only one DVD copy protection that can be still be considered active and that's Sony's ARccOS as f0dder mentioned).

I still use RipIt4Me if I need to cop backup a DVD.

It's just a front end to DVDDecrypter but it was the first to actually scan through the structure of a DVD and modify the command structure to make the DVD jump to the first menu upon insertion into a player, (so you missed all the "forced" advertising).  It also mapped out what 'cells' weren't used, or were small and bypassed those, (eg. FBI warning, etc).

Sadly, not developed any more, (it was Australian and got stomped on by Sony IIRC), but I've yet to find something it won't backup.  The website was taken taken down but you can still find it out in the wild using a search.

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