Well, I don't think AnyDVD is trying to claim they let you watch non-HDCP protected content without HDCP hardware... "Buy our product, it'll let you do what you could do anyway" isn't really a very good marketing slogan. It lets you watch HD-DVDs (which are all HDCP protected AFIK) and BRDs (which are also all HDCP protected, also AFIK).

I reread your post MrCrispy... I see what you're saying now, I think. You're saying that AnyDVD HD may run into additional problems if you have HDCP enabled hardware, like an HDCP enabled video card. Right?
I definitely don't know enough about HDCP to make a guess as to whether this would actually be the case, but I'd guess there would be many posts about it on the Slysoft forum. I took a quick look, but I didn't see any. I unfortunately don't have ANY HD computer hardware, so I can't come close to testing the software myself.

I wonder how many of those 40 million copies are sitting on retail shelves? This *may* be remininscent of inflated sales figures for records wherein the labels report the number of copies shipped as the actually sales figures... so, they are/were? reporting the volume of shipments to the middlemen rather than sales numbers to the buying public. Don't know when this practice started and if it's still being done, but a very easy way to garner a gold/platinum record for an artist and to create a lot of hype around them to create actual sales! Well, that and buying playtime on radio stations...

Excellent point - Hirudin. Hadn't made that connection, either.