• AnyStream is having some DRM issues currently, Netflix is not available in HD for the time being.
    Situations like this will always happen with AnyStream: streaming providers are continuously improving their countermeasures while we try to catch up, it's an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Please be patient and don't flood our support or forum with requests, we are working on it 24/7 to get it resolved. Thank you.

Will there be a CloneDVD HD?

MMM

Well-Known Member
Thread Starter
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
105
Likes
0
Will there be a CloneDVD HD soon thereafter too? So we can maybe burn to DL DVD-Rs?:agree: :disagree: Or is that a bad idea?:disagree: :agree:
THANKS
 
I think they are unsure about this right now. Because burners if they are out are very hard to get.
 
Will there be a CloneDVD HD soon thereafter too? So we can maybe burn to DL DVD-Rs?:agree: :disagree: Or is that a bad idea?:disagree: :agree:
THANKS
Not a bad idea at all, but it is a little early to think about such a complex product.
 
Not a bad idea at all, but it is a little early to think about such a complex product.

I disagree. A product of the nature that we're talking about(see my post on CDF for more info) should be planned out and built properly from the ground up. But to do that takes time. If you started planning such a product now, I doubt you could get it on the market before a year or a year and a half. By then HD-DVD and/or BluRay will likely be quite established. Being able to convert from one format to another has HUGE benefits to people like me. I might consider a PC drive that supports both formats and use my media pc with that. That's fine. However, my xbox 360 only supports hd-dvd and it's far more portable than my media pc. Those "BluRay only" titles aren't so attractive if I can't take them with me and play them on my 360. However, if I had an HD DVD burner and some cheap(er) media, the ability to transcode BluRay movies suddenly becomes a very coveted feature. ;) ESPECIALLY with the things you've added to AnyDVD HD like the disc structure editing. So, I see CloneDVD HD as being a USEFUL product but also a DIFFICULT one to make.

If I were you, I'd at least start putting together a list of requirements and coming up with a project plan at this stage. That way you can assign effort to each feature and do a cost analysis to see if a CloneDVD HD product even makes sense from a business standpoint. You can then prioritize the the most needed features and get a "base" product out the door that can starting making you more money so that you can work on future revisions with the features that didn't make the initial release. All of this takes time...the sooner the better. :)
 
I disagree. A product of the nature that we're talking about(see my post on CDF for more info) should be planned out and built properly from the ground up. But to do that takes time. If you started planning such a product now, I doubt you could get it on the market before a year or a year and a half. By then HD-DVD and/or BluRay will likely be quite established. Being able to convert from one format to another has HUGE benefits to people like me. I might consider a PC drive that supports both formats and use my media pc with that. That's fine. However, my xbox 360 only supports hd-dvd and it's far more portable than my media pc. Those "BluRay only" titles aren't so attractive if I can't take them with me and play them on my 360. However, if I had an HD DVD burner and some cheap(er) media, the ability to transcode BluRay movies suddenly becomes a very coveted feature. ;) ESPECIALLY with the things you've added to AnyDVD HD like the disc structure editing. So, I see CloneDVD HD as being a USEFUL product but also a DIFFICULT one to make.

If I were you, I'd at least start putting together a list of requirements and coming up with a project plan at this stage. That way you can assign effort to each feature and do a cost analysis to see if a CloneDVD HD product even makes sense from a business standpoint. You can then prioritize the the most needed features and get a "base" product out the door that can starting making you more money so that you can work on future revisions with the features that didn't make the initial release. All of this takes time...the sooner the better. :)
Yeah, we could have a thread for suggestions on the forum too to help out with the design and plans.
 
I disagree. A product of the nature that we're talking about(see my post on CDF for more info) should be planned out and built properly from the ground up. But to do that takes time. If you started planning such a product now, I doubt you could get it on the market before a year or a year and a half. By then HD-DVD and/or BluRay will likely be quite established. Being able to convert from one format to another has HUGE benefits to people like me. I might consider a PC drive that supports both formats and use my media pc with that. That's fine. However, my xbox 360 only supports hd-dvd and it's far more portable than my media pc. Those "BluRay only" titles aren't so attractive if I can't take them with me and play them on my 360. However, if I had an HD DVD burner and some cheap(er) media, the ability to transcode BluRay movies suddenly becomes a very coveted feature. ;) ESPECIALLY with the things you've added to AnyDVD HD like the disc structure editing. So, I see CloneDVD HD as being a USEFUL product but also a DIFFICULT one to make.

If I were you, I'd at least start putting together a list of requirements and coming up with a project plan at this stage. That way you can assign effort to each feature and do a cost analysis to see if a CloneDVD HD product even makes sense from a business standpoint. You can then prioritize the the most needed features and get a "base" product out the door that can starting making you more money so that you can work on future revisions with the features that didn't make the initial release. All of this takes time...the sooner the better. :)
This is all true, and you give good arguments. (Sure, you're a pro. :D )
But if one of the formats dies before it really took off, any effort might be a waste of time and money. I wouldn't start thinking about such a converter for at least 3-6 months, as I don't want to bind human resources so early in "the game".
IMHO it would be more wise to think about little intermediate steps not binding so much HR (time and moneywise). As a matter of fact, most of the knowledge required to even estimate such a project is not disclosed unless you sign a license agreement with BDA (Blu-ray) or DVD-Forum (HD DVD).
I doubt SlySoft will be allowed to join the HD DVD promoter's group. :p
For example, let's start with "a simple driver to allow BR media to be used to backup HD DVD movies for playback on HTPC".
Then maybe a "HD DVD demuxer (to remove soundtracks) and splitter" to burn HD DVD movies on DVD+/-R dual layer media.
During these steps we could learn a lot about the new codecs, data structures, etc. while keeping the cash flow and getting a feeling for the market's response. Now - after understanding how HD DVD works - we need to understand Blu-ray. So AnyDVD HD supporting Blu-ray would be the next logical step, followed by ... you know what I mean.
 
Yeah, we could have a thread for suggestions on the forum too to help out with the design and plans.

Not a bad idea but too many cooks spoil the dinner so to speak. Slysoft has to determine what features are feasible and when you've got tons of people requesting or suggesting features it makes it difficult to prioritize them all. I'm quite sure Slysoft has an internal development process that handles these kinds of tasks. The reason companies do phased releases is because of time and cost constraints. It'd be great if they could cram all the features we wanted into the first release but that's simply not possible. Think about what it would take, for instance, JUST to provide the ability to transcode from BluRay to HD-DVD and vice versa...without dealing with compression issues. The program would need to following abilities:

-Read both BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures
-Edit both BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures in order to add/remove content
-Construct entire BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures
-Convert video, audio, and menu structures from one format to the other
-Provide simple GUI for users to perform above tasks

Each one of those tasks breaks down into possibly hundreds of steps. Reading the disc structures, for example, is probably pretty easy for them to do. Not a big deal. Editing the disc structures...they seem to have a handle on that, as well, given what AnyDVD HD can do. However, authoring a new BluRay or HD-DVD disc structure that is compliant with the standards...that's probably not something they've done yet. I don't suspect that's an easy task. Then you have the routines to process the video, audio, subtitles, menus, etc. THAT will be very difficult and will probably require them to license the different codecs. You're talking about 3 different codecs for each disc type. I don't have any idea about the structures of the discs, but, let's assume that the codecs are implemented slightly differently on each format. You will then have to be able to trancode the video, audio, subtitles, menus, etc from one format to the other. This assumes no compression...just straight conversion. But you're not just dealing with MPEG-2 as we did on DVD's...you've got VC1 and H.264 to deal with, as well, and CloneDVD HD will have to be able to deal with those. Development time on that will be significant. Testing will also be significant. I don't know what licensing of those codecs would cost, either. But, these are the types of things Slysoft has to deal with when someone says "hey, it'd be kuel if you could just throw together this app." It doesn't work like that...this is why I said Slysoft should start thinking about it now rather than wait.
 
Not a bad idea but too many cooks spoil the dinner so to speak. Slysoft has to determine what features are feasible and when you've got tons of people requesting or suggesting features it makes it difficult to prioritize them all. I'm quite sure Slysoft has an internal development process that handles these kinds of tasks. The reason companies do phased releases is because of time and cost constraints. It'd be great if they could cram all the features we wanted into the first release but that's simply not possible. Think about what it would take, for instance, JUST to provide the ability to transcode from BluRay to HD-DVD and vice versa...without dealing with compression issues. The program would need to following abilities:

-Read both BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures
-Edit both BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures in order to add/remove content
-Construct entire BluRay and HD-DVD disc structures
-Convert video, audio, and menu structures from one format to the other
-Provide simple GUI for users to perform above tasks

Each one of those tasks breaks down into possibly hundreds of steps. Reading the disc structures, for example, is probably pretty easy for them to do. Not a big deal. Editing the disc structures...they seem to have a handle on that, as well, given what AnyDVD HD can do. However, authoring a new BluRay or HD-DVD disc structure that is compliant with the standards...that's probably not something they've done yet. I don't suspect that's an easy task. Then you have the routines to process the video, audio, subtitles, menus, etc. THAT will be very difficult and will probably require them to license the different codecs. You're talking about 3 different codecs for each disc type. I don't have any idea about the structures of the discs, but, let's assume that the codecs are implemented slightly differently on each format. You will then have to be able to trancode the video, audio, subtitles, menus, etc from one format to the other. This assumes no compression...just straight conversion. But you're not just dealing with MPEG-2 as we did on DVD's...you've got VC1 and H.264 to deal with, as well, and CloneDVD HD will have to be able to deal with those. Development time on that will be significant. Testing will also be significant. I don't know what licensing of those codecs would cost, either. But, these are the types of things Slysoft has to deal with when someone says "hey, it'd be kuel if you could just throw together this app." It doesn't work like that...this is why I said Slysoft should start thinking about it now rather than wait.
Of course. We could help plan a roadmap.
 
This is all true, and you give good arguments. (Sure, you're a pro. :D )
But if one of the formats dies before it really took off, any effort might be a waste of time and money. I wouldn't start thinking about such a converter for at least 3-6 months, as I don't want to bind human resources so early in "the game".
IMHO it would be more wise to think about little intermediate steps not binding so much HR (time and moneywise). As a matter of fact, most of the knowledge required to even estimate such a project is not disclosed unless you sign a license agreement with BDA (Blu-ray) or DVD-Forum (HD DVD).
I doubt SlySoft will be allowed to join the HD DVD promoter's group. :p
For example, let's start with "a simple driver to allow BR media to be used to backup HD DVD movies for playback on HTPC".
Then maybe a "HD DVD demuxer (to remove soundtracks) and splitter" to burn HD DVD movies on DVD+/-R dual layer media.
During these steps we could learn a lot about the new codecs, data structures, etc. while keeping the cash flow and getting a feeling for the market's response. Now - after understanding how HD DVD works - we need to understand Blu-ray. So AnyDVD HD supporting Blu-ray would be the next logical step, followed by ... you know what I mean.

What do you read minds or something?! :D Yes, I realize what's involved and I'm not saying it should be a product you just slap together right now. Simply that you start thinking about the components and features that will go into it...eventually. All the things you just laid out are excellent goals that will definitely move you along towards a product that will be highly useful. I agree completely that baby steps are needed. That's why I was suggesting breaking the feature set down into a project plan to do some analysis on it. But it sounds like you're at least thinking about the right steps so I'm good with that knowledge. ;) Keep up the great work.
 
What do you read minds or something?! :D Yes, I realize what's involved and I'm not saying it should be a product you just slap together right now. Simply that you start thinking about the components and features that will go into it...eventually. All the things you just laid out are excellent goals that will definitely move you along towards a product that will be highly useful. I agree completely that baby steps are needed. That's why I was suggesting breaking the feature set down into a project plan to do some analysis on it. But it sounds like you're at least thinking about the right steps so I'm good with that knowledge. ;) Keep up the great work.
That's my job. If I don't do it, it will be Tom and Giancarlo spanking me with the foam bat. And no, I don't like that. :D
 
That's my job. If I don't do it, it will be Tom and Giancarlo spanking me with the foam bat. And no, I don't like that. :D

ROFLMAO! :) I knew you guys had too much fun there! LOL!!
 
I'd hope that if this kind of product were released eventually, it would perform more or less all the same functions that CloneDVD does, but on both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Basically, just giving us the ability to backup our movies either entirely or in part (with the option to preserve the menu structure). I suppose it somewhat defeats the purpose of idealized HD, but the ability to compress would be useful as well. Since HD-DVDs can also apparently be written onto normal DVDs, a single-layer HD-DVD (although I've heard that most releases have been dual-layer) could be compressed onto a DVD+R DL as well.

I'm not sure how much of a priority the ability to convert the entire Blu-Ray and HD-DVD structures from one to the other should be, though. Perhaps Slysoft should just focus on matching the current CloneDVDs features first, and add this later on if it's truly demanded.
 
Any updates? James you mentioned 3-6 months, well its 6 months? Just curious.
 
We will keep everyone up to date as soon as we know something. Slysoft has always done a great job predicting what will be needed, I have no reason to think they will stop now.:D:agree:
 
With the price of the HD disc or BD Disc it would be wiser to just buy 2 of the same title at the moment. Plus there is no HD-DVD Burners out besides the ones intregrated into the laptops.
 
i agree however i would hope for the compression or recoding feature just like is in CDVD now. lots of people including myself only have a 720p monitor so full 1080p doesnt really benefit us. best result would be to fit 720 content on a DVD9.
 
Has there been any further thought given to this? I've got a few HD-DVDs that I'd like to convert to regular DVD format :agree:
 
If there was going to be a CloneDVD HD, who would make it? The swiss cheese guys (meant in the nicest way) or the Slysoft peeps?
 
If and when there will be a CloneDVD HD I doubt it will convert BD or HD to SD DVD-9. I can't wait till they have something for us though as it would be nice. A basic easy to use one step program is all that is holding me back right now to start buying in BD now. Price ain't nothing to me if you want to make a backup without the loss of quality or resolution and retain everything you want.
 
Back
Top