Public 'Thank You' to SlySoft For Wonderful Product In AnyDVD

Yo-

After owning and using AnyDVD for the past two years - I just wanted to say a big "THANK YOU" to Sly Soft for providing such a wonderful product and support for that product-eh!

I haven't owned it as long but a thank you is needed to the engineers.

You're welcome!

I must thank Slysoft for the "transparency" setting for subtitles. Putting it on "7" (50% solid) is a really nice add-on.

I totally agree!
Just another reason to use a PC as a DVD player replacement. But I have a tiny request: Please add an option to change the position of the subtitles. They often are "in the way" and could be moved to the black bars of CinemaScope movies. Or the other way round: If people have a (maskable) scope screen, the subtitles are often outside the picture. Please...
And while you're at it, how about setting the colour of the subtitles as well?

Haven 't you heard of DVDSubEdit??
It does all those things and way more...
http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit

Sure, but then I have to copy the DVD to harddisk first...
The transparency function in AnyDVD is so cool, because you can pop in the DVD and watch it right away.
If AnyDVD could move the subtitles or change the colour *while you watch* (it already can change the transparency "on the fly")... this would be Home-Theatre-PC heaven.

I would also like to 'tip my hat' to Slysoft for AnyDVD!!! I personally have had 100% success since getting it last year. I've backed-up hundreds of DVDs and not one failure!!

And in regards to DVDSubEdit, I personally prefer it over the new transparency option in AnyDVD since I can truly make it transparent with DVDSubEdit by only having an outline of the text while the middle of it is completely transparent, while AnyDVD basically only really lightens the color. BUT, I would say that it is a nice touch by AnyDVD to add that in so those who haven't used DVDSubEdit and/or doesn't really want to, can have that ability. Many with AnyDVD never wants to rip to the harddrive first, so doing this 'lighten-ing' on-the-fly is absolutely perfect!!!

P.S. I also love DVDSubEdits' ability to lower the subtitles on the screen as well as change the colors.

James, I second that request. Seriously, moving the subtitles and changing the color on the fly would be insanely awesome. It would be a MUCH appreciated feature.

yep do it in the settings and then it'll keep it and always use it unless you change it.

I concur with all of the above, bar 1
Great program and great developers

I agree with SamuriHL and Tru. Please SlySoft do Something!!!

I'm sure that if Slysoft wanted to, they could/will. They already have partnered with jeanl's FixVTS, so might as well partner with him on some more of the functions from DVDSubEdit.

It's now already been requested, so next for us is patience.

BTW> I hope Slysoft is at least helping out with jeanl's future and current endeavours.

I would like to have this feature in AnyDVD myself! But implementing this "tiny request" is much more difficult than it seems:

The AnyDVD driver sits between drive (port driver) and the OS (class driver). It is very limited, because it sees the sectors pass by and has to decide what to do with the data on a sector-by-sector basis.
If subtitles need to be repositioned, the old position must be changed. Unfortunately the position information can be spread in different sectors in the subtitle stream, e.g. like this:

x---------------y--------

Where x contains the first part, and y the second part of the information.
The - represent other sectors (containing video or audio streams).
If AnyDVD wants to reposition the subtitles, it needs to read and modify x and y. Unfortunately x has been already forwarded to the player software.

The AnyDVD driver cannot cache any sector data (except for the sectors it knows to replace, e.g. all sectors containing autorun.inf or *.ifo files).

It would be possible to add read-ahead caching to AnyDVD. AnyDVD could in fact be modified, to cache the complete DVD on your harddisk while you are watching. If you use your PC to watch DVDs, your drive would probably stop completely after 20 minutes.
Another nice Home Theatre PC feature for Tru, as the drive would be completely silent after the first quarter of the movie.
This version could indeed change subtitle position or do other funny things not currently possible.

Now the bad news: Such a feature would consume so much man power (money), my boss won't allow it to be a free update.
As AnyDVD has a "lifetime free updates" policy, this feature won't be added to AnyDVD.
Maybe we can do an "AnyDVD professional/platinum/..." version with Harddisk-Cache & advanced subtitle stuff which is sold as an upgrade to AnyDVD owners.
My boss doesn't like this idea too much, because he thinks that it would p*ss off many people who could feel cheated.
I believe it is perfectly ok, only few people want a harddisk cache or on-the-fly subtitle adjustment, so let these people pay for the feature they want.

Bummer!!


At least we still have DVDSubEdit.
Thanks jeanl>

Bummer indeed. I understand, though. I know I'd be willing to pay for an upgrade that allows that. But the question isn't whether a handful of us here on CDF would buy it, it's whether there's a larger market for it in order to pay back the cost of development and testing. That would require some market research which is also a pain to do. Ugh. Well, it's a nice thought?

no offense james but i agree with your boss.

while i agree with you that it's reasonable to ask people to pay for this advanced feature, the alysoft policy is "free lifetime updates" and those who are unwilling to pay for an extra upgrade WILL feal cheated.

i personally don't use subtitles nor do i have a particularly advanced "home theater" so a feature like this would be impractical for me. however, if this were implemented in a separate "upgrade" package, I'd be wondering what else I was missing out on as well or if the support team would be divided between the two programs leaving the "regular" users with fewer updates/less support.

i'm not saying it's not a good idea, but the boss's concerns are certainly valid.

also it's weird to hear to refer to your boss. i think for most of the users here you ARE Slysoft haha

See my post in the Final Destination 3 thread about this issue. I think it's a good compromise and might even get approval from the boss.

How about launching an extra program, that can be used in conjunction with anydvd. this could have extras that are not really needed, but could add more functionality to the slysoft programs. While the anydvd program could go on doing its job decrypting movies, the other software (lets call it anycig ) could add additional options like moving subtitles. It could also add extras to clonecd, clonedvd mobile, and clonedvd2... obviously it would have to cost less that the other pieces of software ($10-$15?) but if you are able to add more functionality, why not do it?

Or you could give anydvd users an optional 2 patches to add functionallity, which afterwards they would have to pay for, so you could have 3-10 additional patches. I dont think people would feel cheated if anydvd continued decrypting the latest movies.

or just ignore me

don't worry...done.




...hehe just kidding <3

that's definitely another valid suggestion

I still think that if this option to move subtitles and change the color were added to CloneDVD instead of AnyDVD, it'd be easier to do and not require a complete function rewrite. It might be easier for James to go back to the boss and get approval. Plus, if it's required to do hard drive caching anyway, I see no problem with using CloneDVD to move subtitles, remove trailers, etc, to make a copy on the media PC before I watch it. It'd take the same amount of time as the theoretical AnyDVD hard drive caching feature.

just because you want it to be called anyreasons

ahhhhh the emo heart

Hear, hear! Difficult to say if I would like this feature. I have tried the harddisk caching of DVDIdle, and quite frankly, it sucked big time. If you can do it better, it would be nice, but setting the drive speed to "Slow & Quiet" in AnyDVD is my current solution to the noise.

I would gladly pay 29$ (or even more) for the subtitle adjustment. I know that only a few people would need it and I understand that if I want such a feature I have to pay for it.
It must be certain, that the users of AnyDVD "classic" are not missing anything, and that both versions are updated at the same time.

But SamuriHL, this misses the intention of my request.
I want to watch the DVDs on the PC. I don't want to copy all the seasons of my favourite TV-Show to harddisk first with CloneDVD, just to watch it...
If I have to copy to harddisk first, then I can use DVDSubedit as well.

I suppose this is true. But I just don't see James being able to convince his boss that making another version of AnyDVD and charging for it is a good idea. Not when you consider how many people are willing to pay for it. I know I would, and obviously you would, as well, but, is the market big enough to justify the development and testing costs? I doubt it. That is, of course, only my opinion. However, having this option in CloneDVD is at least marginally useful as a sort of compromise. Yes, you'd have to rip it before watching it. That's a pain. CloneDVD, however, makes it rather easy to do given it's awesome interface. And if the option to move subtitles were "remembered", you could simply insert the disc, rip it in 15-20 minutes, and be on your way. Not as convenient as AnyDVD's on the fly, I'll admit, but, still useful nonetheless. I completely understand your point about wanting it on the fly...I just don't think we can make a strong enough case to get Slysoft to actually implement it.