Features:  

The animated selector wheel is colorful and intuitive – your options are clearly represented for the variety of projects possible with this software. The options might seem overwhelming at first, but as soon as you select one the program’s user-friendliness takes over. The left-hand buttons are where you can determine the nature of your project: for example, Copy to DVD. Once you select this option, the format bar across the top narrows down your options from there.

The rip and burn processes, specifically, don’t take much time at all. And once you successfully make a virtual copy of the movie or whatever your task is, you don’t have to make the burn right then and there. You can schedule it for later using the CopyLater function, which is very nice for the family all using one computer – you can schedule your file conversions to take place while everyone’s sleeping and no one is using the computer.

The Tools category is a handy collection of errands: Disc Utility lets you quickly erase and reformat rewritable discs. The Virtual Drive creates a virtual hard drive with the contents of your projects so you don’t have to load them every time you want to make a copy. Conjointly a virtual drive is valuable because it means that your actual hard drive is not being tasked at all – no space is taken up.

The video output formats are presented in easy drop-down boxes. The progress meter is very helpful.

DVD Copy 6 also recognizes AVCHD video folders imported from your camcorder – it converts these to whatever format you need. You can even import directly from your DVD-based AVCHD camera.

XVid is the popular P2P file format supported by DVD Copy6. H.264 HD support means you can encode your HD video to this cutting-edge format, save disc space and maintain an excellent level of quality.

MPEG-4 and H.264 templates are available for the Apple iPhone, as well as a variety of mobile phones, PDAs and even Zune. This versatility also lets you send video directly to your iPod and/or PSP.

The program’s HDV support converts high-definition HDV captured from Sony, Panasonic, JVC and Canon HDV camcorders. MPEG-2 HD support lets you convert video to HDTV format for playing high-definition on your home theater.

Not exactly DVD burn-related but DVD Copy 6 additionally has a TiVo feature that converts your TiVo Series 2-recorded files to DVD disc or mobile device. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

Copying Capabilities:  

Duplicate double layer discs – Copy larger capacity DVD+R/-R double layer discs preserving the original DVD quality and without shrinking content – this is different (and superior, really) to compression techniques.

Compression techniques are useful though – If you so choose you can still compress dual-layer DVD videos onto single-layer DVDs and preserve the visual quality from the original. You can choose from six different rates of compression and even preview the quality before beginning the actual burn.

Audio CD capabilities are fully supported here: you can rip audio CD and DVD soundtracks. The program can guide you to extract the audio tracks and burn them to CD or wherever else you want to put them.

Other Features:  

We began testing with a home movie DVD.AVI file. First we selected the one-click copy feature. It didn’t work. Ha. When we selected Convert DVD using DVD as the target, we successfully made a copy. Next, we tried to create a disc image – where the file is saved as an image to be burned on to a disc or etc. That was also successful, though it saved as a CDI file rather than the ISO we thought would be created – but subsequent attempts to feed this disc image to the program all went off without a hitch within the program.

The next test was to convert a DVD to H.264 (at 1Mbps). This type of file is perfect for making a file to view on your laptop, for example. The conversion is fast, but the encoding takes some time – but encoding is a time-consuming business. The finished product here looked great and had a small size that translates into many hours of fairly-good-quality video on the laptop without taxing the hard drive much at all.

The advanced functions we tinkered with included making a compilation disc of SD and HD QuickTime, WMV and DV-AVI files from several different sources – all heaped into a pastiche DVD folder on the hard drive – ready to burn to disc.

Disc Label is an added bonus that you get when you purchase the full version of the software. Disc Label is supported by LightScribe and lets you make your own labels for the discs you create.

DVD Copy6 lets you switch languages – you can change the entire user interface language at any time. DivX HD support is offered: import and author high-definition DivX HD video files of up to 1280 x 720. We found it a great utility to be able to burn two hours of HD video to DVD discs with the original subtitles, audio tracks and even interactive navigation menus, and play them on DivX HD DVD players.

If you’re interested in an advanced feature such as how your mobile devices can come into play, the Corel web site has a great PDF guide that takes you through the process step-by-step.

Disc Types:  

Burn to any DVD or CD – DVD Copy 6 supports standard recordable media formats: DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, CD-R/RW, DVD +/- VR, and DVD-RAM as well as HD DVD and dual layer DVDs.