EXP Reviews

How many DVDs do you have scattered around the house that are cracked, scratched or in some way damaged? If you have kids, the answer is probably quite a lot!

I was getting a little tired of replacing damaged DVDs as they're quite costly so I hunted about for some software to let me copy DVDs on to black DVD R discs. The plan was the keep the original DVDs somewhere safe and just use the copy versions instead. That way, when they inevitably get ruined, I can just create another copy for pence, rather than pounds.

The software I've been using is DVDneXtCOPY Standard. I paid $49.99 (£30 at the current exchange rate) for the download directly from their website, though you can order a boxed version that comes with printed manuals for an additional $20.

It works really well and is very simple to use, just insert your DVD movie and away you go. There's a whole host of useful features which I've listed below:

• Copy DVD movies directly to DVD
• Copy DVD movies to your computer
• Copy Special Features (Movie Trailers, Commentary, etc.)
• Copy Full Multi-Channel Audio (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS)
• Copy episodic DVD movies
• Make copies of DVD copies
• Copies DVD Movie to One Blank Disc (No Need to Split)
• Make multiple copies from DVD movies on your hard drive
• Remove region limitations
• Preview tracks before and during copying
• Browse and view DVD movies on your network
• Erase and reuse rewritable disks
• Read with one drive and burn with another
• Supports all Dual Layer/Single Layer disc and burners
• Supports all SCSI, IDE, USB DVD burners/recorders
• Supports 1x - 20x speed blank media
• Supports both NTSC and PAL DVD movies

Pretty good value for the equivalent of £30 I reckon, and it's been very useful for me.

There's actually a cheaper option too if all you need is a one-click copy to DVD without all the extra fancy features such as customising which parts of the original DVD to copy.

The cheaper version is DVDneXtCOPY XPress, which is available for $29.99 (£18).


As always, there are some links below for each version. I highly recommend this program - it's fantastic value for money compared to replacing DVDs damaged by small hands!


DVDneXtCOPY Standard - $49.99
DVDneXtCOPY XPress - $29.99

If you're toying with the idea of setting up a website for the first time, a quick search on Google for cheap web hosting will throw up an enormous array of different hosts, all boasting essentially the same features and benefits at massively varying prices.

I have recently been involved in setting up a Supporters Club website for a local Ice Hockey team. I needed a host for the website that offered simple tools for uploading files or updating pages, support for the blog element of their website, a domain name of their choosing, and email addresses that could be associated with it.

Keeping the cost down was essential as all their income comes directly from fundraising and selling merchandise at matches.

For this project I actually shyed away from my normal web host for the first time and decided to do a lot of research online to find the best option. In the end I decided upon a company called UK2.net. They weren't a company that I'd looked at before, but I was surprised to discover that they were one of the largest hosts in the UK (apparently I'd been living under a rock the whole time I've been working on web projects)

The deal I found was perfect for the Club - at a cost of £3.95 per month, they had 3GB storage space (plenty of room to upload their enormous gallery of match photos), 100GB bandwidth per month (way more than they needed if I'm honest), POP & IMAP email accounts for all their organisers and a domain name of their choice.

On top of that they have 1-click install software for wordpress blogs, joomla, image galleries so there's plenty of options to expand in the future.


Overall, if you're looking for cheap web hosting, I'd suggest giving UK2 a look. They have deals from £2.95 per month upwards depending on what you need, though from my experience I would say the basic home deal @ £3.95 p/m is perfect, even if your site does get a lot of hits!


Some useful links if you want to take a look:

UK2.net Web Hosting