By Donna Peng, editor of Digiarty Software

Many people have a DVD collection, large-sized, modest-sized, or small-sized, but they may have not watched any of those discs for years. One reason is that streaming services thrive these years, the other might be that it’s too much work to find the target DVD and turn on the DVD player (maybe, some even don’t have a DVD player anymore). But there is a way around this. We can digitize DVDs so that we are able to store the digital copies on NAS and manage and access using Plex. Once that is done, you can store them on a hard drive, USB flash drive, the cloud, or anywhere else.

To convert a physical disc into a digital file, we can seek a DVD copying service near us or download a piece of DVD ripping software online to do the job by ourselves. The latter tends to be a better choice because it costs less and gives us more control and convenience. No technical skills are required to handle a DVD ripper. After launching the program, we just need to load the target DVD, choose the desired output format and hit a button  to begin ripping. If you want to give that a try, I recommend WinX DVD Ripper Platinum.

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum Features

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is a mature product with over 70 million users since its debut in 2009. It can create rips from both your own home-made DVDs and commercial DVDs on Windows and Mac. It can make a 1:1 replica copy of your DVD and convert the main movie only into a space-friendly and watchable format for all of your devices.

Advanced DVD decoding mechanism

This feature plays an important role in making WinX DVD Ripper Platinum stand out from the multitudinous throngs of DVD rippers. This mechanism is regularly updated so that it can bypass new DVD copy protection schemes without the help of third-party applications like libdvdcss or something. Till now, it can circumvent all region codes, RCE, CSS, APS, UOPs, Sony ARccOS, Disney X-Project, and more encryptions on movie DVDs, TV series DVDs, workout DVDs, and other video DVDs. It can read and decrypt old DVDs, newly-released titles with ease, and even handle badly structured and damaged DVD discs.

Multiple speed-boosting technologies

To improve DVD ripping speed, various technologies are added in succession, including Intel/NVIDIA powered GPU hardware acceleration, Multi-core CPU, Hyper-threading, and Super Encode Engine based on MMX- SSE & 3DNow! As a result, users just need about 5 minutes to rip a 2-hour DVD movie to MP4 format. Of course, the speed has a lot to do with computer hardware. But under the same conditions, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum works much faster than similar programs, such as HandBrake.

Rich output profiles

WinX DVD Ripper Platinum is designed with more than 350 output presets covering from mainstream formats to hot devices to address different user needs.

Here are some typical use cases:

• General Profiles: MP4 Video (h.264+aac), AVI Video (Divx/Xvid+mp3), iPhone, iPad, Android Phone/Pad, WMV Video (wmv2+wav2), DVD Video Copy (MPEG2+DTS), M4V Video, MPEG4 Video, MOV Video.
• DVD Backup: clone DVD to ISO image, clone DVD to folder, main title content copy, full title copy
• Apple Device: iPhone video, iPad video, iPod video, Apple TV video, iMovie…
• Android Mobile/Pad: Samsung, Huawei, Google, Amazon…
• Sony Device: PS4, Xperia…
• Microsoft Device: Xbox, Surface Pro…
• Web Video Profile: YouTube Video, Facebook Video, Vimeo Video…
• To Music: MP3, AAC, AC3/DTS

Original quality kept

Choose a DVD backup preset and you will get a copy with the original quality. If you choose a general format, such as MP4, you also will not see visible quality loss. And you can drag the quality level to HQ point while selecting a profile and check Use High-Quality Engine to enhance the output image quality. Interlaced video will be changed to progressive scanning mode by ticking Deinterlacing.

Small Files

High-quality output doesn’t necessarily mean a big file. WinX DVD Ripper Platinum will compress DVD to the smallest file size possible. Here’s an example. We once used it to convert a 7.26GB movie DVD to MP4 (codec: H.264+AAC, resolution: keep origin), and finally got a 1.24GB file. The DVD rip is around 80% smaller than the original. We can save a lot of space this way, usually a few gigabytes for a DVD movie.

Edit features

This DVD copying software also gives users a few useful editing features. Users can trim off unwanted clips such as ads and tidbits, crop out unwanted area like black bars, add external subtitle tracks, and merge multiple titles/episodes into a single file.

For more information, visit WinX DVD Ripper Platinum product page.

The post Digitizing Your DVD Library appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Dawn Richcreek VP Marketing at Condusiv Technologies

Businesses depend on fast data. Fast data requires systems that are tuned and optimized for speed. Even new, “modern”, and expensive systems will slow if not set-up to dynamically accelerate data for maximum performance.

Causes of Data and Throughput Slows

There are 2 severe I/O inefficiencies that cause performance and reliability problems, robbing 30-40% of your throughput. First, is the windows file system tends to break up writes into separate storage I/Os which causes I/O characteristics that are much smaller, more fractured, and more random than they need to be. Second is storage I/O contention, also known as the I/O Blender Effect, which happens when you have multiple systems all sharing the same storage resource. Performance is penalized twice by these storage I/O inefficiencies causing systems to process workloads about 50% slower than they should.

DymaxIO Fast Data Software

DymaxIO is fast data software. It is the most cost-effective, easy, and indispensable solution for increased throughput and accelerated I/O performance, so systems and applications run at peak speed. DymaxIO utilizes AI (artificial intelligence) to detect and deploy the appropriate performance enhancement technologies for the exact individual system so organizations can boost performance without overspending on hardware.

DymaxIO eliminates the two big I/O inefficiencies in Windows environments that generate a minimum of 30-40% of noisy I/O traffic causing performance and reliability problems. By installing DymaxIO organizations can expect an immediate performance boost in virtualized environments, MS-SQL workloads, Oracle on Windows, ERP, VDI, EHR (MEDITECH), Business Intelligence (BI) apps, CRM, Exchange, SharePoint, file servers, backup, and more.

Condusiv Technologies guarantees that you will get better than new performance from systems using DymaxIO.

Even Faster Than New

DymaxIO further accelerates data for maximum I/O performance with its patented IntelliMemory® a DRAM read caching engine that establishes a tier-0 cache strategy to serve hot reads from idle, available DRAM that is otherwise unused. This engine operates automatically and dynamically in the background, which means no tuning is required. Nothing has to be allocated for cache since DymaxIO dynamically adjusts moment-by-moment to only what is otherwise unused, so there is never an issue of memory contention. Systems commonly serve 50% of their read traffic from DRAM with just 4GB of available memory. If a system is memory constrained at any moment then DymaxIO’s caching engine backs off entirely. Condusiv guarantees that you will get better than new performance from systems using DymaxIO.

Don’t Overspend on Hardware

“I developed Diskeeper 34 years ago because SysAdmins were spending their weekends doing ‘backup-and-restore’ to fix performance problems due to fragmentation,” said Craig Jensen Condusiv CEO. “We have come a long way since then. We have the best engineers on the planet who have consistently evolved and improved our software from automatic defrag on spinning disks to fragmentation prevention, to multiple, patented technologies to optimize performance in virtual environments, on all-flash, and in the cloud. New DymaxIO automatically detects the type of hardware on which it is installed and deploys the appropriate performance enhancement technologies for that exact individual system so organizations can boost performance without overspending on hardware.

SSDs, all-flash, hyper-converged, and cloud platforms

DymaxIO dynamically accelerates data for maximum I/O performance, no matter the underlying storage. By solving I/O inefficiencies at the source, DymaxIO improves application performance, increases throughput 30-40%, reduces latency, increases VDI capacity, reduces timeouts and crashes, shortens backups, improves data transfer rates and extends hardware lifecycles – on disks, SSDs, all-flash, hyper-converged, and cloud platforms.

“By making sure that DymaxIO will adapt to your specific workload and having studied what kinds of I/Os amplify the I/O Blender Effect, we were able to add intelligence to specifically go after those I/Os,” said Rick Cadruvi Condusiv Chief Architect. “We take a global view. We aren’t limited to a specific application or workload.  While we do have technologies that shine under certain workloads, such as transactional SQL applications, our goal is to optimize the entire network of systems. That’s the only way to overcome the I/O Blender Effect.”

DymaxIO Key Features

Condusiv Technologies makes software designed for virtual, cloud, and physical server environments that renders Windows servers faster and more reliable. The newly released DymaxIO – available on annual subscription SaaS model – provides an easy and cost-effective solution for fast data, increased throughput, and accelerated I/O performance so systems and applications run at peak performance for as long as possible.

• New AI Intelligent Detection and Adaption: Diskeeper, SSDkeeper, and V-locity have been combined into a single product that intelligently detects and adapts to its operating environment using artificial intelligence.
• New Condusiv Management Console: the new management console will manage all Condusiv software.
• IntelliWrite^® patented write optimization technology: automatically prevents excessively small, fractured, random writes and reads that harms performance due to the severe inefficiency in the native hand-off of data between the Windows OS and underlying storage.
• IntelliMemory^® patented read I/O optimization technology: intelligently caches hot read requests from server memory that is otherwise idle and unused.
• InvisiTasking^® patented intelligent scheduling technology: allows all the DymaxIO “background” operations within the server to run with zero resource impact on current production by only leveraging idle CPU cycles and memory.
• Benefits Dashboard: The “time saved” dashboard demonstrates the value by showing the amount of I/O traffic offloaded from storage, the percentage of read and write I/O traffic offloaded, and the resulting time saved to any one system or group of systems.

For more info, visit Condusiv.com/dymaxio

The post Fast Data Software Upending Windows Performance appeared first on Tech Trends.

For Technology Skills Platform Pluralsight,  bridging the digital skills gap and addressing the diversity problem is all part of a good business strategy.

In as little as five minutes and 20 questions, technologists around the world can measure their current skill level
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“Technology is poised to create a world of incredible prosperity and opportunity or incredible inequity, so our mission is to democratize technology to the world, and by so doing close the digital skills gap,” says Aaron Skonnard, President and CEO of Pluralsight.

In an environment where the typical software engineer has to re-develop their skillset every 12-18 months to keep up with changes in technology, the learning platform that Skonnard founded 13 years ago has tapped into the huge demand for high-level digital skills. A recent report by Stack Overflow showed that developers are increasingly diversifying the way they learn, and that they generally did not evaluate their colleagues on the level of their education but on a well-rounded skillset.

“If you are choosing to be a developer today, you are choosing to be a lifelong learner, there’s no other way to survive.” says Skonnard. “The best developers are the ones who really love to learn and are committed to keeping learning. That’s very true of tech in general, which is what makes this market so unique to us.”

Pluralsight now work with about 40% of fortune 500 companies and boast a valuation of almost $1 billion. Their community of course authors consists of a highly curated group of industry experts working as contractors to generate exclusive content for the platform. “We spearfish for best authors and best teachers in the industry, out of 100 accept only 1 or 2,” explains Skonnard. Their author community is currently about 1500 strong, and they can earn substantial royalties through their content – their top author made over $2 million last year.

Pluralsight works with about 40% of fortune 500 companies
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I met Skonnard at the company’s inaugural Pluralsight Live conference in Salt Lake City. The area is home to a surprisingly vibrant cluster of technology companies, known as “Silicon Slopes,” but a lot of people had travelled from much further afield to be there, including former First Lady Michelle Obama, who herself has always been a passionate advocate for education.

Salt Lake City boasts a vibrant tech ecosystem known as Silicon Slopes
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But in spite of the usual tech conference celebratory mood, the focus of the event was on tackling some the big issues facing the technology industry, and society in general. And in Pluralsight’s vision, the two are fundamentally aligned:

“Bringing together the demand for tech skills and the talent that currently does not have the access to training and resource is the easiest and surest way to break the cycle of poverty. We have to tackle both at the same time and there are no shortcuts,” Skonnard told the 1800 attendees during his opening keynote. “We will create a future for marginalized communities and transform technology learning.”

One of the features announced at the conference that they believe will help towards that goal was Pluralsight IQ, a score (ranging from 0-300) that tells you where your various skills stack up against the global population of developers. There are currently 45 skill assessments available across a variety of subjects, including Angular, C#, JavaScript and Python, with plans to quickly grow the collection.

“In as little as five minutes and 20 questions, technologists around the world can measure their current skill level and receive a verified Pluralsight IQ, which provides a quantified measure of their current skill proficiency, a timestamp that reflects the relevancy of their score and an easy way for them to showcase it.”

Pluralsight currently offers 45 skill assessments available across a variety of subjects, including Angular, C#, JavaScript and Python
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“There’s this guy in Lagos, Nigeria who just tweeted about getting his first Pluralsight score, and he got a 238 in Javascript (he was part of the A-B testing group) And that person now knows they’re in the 93^rd percentile of all Javascript developers globally, and would be considered an expert. This fellow is a great example of someone who like the companies in the US would know nothing about but there’s a person there who could really be a part of closing the tech skills gap,” says Skonnard. And since the test is free for anyone to take anywhere in the world, this creates a large amount of useful data that businesses can tap into: “We can give CIOs the tools they need to tap into all that experience and brilliance that might have been hidden before. And because of how accessible it is, that really plays into the social impact side too.” he adds.

That social impact half of the strategy is called Pluralsight One, a pledge by the company to dedicate at least 1% of its resources (product, time, profit and equity) to help learning, technology and philanthropy through supporting nonprofit organizations to equip the people they serve with technology skills.

Lindsey Kneuven, the newly engaged head of social impact at Pluralsight, believes the high-speed pace of technological change is introducing new types of vulnerability for those who are underserved or impoverished. “Through Pluralsight One, advancements in technology will now provide these same groups with incredible opportunities to solve complex, global challenges and create solutions for a better, more abundant world,” she says.

There are many successful examples of digital skills being leveraged in this way, such as TechHire Eastern Kentucky which taught coding skills to people in regions struggling with the decline in traditional industries such as coal mining.

“The way we’re going to be able to close the gap is by really reaching out to all those marginalised communities around the world where technology can open up a whole new future to them and we want to serve them. Creating the skills in those communities will increase the diversity across the tech industry and bring a whole new set of experiences and brilliance into it. We can give them the tools they need to develop those skills, and technology can open up a whole new future for them.” adds Skonnard.

Although it is easy to see the social value of these initiatives, the commercial benefits for corporations struggling to find the skills to execute on their technology strategy is considerable
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This is far from charity in the traditional sense, however. Although it is easy to see the social value of these initiatives, the commercial benefits for corporations struggling to find the skills to execute on their technology strategy is very considerable indeed.

“Right now CIOs and CTOs are in charge of some of the most mission-critical projects in the world and they’re doing it without any real insight into the technological skills of those people, but now our enterprise customers are going to be able to see all this data from the Pluralsight IQ test through our skills analytics and our channel analytics,” says Skonnard, adding that A CIO leveraging such tools would be able to assess the skills across their entire organisation (and even outside it) in real time, and find specific talents which might otherwise have remained hidden

Skonnard likens this to Moneyball – the story of the Billy Beane – recently played by Brad Pitt in a movie adaptation of the story – the general Manager of the Oakland A’s who propelled his low-budget baseball team to success using maths and science: “This guy was able to discover talent that nobody else in the world knew about but because of the data they could see it and put together a team that wasn’t full of all stars, but because of the data they actually went out and won. So you can think of us as Moneyball for CIOs.”

Pluralsight One is a pledge by the company to dedicate at least 1% of its resources to help learning, technology and philanthropy
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At a time where the dominant business and political discourse often seems to assume that doing good is diametrically opposed to doing well, it’s refreshing to see companies demonstrating this is a actually a false dichotomy. CIOs everywhere have the unique opportunity to do both, addressing their company’s greatest pain points and blockers to growth while at the same time helping to solve the broader societal issues caused by inequality. All it takes is a concerted and proactive strategy that acknowledges the problem, and a strong commitment towards executing it in the long term.

At a time where the dominant business and political discourse seems to assume that doing good is diametrically opposed to doing well, it’s refreshing to see companies demonstrating this is a false dichotomy
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This article was originally published on IDG Connect Website

IDG Contributor Network: How doing good can help CIOs do better https://t.co/xnaLsnUczg

— CIO.com (@CIOonline) September 26, 2017

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Closing the Digital Skills Gap and Bridging the Opportunity Divide appeared first on Tech Trends.

Should you design your own software solution or can existing tools meet your business needs at a fraction of the cost?

There are many factors to consider in choosing the best software solution
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Technology is a core part of any business these days, and this has led to the boom of software as a service (SaaS) where companies make use of cloud computing to distribute pre-built software to power other businesses. This model makes it easier to automate workflows such as data analytics and boost efficiency.

Technology is a core part of any business nowadays
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On the other end of the spectrum, however, there are businesses that need more horsepower for their platforms, and off-the-shelf software just doesn’t cut it there. To answer this demand, specialised software development agencies create custom solutions that cater to individual company needs and specifications.

Adapting ready-made software can be a cost-effective solution
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If you are a founder who’s looking for something to get you up and running so you can start working on your ideas right away, adapting a ready-made solution can be the best first step, yet as you grow, you may well consider switching to custom-built platforms to host your business, so you have more control over individual features.

Custom software can give your business greater flexibility
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But which is right for you? The choice depends on a number of factors such as cost, compatibility, functionality and flexibility. This infographic by Intelligent Bee breaks down some of those variables to help you make the best decision.

Cost, compatibility, functionality and flexibility are important factors when choosing software
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To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Infographic: Off-the-Shelf versus Custom Software appeared first on Tech Trends.

Originally developed as a Sony product, the Vegas Pro & Movie Studio editing packages have had a revamp after being recently bought by Magix.

Previous versions had felt a bit stuck between two very different target markets, with its professional software too basic for professional filmmakers and its consumer version too complicated for the average amateur home user. Its latest release, the Vegas Movie Studio 14 Platinum does still seem to be aiming for both, describing itself as”easy-to-use pro-level” software. As a professional who routinely uses a range of high-end video editing packages such as AVID I was curious to find out exactly what that meant.

Firstly, I have to say that Magix have to be congratulated on their support and learning tools. These come in the form of basic but tip-filled online video tutorials. They are well made and give enough practical information to get a new user cutting in Vegas Movie Studio right off the bat.

The software then provides on-going support via three interactive learning tools which enable editors to learn about the software’s capabilities on the go. “What’s This” and “Interactive Tutorials” give you quick answers to explain the more complex functions while the exhaustive “Program Help” should have an answer to any more complex questions that come up during the editing process.

The VEGAS software provides on-going support via three interactive learning tool
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It is great to know these learning tools are available, but just how intuitive is the software? The interface has been updated since version 13 and looks simpler and more stylish, which is a good start. The dark colour scheme and design theme works better, and the overall aesthetic of the UI feels much more modern.

The Project, Timeline and Preview windows are more clearly laid out and – most noticeably – some major changes to the Track Header have made it easier to monitor and control the tracks in the Timeline.

Changes to the Track Header made it easier to monitor and control tracks in the Timeline
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The buttons and icons in the Toolbars are relatively self explanatory but detailed pop up info windows appear when you hover over them so the button functions are very easy to learn as you edit. The dropdown menus are also much simpler than in previous versions, with functions grouped well under specific menu items.

As with all such software, there is a learning curve and you do tend to get out as much as you put into it, so some time dedicated to delving into the available Transitions, Effects and Title options certainly pays off in the long-run. That said, the capable learning tools are there to support you and utilising these while messing about and actually making some stuff is a great way to learn.

In the Project window the Transitions, Video FX and Media Generator tabs are really nice with hover-over demos of the effects that quickly help you find the creative look you are after, and there are lots of options! In fact that was one of the pleasant surprises about the Vegas Studio software, in that it comes with such a capable set of Video FX and Transitions, which a newbie should have lots of fun experimenting with.

VEGAS provides an affordable and robust prosumer video editing package
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This version 14 update also brings some key performance improvements such as quicker loading times for large projects, and I’m pleased to report that I didn’t have a single crash while putting it through its paces, which was a first for me with Vegas. In fact, I was able to cut a short but resource-heavy video in 4K and export it as a 1080p MP4 without any issues. Admittedly my PC is very powerful and has 32GB of RAM but even so this is a vast improvement over previous versions.

It also has much improved RAM preview so Timelines play quicker and more smoothly as you edit, speeding up your workflow and making Vegas much more fun to use. There is also a new multicam editing option which, while it’s not something the average user might need, it’s a nice to have for people cutting two camera interviews or multi camera event videos, even though you still need to synch the videos using the audio waveforms which is a bit of a pain.

Vegas Movie Studio also now offers direct upload to YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo
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Vegas Movie Studio also now offers direct upload to YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo which speeds things up for delivering video for web streaming or Vloging regularly, which is a nice touch and likely to be a popular feature. When combined with the increased Timeline tracks available and the addition of NewBlue FX and Titler Pro plugins plus HitFilm Toolkit, SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 6 and Music Maker, Vegas Movie Studio 14 Platinum looks like a very easy to use, solidly designed and creative package, specially considering the £69.99/$79.99 price point which makes it vastly more affordable than any professional-level industry alternative. So, in answer to the question of whether they managed to turn out a product that hits that elusive “prosumer” market, I believe they might just have.

This is a guest review post by Tom Atkinson from R3Digital. Images are from his latest production in partnership with Carrion Films, the highly anticipated gothic horror masterpiece Borley Rectory starring Reece Shearsmith and narrated by Julian Sands.

The post Software Review: VEGAS Movie Studio 14 appeared first on Tech Trends.