Alcohol 120%

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Alcohol 120%

Image Making Wizard in Alcohol 120% running on Windows Vista
Developer:	Alcohol Software
Latest release:	1.9.6.4719 / November 20, 2006
OS:	Microsoft Windows
Use:	CD/DVD emulation, recording software
License:	Demoware
Website:	www.alcohol-soft.com

Alcohol 120% is an optical disc authoring program and disk image emulator created by Alcohol Soft.

1 Features
2 Supported File Types
3 Copy Prevention
4 Alcohol 52%
5 Pricing
6 Awards
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Features

Alcohol 120% can create disk images, either in its proprietary Media Descriptor Image file format, or in a number of other popular formats (see below).

Alcohol 120% can emulate up to 31 virtual drives to mount disk images, making it unnecessary to have a physical copy of the disc. Virtual drives can operate at over 200 times the speed of the conventional CD-ROM drive.

Alcohol 120% can also "burn" image files to recordable CD or DVD media. It supports simultaneous writing to multiple CD/DVD writers. Unlike many optical disc authoring programs in which you can add files or tracks to a project to burn, Alcohol 120% only burns image files that are either recorded from a CD or DVD, or acquired elsewhere.

[edit] Supported File Types

.mdf, Media Descriptor Image file, (default)
.ccd, CloneCD image file
.bin/.cue, CDRWin image file
.iso, Standard ISO image file

[edit] Copy Prevention

Alcohol 120% image recording feature is capable of bypassing certain copy prevention schemes, such as Safedisc and SecuROM. It can also create images from PlayStation and PlayStation 2 file systems. Certain copy protection schemes require burner hardware that is capable of passing along the copy protection.

Alcohol does not back up DVD titles encrypted with the Content Scramble System. Alcohol Soft cites present legal restrictions for the decision not to include this feature.

Some software manufacturers employ software blacklist methods to prevent Alcohol 120% from copying the software. There are third party tools available that attempt to counteract the blacklist methods, such as Anti-blaxx and CureRom.

[edit] Alcohol 52%

Alcohol 52% is a version of Alcohol 120% without the burning engine. It can still create image files, and mount those images onto virtual drives, just as with Alcohol 120%

[edit] Pricing

30 day trial versions of Alcohol 120% and Alcohol 52% are available for download from http://trial.alcohol-soft.com. The shareware program is limited to 6 virtual drives, (instead of 31 in both Alcohol 52% and 120%), and can write to only two simultaneous drives (as opposed to 8 or more writers in Alcohol 120%).

Alcohol 120% is available for €29.00, (approx US$39.00) which includes 1 year of free upgrades. A lifetime upgrade option is available for €59.00 (approx US$79.00).

Alcohol 52% is available for €22.30 (approx US$27.00) A free version is available, bundled with the Protection Database Search toolbar.