321 Studios

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321 Studios was a privately held company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri with a sales office in Berkeley, California. The company was a leading provider of DVD authoring software, including the highly controversial DVD X Copy product line of DVD copy software. The DVDXCopy family of products enabled novice computer users to quickly and easily copy any DVD movie, including DVD movies protected with the Content Scrambling System (CSS). 321 Studios' products were sold through most major North American and International retailers and worldwide via the company website. In February 2004, after a three year legal battle with several of the major Hollywood studios, the DVDXCopy products were deemed by a California court to be in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and were subsequently banned for sale. 321 Studios closed its doors in August of 2004.

[edit] Product Line

DVD X Copy: the original 321 Studios flagship product that started the controversy relating to copying CSS protected DVD movies. This DVD copy software makes exact copies of DVD9 movies (8.4 gigabytes of DVD video) by splitting the source DVD disc to any two (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW formats) blank 4.7 gigabyte DVD discs.

DVD X Copy Xpress: a "1-Click DVD Copy" application that compresses a DVD9 source disc to one single blank DVD disc. The resulting DVD backup disc is near perfect quality when viewed on standard sized Televisions and monitors.

DVD X Copy Gold: a two product suite that combined DVD X Copy with DVD X Copy Xpress

DVD X Copy Platinum: a three product suite that included DVD X Copy Xpress and an advanced application that enabled users to customize a DVD backup session by including or deleting specific tracks, and/or manually setting compression ratios for individual tracks. DVDXCopy Platinum also included DVDXRescue (see below). DVDXCopy Platinum became 321 Studios best-selling product.

GamesXCopy: an application for copying copy-protected PC games.

DVD Copy Plus: 321 Studios first DVD backup product. DVD Copy plus copies an original source DVD to several blank CD discs.

DVDXRescue: recovers data from unreadable, scratched, corrupt or defective CDs and DVDs

CDXRescue: recovers data from unreadable, scratched, corrupt or defective CDs

DVDXPoint: converts PowerPoint presentations into DVD movies and saves them on recordable DVDs

DVDXMaker: DVD authoring software for converting home videos into a DVD movie format

DVDXShow: DVD authoring software for converting digital images in a DVD movie format

AudioXtools: an MP3 and CD burning program for organizing and burning MP3 files to CD-R discs

DVDXtreme: a 9-product suite including DVDXCopy Xpress, AudioXTools, DVDXShow, DVDXMaker, CDXRescue, SnapshotXpress, ImageXRescue, BurnXpress and LabelXPert