A Modest Proposal for the Continuation of VRD

[jhyler]

This would be entirely up to Diana and her plans, obviously, but if all were willing I think something like this could be made to work.

What if a Kickstarter/GoFundMe/etc were established for the purpose of
(1) distributing one last version of VRD, removing activation entirely or developing and distributing serverless "forever" keys to the backers, with the understanding that the software is now on an as-is basis.
(2) migrating the message board content to a social network that could be managed on a volunteer basis.

The goal of the Kickstarter could be set high enough so Dan203 (if he were willing) could be paid fairly to do the work and still have something meaningful left over for the family. Or charity, if they'd rather.

If I recall, I originally paid something like $99 for VideoRedo way back when. I might be willing to contribute that much to keep it alive, and I bet a number of others would as well. Others could contribute whatever they felt was fair.

Thoughts?

 

[jirim100]

@Dan203

Read the family of Dan Rosen this discussion forum? We especially need serverless version which can be activated by "forever" keys. If don't be VRD further developed this would be a fair solution for us who purchased the product, I would even be willing to purchase this serverless version.

If one day the activation server shuts down and my VRD stops working, I won't feel good about it. I write this with all due respect to the VRD programmers, but that's just the way it is.

 

[mayorville]

I'm a little confused on the license fees. I know Dan203 mentioned there was a yearly license fee of $20,000 or so. The part I'm confused with, is that needs to be paid (when the year is up) so new licenses can legally be sold (and existing licenses don't need to worry about this), or does that include existing licenses that were paid for previously?

I have no problems with what is being proposed, but how many existing customers will agree. For example, there is another program that allowed for a one-time or monthly fee. The company stopped supporting the original version and created another version of the program (calling it something else) and strictly charging a monthly fee and the new version looks just like the previous version, and multiple people (that paid the one-time, were upset with this). I mention this because a lot of people paid a one-time fee to use the product, and would be upset if they cannot to continue to use the product.

Now that being said, based on previous posts from Dan203, that existing customers can continue to use the product, as long as the activation server is kept active. Dan203 said that he would be willing to keep this active, if the family would allow him to do so. I'm not sure how much the hosting fees are per month, but I would be willing to contribute towards this. Even if multiple people contributed $1 a month (or $12 for the year), and it gave a nice little profit to Dan203 and/or the family, I wouldn't care

To address your proposal, I would be willing to contribute to that also, but..

Besides addressing activation, what would the last version be? For example, there was at least a newer beta than the one one that is currently on the website. Would it to be to release any latest betas (even if it's newer than the unreleased one) or strictly to address activation? Dan203 would probably need to comment if there was anything significant that was added/changed since the last beta. As for a one last version, I would like to have the very latest and greatest, as long as all of the features work. For example, there was one beta where batch process didn't work correctly. This was fixed in a newer beta a few days later, but something like this, I would be fearful of in a "last release

I would also be willing to contribute towards creating a serverless form of activation. The question is how would this be, how much effort would it take for Dan203 to do this, and would he be allowed to do this because of his new job (i.e. conflict of interest). My original thought was to create some sort of master key and either:

a) send it to all existing customers or
b) have customer email a copy of their license email to a particular address for the master key, but would someone want to manually look at this, or could something like this be automated (like when 3rd party payment sites take your payment and also send you a key for the product)

Since the family is trying to sell the business, I don't think something that addresses the activation would even be on the table, until the family decides to not sell, since I have to believe that something like that would be frowned upon with potential buyer(s). Probably the safest bet would be to keep the activation server active, which again I have no problems with contributing towards the associated monthly cost, even if it gave the family and/or Dan203 a little profit.

Overall would I prefer a version that doesn't require online activation? Yes, i would.

 

[Dan203]

I would be willing to release a no activation version free of charge. Would literally only take a few lines of code. But I would need permission to do that.

 

[Winnewup]

...
Besides addressing activation, what would the last version be? For example, there was at least a newer beta than the one one that is currently on the website. Would it to be to release any latest betas (even if it's newer than the unreleased one) or strictly to address activation? Dan203 would probably need to comment if there was anything significant that was added/changed since the last beta. As for a one last version, I would like to have the very latest and greatest, as long as all of the features work. For example, there was one beta where batch process didn't work correctly. This was fixed in a newer beta a few days later, but something like this, I would be fearful of in a "last release
...

Hello,
the last "no activation" version should be based on "VRDTVS-6-63-7-836a" or "VRDTVS-6-63-7-836d". The version "d" seems to be the best one that corrected some things with the overflow (has anyone a list with the corrections made in this version?). I only tested "836a" for a longer time, and this one would be good too.
Of course I would prefer the continuation of VRD, but I would be willing to contribute any other thoughts of keeping current things alive.

Regards
Frank

 

[Xizer]

Well there is apparently already a cracked version for VideoReDo available for the latest version,

DRD.Systems.VideoReDo.TVSuite.v6.63.7.836.Beta.MULTILINGUAL-CRD

I haven't tested it myself so I can't attest to its efficacy. The bigger problem is with VideoReDo Pro, which I have never seen a cracked version available for. For those of us who paid $300 for this product, it is unfair to just kill its functionality randomly because a server went offline somewhere.

 

[Winnewup]

Well there is apparently already a cracked version for VideoReDo available for the latest version,
...

Hello,
well ... the problem with these "versions" (I already knew them) is that you never know what you get ... they might not call home to DRD Systems, but ... who knows ...

Regards
Frank

 

[Dan203]

Well there is apparently already a cracked version for VideoReDo available for the latest version,

DRD.Systems.VideoReDo.TVSuite.v6.63.7.836.Beta.MULTILINGUAL-CRD

I haven't tested it myself so I can't attest to its efficacy. The bigger problem is with VideoReDo Pro, which I have never seen a cracked version available for. For those of us who paid $300 for this product, it is unfair to just kill its functionality randomly because a server went offline somewhere.

If there was anything I could do about Pro I would. Unfortunately Dan never even showed me how it worked and after combing through all the server code it looks like after a Pro license was purchased it just sent an email to him and he manually generated the key. I have absolutely no reference to how he did that. It might have been some 3rd party online system, or it could have been an app running on his personal system. I honestly have no idea.

While it sucks for those of you that did purchase it, there are only a few dozen of you. There are tens of thousands of TVSuite v6 buyers, so it will be a much bigger issue if that suddenly stops working.

 

[Dan203]

Hello,
well ... the problem with these "versions" (I already knew them) is that you never know what you get ... they might not call home to DRD Systems, but ... who knows ...

Regards
Frank

Yeah I'd be leery of those. Sometimes hackers hide malware or even ransomeware in those cracked versions.

 

[cp2]

What we need is a stable final version for which hopefully enough people would be prepared to pay for. As an incentive, given that Pro is effectively dead, would it be practical to incorporate the Pro features into the standard offering and retain stability?

 

[Dan203]

What we need is a stable final version for which hopefully enough people would be prepared to pay for. As an incentive, given that Pro is effectively dead, would it be practical to incorporate the Pro features into the standard offering and retain stability?

That is technically possible. The Pro features are turned on/off via a build flag. The problem is that I don’t have any right to do that. And even if I got permission we couldn’t sell it because there are a bunch of 3rd party licenses being used in the product. Absolute best I could do, with permission, is disable activation but leave license keys to ensure only people who previously purchased, and thus were already accounted for in licenses, could use the new build.

That could still be problematic for Pro though, since the license wasn’t just a key, it was this whole file which I believe had a system fingerprint built into it. So even if I could turn activation off, I think it would still be permanently tied to a single machine.

But again I don’t really know how the Pro license system even worked. I don’t even know which company we got it from. I scoured the code looking for some sort of branding and couldn’t find it. I had hoped that maybe with some of the private key stuff I do have access to I might be able to generate new keys, but I have no idea where it even came from.


Edit: I just tested and I can’t even build a release version of Pro. Apparently I don’t even have the libs required to link to it's license manager. So even building a version of Pro with just activation disable isn’t possible. I could enable some of the Pro features in the consumer version, but I couldn’t legally give you a new key for that version. So in reality Pro is just dead and if you paid for it you’re SOL. Sorry.

 

[jirim100]

Absolute best I could do, with permission, is disable activation but leave license keys to ensure only people who previously purchased, and thus were already accounted for in licenses, could use the new build.

What are you waiting for then? Why is the permit not issued? Does Dan's family know about this community problem? After all, even if the VRD was sold and further developed by someone else, no harm would be done and it would be morally right.

It would be fair to create a serverless version and then inform tens of thousands of VRD TVSuite 6 buyers about its existence through their activation emails. Then after some time you can turn off the activation server and cancel everything.

 

[axemanozh]

While it sucks for those of you that did purchase it, there are only a few dozen of you. There are tens of thousands of TVSuite v6 buyers, so it will be a much bigger issue if that suddenly stops working.

I'll admit that's a much bigger userbase than I thought. I always thought VideoReDo was a very niche product (I guess it still is, but that's a considerably bigger amount of licensed users than I anticipated.) I wonder how many of them still actively use the software after buying it, and out of those, how many are aware of the situation in wake of DanR's passing? I doubt many people regularly check the Forum here and are aware their software could stop working at any moment.

 

[Per K]

Well there is apparently already a cracked version for VideoReDo available for the latest version,

DRD.Systems.VideoReDo.TVSuite.v6.63.7.836.Beta.MULTILINGUAL-CRD

I haven't tested it myself so I can't attest to its efficacy. The bigger problem is with VideoReDo Pro, which I have never seen a cracked version available for. For those of us who paid $300 for this product, it is unfair to just kill its functionality randomly because a server went offline somewhere.

I investigated that one.

Basically its just the VRDTVS-6-63-7-836d.exe that already is linked to on Dropbox by kshycho under the topic Good bye
Then they did the exact very same thing as i also already suggested that you just could do on your own, by making a backup of the 3 specific files, which is a nearly 10 year old software backup trick that i found:

ModuleCollection1.dll
OutputstatusDlg.dll
VideoReDo6.exe

But nearly every one was questioning me and did not really believe it if it would work, even though i had tested that my self on my own computer, where i first had used Revo Uninstaller to completely remove VRD TVS and all the leftovers, before i did my testing using those 3 files i had created a backup of.
But for your info, i re-tested it on my dad's Windows 10 computer, which never have been near VRD TVS 6 before and here my early suggested method also worked,
VRD TVS 6 started up with out problems on his computer and displayed my own name, it also performed well on a few music videos in 1080p i tested.

But for now it does only seem to be the path to go, just to be safe, i mean backing up those 3 files your selves.
I don't think that the warez scene also would pick up on this, which i can see was back in May, if it the method is a dud.

 

[Dan203]

What are you waiting for then? Why is the permit not issued? Does Dan's family know about this community problem? After all, even if the VRD was sold and further developed by someone else, no harm would be done and it would be morally right.

It would be fair to create a serverless version and then inform tens of thousands of VRD TVSuite 6 buyers about its existence through their activation emails. Then after some time you can turn off the activation server and cancel everything.

Last I heard his wife was still trying to sell the company. If she succeeds then the new owner will get to decide, not me.

I would be putting myself in potential legal jeopardy if I unilaterally did something like this without permission.

 

[jirim100]

Last I heard his wife was still trying to sell the company. If she succeeds then the new owner will get to decide, not me.

I would be putting myself in potential legal jeopardy if I unilaterally did something like this without permission.

Ok. Hopefully it will end up well. Whether there is a sale or not.

 

[mayorville]

So exactly what is the method? I made a copy of the 3 files mentioned below from the folder of the activated system. Went and installed the same VRD6 version on another system and replaced the 3 files in the new system with the copied ones. It gives me trial version.

So I make a copy of the 3 files you mentioned. Went to another machine that never had VRD installed and installed VRD. Replaced the 3 files and it's telling me Trial Copy

I investigated that one.

Basically its just the VRDTVS-6-63-7-836d.exe that already is linked to on Dropbox by kshycho under the topic Good bye
Then they did the exact very same thing as i also already suggested that you just could do on your own, by making a backup of the 3 specific files, which is a nearly 10 year old software backup trick that i found:

ModuleCollection1.dll
OutputstatusDlg.dll
VideoReDo6.exe

But nearly every one was questioning me and did not really believe it if it would work, even though i had tested that my self on my own computer, where i first had used Revo Uninstaller to completely remove VRD TVS and all the leftovers, before i did my testing using those 3 files i had created a backup of.
But for your info, i re-tested it on my dad's Windows 10 computer, which never have been near VRD TVS 6 before and here my early suggested method also worked,
VRD TVS 6 started up with out problems on his computer and displayed my own name, it also performed well on a few music videos in 1080p i tested.

But for now it does only seem to be the path to go, just to be safe, i mean backing up those 3 files your selves.
I don't think that the warez scene also would pick up on this, which i can see was back in May, if it the method is a dud.

 

[Dan203]

That won’t work. The registration and activation are stored in the registry, not the exe/dlls.

I don’t know why Per K thinks it works, but it doesn’t. Maybe he's copying over some hacked version of VRD that doesn't need registration and not just a normal backup?

But even then you can’t just copy those 3 files. VideoReDo is written in C++. C++ links to DLLs by creating a sort of map in memory of where all the functions are and what their parameters are. If you attempt to use an exe from one version and a dll from another any time it attempts to call a function in the dll it will crash. or at the very least behave erratically because the code is not what it's expecting.

If you're going to use a hacked version you'll have to use the whole thing, not just copy a few of the files.

For now Dan's wife appears to be keeping the lights on, so I wouldn’t resort to hacks just yet. And if the server goes offline then I'll try to coordinate with you guys somewhere else to figure out a potential solution that doesn’t require you to install shady hacks or for me to break the law.

Has anyone started an alternative community anywhere?

 

[mayorville]

I believe that a couple of people mentioned sites such as videohelp.com or similar. On another site (I don't remember the name), I thought I had read the person who ran the site was going to contact you as possibly being able to put a copy of the message board over there, if the current one was to be removed. For the moment I created a subreddit (r/videoredo) and currently have it set for restricted (need approval to post). I'm not sure that would work or if something else would make more sense.

That won’t work. The registration and activation are stored in the registry, not the exe/dlls.

I don’t know why Per K thinks it works, but it doesn’t. Maybe he's copying over some hacked version of VRD that doesn't need registration and not just a normal backup?

But even then you can’t just copy those 3 files. VideoReDo is written in C++. C++ links to DLLs by creating a sort of map in memory of where all the functions are and what their parameters are. If you attempt to use an exe from one version and a dll from another any time it attempts to call a function in the dll it will crash. or at the very least behave erratically because the code is not what it's expecting.

If you're going to use a hacked version you'll have to use the whole thing, not just copy a few of the files.

For now Dan's wife appears to be keeping the lights on, so I wouldn’t resort to hacks just yet. And if the server goes offline then I'll try to coordinate with you guys somewhere else to figure out a potential solution that doesn’t require you to install shady hacks or for me to break the law.

Has anyone started an alternative community anywhere?

 

[8Kfps]

Don't give anything away