Doom9
Encyclopedia
Doom9 is a website
featuring information on digital audio
and video
manipulation, mostly video, and digital copyrights. It is also the forum
username of the author of the page, an Austria
n then college student at the time of the creation of the site. The site's tagline
is "The Definitive DVD Backup Resource".
Started in March 2000, the site has expanded to contain a wide range of information on the subject of digital video encoding and DVD
backup (or ripping
). The most popular sections of the site were the guides to DVD ripping and the annual codec comparisons, where popular digital video codec
s were compared on the basis of quality, speed, and compression. The forum is frequented by many developers of the tools and codecs featured on the site, such as FairUse4WM. The site has been criticized, as the techniques described by it can be used for copyright infringement
, but it maintains that its guides should only be used for fair use
. Users suspected of illegally copying media are refused help on the forums.
The VirtualDubMod
project began after many modifications to VirtualDub
were posted on the Doom9 forums.
Doom9 gained notoriety as a result of its involvement in the AACS encryption key controversy
. The utility BackupHDDVD
was first posted by a Doom9 poster using the alias muslix64. The earliest information on how to find title and volume keys was also first revealed on Doom9 forums, by other users. The key that set off the controversy was also first posted by a user using the name arnezami.
Doom9 is also known for being the main discussion forum for many major video encoding tools, such as x264
, AviSynth
and MeGUI.
Doom9 members have also contributed significantly to various software projects, including:
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
featuring information on digital audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
and video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
manipulation, mostly video, and digital copyrights. It is also the forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
username of the author of the page, an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n then college student at the time of the creation of the site. The site's tagline
Tagline
A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...
is "The Definitive DVD Backup Resource".
Started in March 2000, the site has expanded to contain a wide range of information on the subject of digital video encoding and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
backup (or ripping
Ripping
Ripping is the process of copying audio or video content to a hard disk, typically from removable media. The word is used to refer to all forms of media. Despite the name, neither the media nor the data is damaged after extraction....
). The most popular sections of the site were the guides to DVD ripping and the annual codec comparisons, where popular digital video codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
s were compared on the basis of quality, speed, and compression. The forum is frequented by many developers of the tools and codecs featured on the site, such as FairUse4WM. The site has been criticized, as the techniques described by it can be used for copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
, but it maintains that its guides should only be used for fair use
Fair use
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
. Users suspected of illegally copying media are refused help on the forums.
The VirtualDubMod
VirtualDubMod
VirtualDubMod is an open source video capture and linear processing tool for Microsoft Windows. It is based on Avery Lee's VirtualDub, and is licensed under the GPL. VirtualDubMod is hosted on SourceForge and is at version 1.5.10.2 ....
project began after many modifications to VirtualDub
VirtualDub
VirtualDub is a video capture and video processing utility for Microsoft Windows written by Avery Lee.It is designed to process linear video streams, including filtering and recompression...
were posted on the Doom9 forums.
Doom9 gained notoriety as a result of its involvement in the AACS encryption key controversy
AACS encryption key controversy
A controversy surrounding the AACS cryptographic key arose in April 2007 when the Motion Picture Association of America and the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator, LLC began issuing demand letters to websites publishing a 128-bit number, represented in hexadecimal as 09 F9 11...
. The utility BackupHDDVD
BackupHDDVD
BackupHDDVD is a small computer software utility program available in command line and GUI versions which aids in the decryption of commercial HD DVD discs protected by the Advanced Access Content System. It is used to back up discs, often to enable playback on hardware configurations without full...
was first posted by a Doom9 poster using the alias muslix64. The earliest information on how to find title and volume keys was also first revealed on Doom9 forums, by other users. The key that set off the controversy was also first posted by a user using the name arnezami.
Doom9 is also known for being the main discussion forum for many major video encoding tools, such as x264
X264
x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:...
, AviSynth
AviSynth
AviSynth is a frameserver program for Microsoft Windows developed by Ben Rudiak-Gould, Edwin van Eggelen, Klaus Post, Richard Berg, Ian Brabham and others. It is free software under GNU GPL license.-Scripting video editor:...
and MeGUI.
Projects
Due to the concentration of forum members who have technical backgrounds, there have been various software projects developed and maintained by forum members. These include:- Media Player Classic Home Cinema, a lightweight media player using the DirectShowDirectShowDirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
API - ffdshow-tryouts, a collection of free software codecs, most notably libavcodecLibavcodeclibavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
, provided as DirectShow filters
Doom9 members have also contributed significantly to various software projects, including:
- x264X264x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:...
, a free software H.264 video encoder - VirtualDubModVirtualDubModVirtualDubMod is an open source video capture and linear processing tool for Microsoft Windows. It is based on Avery Lee's VirtualDub, and is licensed under the GPL. VirtualDubMod is hosted on SourceForge and is at version 1.5.10.2 ....
, a video capture and linear editing tool