A Slysoft developer (with the avatar of a sleeping red fox) has posted information on whether AnyDVD (HD) will continue to work now the company has decided to cease operations after legal issues. For AnyDVD customers there's good news, the software hasn't become useless.
AnyDVD (HD) uses a so called "Online Protection Database" (OPD) that contains information about discs that helps the software to remove the copy protection from them. Now Slysoft has closed down, the OPD can be taken offline any moment. Nevertheless, without the OPD the software is able to continue to work. Below an overview posted by the Slysoft developer on what will work and what won't.
- DVDs: All DVDs should continue work. OPD is only used to speed up things, it is optional.
- HD-DVDs: All work.
- Blu-Ray AACS: AnyDVD contains data for roughly 130000 discs, these will continue to work. Discs not included in AnyDVD will need the OPD. OPD results will be cached locally, if you copy the cache, you can move it to another PC.
- Blu-Ray BD+, 20th Century Fox: Recent discs (1-2 years?) need OPD. Older titles work. OPD results will be cached locally, if you copy the cache, you can move it to another PC.
- Blu-Ray Java protection (mostly Lionsgate): Recent discs (1 year?) need OPD. Older titles work. OPD results are not cached.
- Blu-ray cinavia: Will continue to work with current players & software.
According to the same developer the OPD servers are currently still up. They can be taken offline without any warning but also might stay online for a while. Because the DNS entries are removed AnyDVD currently can't reach them, but this can be solved by modifying your 'hosts file'.
This can be done by starting Notepad as administrator. To do so, right-click the Notepad icon and select 'Run as Administrator'. When Notepad has started open the 'hosts file' by navigating to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc.
Then add to that file the following line: [IP address of the key server] key.slysoft.com
And save the file.
We don't list the IP address here, you need to find it yourself by e.g. clicking on the provided link.
The Slysoft developer also stresses that AnyDVD doesn't do any online validation of its registration key. He writes, "There are no registration/validation servers. I always insisted, that we don't follow the trend with "key authentication". AnyDVD and the key is not bound to your hardware. As long as you have your keyfile, you can install it on your PC."
