Updated: 2012 Top DRM Removal Software Review

In the following review, we are going to take a general look at five popular DRM removal software tools on the Internet, complete with conversion theory, pros and cons, main functions, etc. for each DRM removal program, so that you can choose the best one to help you liberate your DRM music and video.

TuneClone Audio Converter ( Windows & Mac )

Free download ( Windows Version | Mac Version )

Key functions: DRM Music Converter + Audio Converter

Conversion theory: the generated virtual CD drive

The edge: the smart virtual CD burning technique

The bad: unable to remove DRM from video

DRM Media Converter (Windows)

Free download

Key functions: DRM Removal + Video Converter + HD Video Converter + Audio Converter + Video to Audio Converter

Conversion theory: record play and save the recording

The edge: HD video converter, abundant input (DRM) video/audio formats, abundant output video/audio formats

The bad: Mac version is unavailable

DRM Music Converter (Windows)

Free download

Key functions: DRM Music Converter + Audio Extractor + Music File Converter

Conversion theory: advanced recording technique

The edge: Support various protected video/audio formats, compatible with 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7

The bad: Unable to output video

iTunes Video Converter (Mac)

Key functions: convert iTunes m4v files to mov, mp4 formats easily

Conversion theory: record video in high speed as well as convert m4v to mov, mp4 formats with lossless quality

Audials Tunebite (Windows)

Free download

Key features: Removes DRM from audio/music and video/movie files + Video Converter + Audio Converter

Conversion theory: Records music, films and videos from the Internet, subscription services and online video stores

The edge: Includes 100 playback formats and an editor to customize settings for every at home and portable device

The bad: The conversion speed is a little bit slow

Easy to use DRM removal and conversion of iTunes music for use on other players

Source from: http://www.howtogeek.com/reviews/tuneclone/

Geek Ranking:

The Good:
Easy to use DRM removal and conversion of iTunes music for use on other players

The Bad:
More features for specific players and extra format conversions would be welcome

Installation:	8 / 10
Ease of Use:	8 / 10
Features:	7 / 10
Performance:	8 / 10
Product Support:	7 / 10

Overview

TuneClone Audio Converter is a very easy to use software that convert iTunes M4P, WMA music files to plain MP3, easy to install, and easy to use via a simple user interface.  If you’ve purchased a lot of music from iTunes, Yahoo Music or other online music stores back when DRM was included on everything, TuneClone allows you to convert them to other formats and remove the DRM protection so you can play them on all of your portable audio devices.  TuneClone Audio Converter doesn’t bypass the DRM, it simulates the burning, ripping and encoding process by installing a virtual CD burner.

Installation

During installation you get a message advising you may be a warning from Windows but go ahead and install it anyway. When we installed this on Windows 7 x64 there was no message but did have one on our 32-bit system.

Features – 8

I nicely laid out interface that is easy to use allowing easy management of music.

TuneClone will show up as a virtual CD-R drive in My Computer.

Convert audio to MP3, WAV, or WMA at different bit rates.

The ID3 information of the files will be kept intact from the original music file.

 

Ease of Use

After installation on the main interface click on the button to “Open the media player software”.

Once iTunes opens up you will get a message about inserting a blank disc. This is talking about the virtual drive of TuneClone.

You will need to go into Burn Settings and set the drive to the Virtual burner form TuneClone and select your preferred settings and click on Burn.

While the files are encoded into TuneClone there will be a small progress screen on the corner of the screen.

With the Trail version you are only allowed three minutes per track but it gives you enough options to decide if you want to purchase a full license.

The converted files are put into My Music and the TuneClone folder.

Performance

We tested this on a Dell desktop with an Intel Core2 Duo processor and 3GB of RAM and conversions were very smooth. There will be a bit of a spike in the CPU during conversion but memory usage is low. Conversion times will vary depending on the amount of music you are converting but overall one album takes a couple minutes.

Conclusion

I loaded up five albums that I bought from iTunes a few years ago, converted them to MP3 and stuck them on a Creative Zen and they played with no problems. There seemed to be no loss in audio quality and the meta data. The application is easy to use and does a great job removing DRM and converting songs to be played on different portable audio players. One thing that I would like to see is direct support for audio devices built into the user interface allowing you to plug in say a Zune or Zen and transfer the files directly from the app. As it is now though, it does a good job and will save you a lot of hassle if you have a large amount of DRM protected music.

It works with XP, Vista, and we were able to run it fine on Windows 7. You can use the trial version for as long as you want but the restriction is only 3 minutes of the song will be converted. To remove that restriction you will need to purchase a full license for $34.95.

Download TuneClone

Rating

• Installation: 8
• Ease of Use: 8
• Features: 7
• Performance: 8
• Product Support: 7

How to strip DRM off iTunes music on Windows and Mac

There are many ways to remove DRM (short for Digital Rights Management) protection from iTunes music. On Windows OS, you can remove iTunes DRM using the burn-and-rip method or you can turn to programs like TuneClone M4P Converter and DoubleTwist. On Mac OS X, iMovie is the perfect solution to removing DRM protection from iTunes music. Besides, freewares like FairGame is also a pretty good choice. So this article is dedicated to introducing several methods of removing the nasty DRM from iTunes music on Windows and Mac OS X. It is divided into the following five parts:

Note: To remove DRM protection from iTunes video, please switch to this guide.

Part 1. Remove DRM from iTune with burn-and-rip method (Win & Mac, iTunes music only)

a. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.

b. Burn DRM iTunes music to make an Audio CD. You cannot select the MP3 CD option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes music be converted to MP3.

c. After the Audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 files.

Part 2. Remove DRM from iTunes with TuneClone (Win & Mac, iTunes music only)

a. Download TuneClone M4P Converter and install it.

b. Make settings in TuneClone

Click the “Settings” button in TuneClone. In the pop-up dialog, you can specify the “output folder”, “output filenames”, “output format”, etc for the output files.

Note: A Virtual CD Drive will be installed to convert iTunes music files. You must make sure this CD burner is successfully installed. you can check whether it is successfully installed and where it is installed at the bottom left corner of TuneClone interface.

c. Make settings in iTunes

Create a new playlist, and add the iTunes songs you want to convert to the playlist.

Right click the playlist you just created and choose “Burn Playlist to Disc”.

In the pop-up dialog of “Burn Settings”, make the settings as highlighted below:

d. Start to burn

Click the “Burn” button to start burning.

Part 3. Remove DRM from iTunes with iMovie (Mac only, iTunes music only)

In the iMovie window, select the ‘Media’ tab located between ‘Themes’ and ‘Editing’. You will notice that the top right portion of the interface now offers a media browser. Select the ‘Audio’ tab and locate the playlist which contains purchased music, or search by artist/title.

Select the DRM-laden song and drag the file from the media browser into the iMovie timeline where it says “Drag audio here to build your project.”

In order to export the song, iMovie requires that a visual image be associated with the audio track – “iMovie thinks that it is going to be exporting a movie”. Simply drag a blank image (or any other image) to the track above the previously imported audio file. Once iMovie has processed the image, select the ‘Share…’ sub menu item from found inside ‘Share’ in iMovie’s menu bar.

Ensure that ‘Expert Settings’ is selected in the “Compress movie for:” drop-down menu. Selecting ‘Expert Settings’ mode will provide the options to export the file as an audio file. Select the ‘Share’ button.

In the Save as… dialogue, select “Sound to AIFF” in the Export drop-down menu, Choose an appropriate directory for iMovie to export to, title the file, and select ‘Save’. Depending on your machine configuration, iMovie will compress and export the movie project as an audio file in 15-40 seconds.

Locate the exported AIFF audio file and drag to your iTunes Library. Right-click on the file and select “Convert Selection to AAC”. Once completed, ‘Get Info’ on the new file, edit meta data, add album art, and trash the originally purchased and AIFF audio files from your iTunes library.

Part 4. Remove DRM from iTunes with FairGame (Mac only, iTunes music only)

FairGame is freeware to remove DRM protection from iTunes music on Mac OS X. It will convert the DRMed songs you bought on the iTunes Store to an unprotected format (using iTunes default encoder) and keep all the original metadata, lyrics and artwork. FairGame doesn’t do lossless DRM stripping. It re-encodes protected AAC files purchased in iTMS into unprotected AAC file using Apple’s iMovie software.

What you MUST DO (only once) to get FairGame to work:

• enable “Access for assistive devices” in the “Universal Access” system preference
• select “Place clip in Movie Timeline” in the “Import” preference of iMovie HD

Then you can simply:

• select some songs in iTunes
• click on the “Process songs” button

Don’t touch anything and wait until it’s done…(FairGame is scripting iMovie’s interface to process the songs, don’t interfere)