Instant Copy and 40 Bucks - the Ultimate Question

[nickelzy]

Just wondering - with what people are complaining about lately regarding DVD Shrink and some recent blurring problems, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just fork out 40 bucks and start using Instant Copy for now on. It seems that everything I read pretty much is consistent in that it is better quality (even if only by a little) over DVD Shrink. Anyone disagree with that or have any thoughts on whether it's worth spending 40 bucks on?

[BobK]

For every one that complains about DVD Shrink you can find 10 (or more) that love it. Unless you're having problems with DVD Shrink, why spend the $40?

I have IC version 7 and 8. I use DVD Shrink 95% of the time.

[fritzi93]

I have IC8 and don't use it often, just occasionally for heavy compression. But in such cases I'm apt to just re-encode the file, if I have the time. Don't think I'd pay forty bucks for it. JMHO

[nickelzy]

I appreciate both of your feedback, but lately there has been quite a bit of complaints about some video quality problems with DVD Shrink - blurry issues (there's another thread that is going right now that you can check out if interested).

At any rate, ok, so you answered my question. However, can you tell me then WHY you don't use Instant Copy rather than DVD Shrink, since you both apparently own it. I can see not spending the 40 bucks and therefore not using it. However, if you own it, why not use it?

[nickelzy]

One other thing I was just thinking...

I've been visiting this forum for about 2 months now and I hardly ever read any negative reports of quality issues with Instant Copy. However, with Intervideo, DVD Shrink and some of the others, there have definitely been a fair share of problems. Granted, probably more people own DVD Shrink than Instant Copy, but I'm just thinking that Instant Copy might be a more sure bet with consistently good quality. DVD Shrink, no question about it, is a great program, but it just seems to have bugs and issues that are come up from time to time. If I am on target with my thinking here, then I'd probably rather spend the 40 bucks for better quality and less bugs and issues.

The ultimate question though, is if money were no object and if Instant Copy were free, would you still use DVD Shrink, and if so, then why?

[BobK]

I don't use IC for several reasons:

Unless it's very high compression I don't see any difference in quality between IC and Shrink (that's with a 54 inch TV).

There is a significant difference in the time each takes to compress a DVD- Shrink usually 30-40 minutes (with deep analysis) and IC usually 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

It's easier to reauthor and keep some things while eliminating other with Shrink.

It's much easier to control file size accurately with Shrink. I prefer to put 4.1 to 4.2 Gig on a DVD. With Shrink I can hit that within 10 MBytes consistantly. With IC I'm lucky if I get with 100 MBytes of what I want.

Shrink creates standard IFOs that I've been able to open with any other program. IC creates strange IFOs that won't open with many other programs (Daemon Tools for one often can't open a pdi file)

I own IC because I got it before I knew about DVD Shrink (I got a good deal with a rebate and only paid $10 for it- I later paid a little more for the IC-8 upgrade).

I'm sure there are fewer negative reports of quality issues with Instant Copy- there are also fewer positive reports for Instant Copy. Shrink is probably used by many more people than IC. If 1000 people use IC and 1% make a negative comment you're going to see 10 negatives on it. At the same time, if 10,000 people use Shrink and only 1/2 of 1% have trouble you're still going to see 50 negatives. Of course I don't have any accurate numbers on how many people actually use either- but based on posts here I'd guess that the percentage of people who have problem with Shrink is certainly no highly than the percentage that have trouble with IC.

For me, DVD Shrink is a sure bet with consistent good quality- the only problems I've ever had with it were that some versions (3.0beta5) wouldn't open files created by TMPG DVD Author. I solved that problem by backing up the files with an earlier version and then opening them. The current version doesn't have that problem.

> The ultimate question though, is if money were no object and if Instant Copy were free, would you still use DVD Shrink, and if so, then why?

For the purpose of this discussion Instant Copy is free- I already own it and I'll never get the money back, so it costs me nothing to use it. I still use Shrink for the reasons I gave above.

[proxyx99]

IC 7/8 is worth every penny of your 40$. Never failed me. Never touched Shrink and don't plan to do that in forseeable future. Did about 40 DVD's and ZERO failure so far.

[nickelzy]

Bob - you the man - thanks for your detailed reply (I'll take all of that into consideration)

[BobK]

> Did about 40 DVD's and ZERO failure so far

Using Shrink- did about 400 DVDs and ZERO failure so far. Using IC- did about 35 disks and 3 burn failures so far (which is why I don't burn with IC even when I use it to compress).

But hey- I'm really don't care what anyone else uses. Instant Copy works fine. If you want to buy and use it, go ahead.