Below what percentage should I not bother to Shrink?

[spiffy]

Hi everyone,

I apologize if this question has been asked before. But is there a general consensus on what percentage is the most that a disc should be shrunk, and below that percentage there will be pixelations and therefore I shouldn't even bother? Unfortunately I have a slow computer, and each deep analysis / encoding session is over three hours if not more. I'd hate to see that time wasted if the output is going to be bad...

Any tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Spiffy

[bdf24]

I don't think that can really be answered. It's all a matter of personal preference, what size or quality TV your using, and maybe how well your vision is. Some say no less then 90 to 95%. Others swear they cannot see a difference at a compression of 70%.
I guess you need to experiment and decide what works for you.
But I would personally rather have a better quality out put from the begining. You never know. Could end up with a plasma down the road and realize that all the movies you compressed look terrible when they looked fine on your old TV.

[redwudz]

spiffy, I look at it this way, using shrink, even down to a low quality 50%, will probably be as good as a typical home made VCD. If it's an old movie, or low motion, you could do it. For best quality, though, not below 70%. It depends on what you use it for. For the kids backup of favorite movies, quality is not a big issue. You always have the option to dump everything but the main movie.

[Jayhawk]

Pretty much agree with bdf24 and redwudz, for kids stuff I'd go down to 50%, maybe even less. For high action movies I shoot for 85 or 90. Low action or chick flicks 70% seems OK.

[dfisher]

I've gone down as far as 62% and been surprised at how good the picture looked on my 27" Panasonic flat screen. That would just about cover up to a 3 hour movie. But that's cutting out just about everything. Just the main movie with no extras. No sub pictures, one sound track. As minimum as I can make it. It's basically what you would get if it was on tape, but of course at much better picture quality.

[aggies11]

Basically, it is all a matter of personal preference.

The best way is to do a few test shrinks (of different %'s) and see which ones you prefer?

There are alot of factors. The quality of your eyes. The quality of your viewing equipment (plasma vs 14inch tv ). And how much of a perfectionist you are.

Those people who desire extreme quality, will probably suggest no less than 90%.

Alot of people will say 75-80% is a good compromise.

Heck, for me, I have done 60% backups and on my usual vewing equipment (plain, no larger than 30" TV's) I really can't see a difference.

So for me that is OK, because I don't see myself watching stuff on a projector or LCD screen any time soon...

Hope that helps,

Aggies

[Mattsensei]

I don't tend to go below 60%. I'm watching backups on a 24" w/s TV. Also, for TV series and the like (Gimme Gimme Gimme, or West Wing, for example), I'll happily shrink the entire dv-9 down to a dv-5 and yes, there is the odd bit of blockiness in dark areas in the background, but the sound is perfect which is the main thing (for these sorts of things) so I'm not bothered by the odd pixel. Like everything, there is a trade-off between quality and convenience. 8)

[lordsmurf]

I use DA and go as low as allowed. Sometime I have to use DVD2ONE because shrink will not go below 55%.

[nexus123]

Hi, thought I'd add my 2 cents. I don't do dvds but doing vcd's I'll lower the bitrate from 1100 all the way down to around a min. of 500 (50%?) for a movie, and if its a cartoon I'll be willing to go as low as 225 (30-40%?) I do this eitger a to fit the whole movie on one cd, or b to fit like 10 episodes of (ne cartoon) onto a cd. It's purely the convieniece of not having to change a cd. I'm willing to sacrifice the quality. I'm viewing on a 19inch plain jane old rca tv.

[jimmalenko]

Hi, thought I'd add my 2 cents. I don't do dvds but doing vcd's I'll lower the bitrate from 1100 all the way down to around a min. of 500 (50%?) for a movie, and if its a cartoon I'll be willing to go as low as 225 (30-40%?) I do this eitger a to fit the whole movie on one cd, or b to fit like 10 episodes of (ne cartoon) onto a cd. It's purely the convieniece of not having to change a cd. I'm willing to sacrifice the quality. I'm viewing on a 19inch plain jane old rca tv.

Thankyou for your input. Next time remember to answer the question at hand

Anyway...

If DVD Shrink can shrink it, I'll do it. I've only got a 68cm TV so even max compression looks good to me. I always do Deep Analysis for < 85% though.

[nexus123]

Hmmm. Well I thought that was what I was doing. Though on a different media format, the fact remains the same that amount of compression done to the movie, whether to a dvd or a vcd, should be decided by the amount of acceptable quality loss. I was attempting to express this by citing examples that I would believe, apply to dvd as well. Though I was also quite sleepy when I made the post so perhaps it was the haze neways happy burning guys!

[jimmalenko]

...Though on a different media format, the fact remains the same that amount of compression done to the movie, whether to a dvd or a vcd, should be decided by the amount of acceptable quality loss...

..using different encoders, each with their own intricacies. You cannot compare VCD to SVCD or to DVD in terms of compression levels.

Though I was also quite sleepy when I made the post so perhaps it was the haze neways happy burning guys!

I don't know what you've been smoking, but can I order half a kilo ?

[dafreak]

I dont' usually like to go below 80% but I backed up movie the other day at 71% and it turned out suprisingly good.

[Will Hay]

I use DA and go as low as allowed. Sometime I have to use DVD2ONE because shrink will not go below 55%.

I made this mistake once.
I'm guessing that by not going below 55% you couldn't fit the contents on a DVD-r, right?
In these cases I Shrink, and Shrink (slightly) again.
Will

[lordsmurf]

I use DA and go as low as allowed. Sometime I have to use DVD2ONE because shrink will not go below 55%.

I made this mistake once.
I'm guessing that by not going below 55% you couldn't fit the contents on a DVD-r, right?
In these cases I Shrink, and Shrink (slightly) again.
Will

[oxford]

If some say you should never go below 90% then how do you back up a 7000 mb movie after removing all subtitles, menus and languages ect without putting it on two dics? Do all of you who never burn below 90% use two discs for large movies??

[Sifaga]

Ive never split a DVD9 to 2 DVD5's

The missus hates getting up to change the Disk

[makntraks]

Ive never split a DVD9 to 2 DVD5's

The missus hates getting up to change the Disk

As well a get my drink, pop some popcorn and come rub my feet 8)

makntraks

[scootzilla]

well have i made alot of dvd-r backups near 100 of them i try never to go past 60 % with my dvd-r backups i view on a 27 incg rca enterainment seris tv and a 43 inch hdtv sony and really cant see any diff maybe alittle but hell it ok its not fuzz at all so all in all it all up to you buy some dvd-rw/+rw and test some out

[dvdashot]

I have ridiculously high standards. Anything below 90% is just too brutal for me.

[indolikaa]

Ive never split a DVD9 to 2 DVD5's

The missus hates getting up to change the Disk

You need one of those Sony megachanger DVDs that holds 400 discs AND can flip between BOTH sides of a DVD.


I use whatever is necessary, and almost always with DA. I'm rarely unhappy with the results.

How it will look next year when the Plasmatron gets here, that is a very good question...

[ApolloCreed21]

My $.02:

I've seen noticeable differences in viewing quality at the same compression ratio (using Shrink). I may have seen excerpts regarding this in other threads, and I remember something about different bit rates..(feel free to chime in on this if anyone can confirm/explain this) ? An example: Backing up a disc from CSI-Season 1 is noticeably worse than a disc from 24-Season 1 (to 1 DVDR). They both come out I think between 55-62% in Shrink, but 24 looks noticeably better. Even lowering the # of episodes on the CSI disc to 3 (instead of the normal 4) still doesn't appear to make it higher quality than the 24 disc with 4 episodes. However, the "noticeable difference" is on a 48" Mitsubishi High Def - the difference seems to be less on a 27".

spiffy - I agree with bdf24 - this is something that everyone has to experiment with and judge for themselves. When we talk about compression, viewing quality is somewhat subjective. I agree with the aggies suggestion - Alot of people will say 75-80% is a good compromise - and I'd even go slightly lower than that if need be.

[djelimon]

For kids cartoons, or old-school animation in general, I trim and shrink to whatever.

For movies, anything below 95% gets deep analysis, anything below 80%
I split (I have one of those multi-dvd players).