Using DVD Shrink to check for errors on commercial disks

[Darth Paris]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this, but it has to do with DVD shrink so here it goes...

I am planing on purchasing the entire Babylon 5 series on DVD. I have rented movies and even purchased movies that have errors when being played. Would DVD Shrink detect such errors? I ask because total the box sets contain 110 episodes. I won't being watching them all for a while so I want to make sure all of them are playable.

[jimmalenko]

I've read your post 3 times, and the one thing that keeps popping up is "you've purchased movies that have errors when being played ?". If I had parted with hard-earned and got playback errors, I'd be straight back into the shop for a refund/exchange because commercially-available DVDs should not have any playback issues whatsoever.

In regards to your question, DVDShrink is a wonderful tool, but I don't think it can do what you would like it to do. If anything, I guess you might discover errors if it's preview window locks up during the first analysis, but that's about it.

The good thing about owning the originals is that you can just run off another backup if your first one doesn't work right, so I don't see why you need to guarantee that your backups are playable just yet ?

[skebenin]

Whenever I buy a disk I'm not planning on watching right away, I always test it in my PC. My preference is to do a transfer rate test in CD/DVD Speed (a free utility compliments of Ahead). I'll often also do a surface scan just for completeness, even though I consider it redundant (neither test takes very long).

I'd agree that DVDShrink isn't the ideal tool to test a disk. If nothing else, it may report decryption errors on a small number of disks that are perfectly playable. It also won't warn you on a disk that's only barely readable (i.e. can be read, but drops to less than 1x on dodgy parts).

[Darth Paris]

I've read your post 3 times, and the one thing that keeps popping up is "you've purchased movies that have errors when being played ?".

I do return the disks with errors. That is why I want to know if any of the disks I am purchsing have any errors. I figured the errors that lock up my DVD player may be caught in the analysis stage.