why use decrypter?

[30sauce]

Noob question... Lurking around, I've seen a lot of posts with people saying they rip with DVD Decrypter and then use DVD Shrink -- why not just use Shrink since it also decrypts? Is there an advantage to Decrypter? Shrink is really slow for me (3+ hours from rip to burn) -- does Decrypter somehow speed up the process?

J

[steve2713]

Decrypter can rip some marginal discs that DVDShrink has choked on. I also almost always use Decrypter to burn my ISO images, it has always burned very well for me, I prefer it over anything else for burning.

[cyflyer]

I also haven't found any advantage of Decrypter over Shrink. Anything that would not rip in Shrink, would still not rip in Decrypter. Gives you the media code though, which I guess is something.
Ripping with Decrypter, then going through Shrink, takes twice the time, I've found. No wonder you are taking 3 hrs.

[macleod]

shrink has been blamed for choking on dvd's during the ripping process. If have had this happen to me, however, I have a wait and see approach and use dvdshrink to rip, transcode, "author" and then use dvdecrypter to burn.

[aussie8964]

Hi, I also only use DVD Shrink. It is a great program and it should only
take you 40 minutes at the most to rip and encode a movie with this program. I only use DVD decrypter if the movie is single layer but that is rare.

[ghoster]

so you can use dvd decrypter to burn

[mats.hogberg]

I use DVDDecrypter to burn only. I've yet to find a DVD that Shrink wouldn't rip. The day I do, I will rip with Decrypter first to see if it's any better.

/Mats

[brokenback]

if the Ripped DVD is single layer or you are writing a DL to a DL disc, then use DVDDecrypter, iso read, iso write.

Because, i have noticed that many other transcoders (apart from DVD Decrypter iso read/write) lower the audio volume on the copy.

[ricky1756]

the good thing about dvddecrypter, is that if it can't read a sector, you can save everything ripped up to that point. take out disc and clean, and then start up from where you left off. that beats going through hours of encoding with dvd shrink and near the end have it choke on you and lose everything. also with dvddecrypter you skip read errors that would choke shrink, but are so small won't even be noticable after you're done

[skebenin]

Honestly, there's no significant advantage to using DVDDecrypter first, except on problem discs, and use can always switch to using it when you hit one of those. I use Decrypter first, but mostly from force of habit. It does save a little wear and tear on your DVD drive, but that's pretty minor.

If your drive reads disks slowly, ripping first might speed up your process (because you'd only read slow once instead of twice), but it'd be better to find out why the drive is reading slow and fix it. With a properly working drive, ripping first will just add time to the overall process (rip, deep analysis and transcode versus just DA and transcode).

[30sauce]

Yeah, Shrink seems unreasonably slow. My friend who got me into burning has essentially the same machine as I do (same read and write drives) and he can rip/burn the same movie in 40 minutes with CloveDVD/AnyDVD. Not sure if it's worth the cash, but I'd definitely like to spped up the process with Shrink. Any suggestions? And yes, I've already read the sticky on improving your rip speed >

J

[logixrat.01]

I get various results with Shrink. On a normal dual layer disc, it takes about 40 minutes +/- to perform the deep analysis and transcode. Then I have about 20 more minutes of burn time (because my discs are Ritek R03 code and won't burn past 4x... but that's another story). However, I will occassionally get a disc that takes FOREVER to transcode. Speeds will be at 2000 KB/s or less. It is sporadic and most the time it transcodes around 4x.

Either way, I always run it through Decrypter first in hopes I will get a single layer disc and be able to rip to ISO w/ no compression loss and burn. That is by far the quickest. Around 30 minutes max.

Here lately I have been doing all my ripping with Decrypter and then using Shrink when required. My thoughts have been that perhaps the program can read faster from hard drive vs. an optical drive. But honestly I really haven't noticed a difference.

One interesting thing noted on here was that Decrypter was the only program to produce an ISO w/o volume lowering. My current setup has Shrink transcoding to ISO format and then burning with Decrypter. That statement makes me believe I am losing quality. Is that correct? Should I just use the raw files instead and use Nero to burn?

[jtoolman2000]

I think I remember reading somewhere in this forum that one advantage was that if initially ripped to the HD it would only have to be read once by your ripping drive. All other operations such as deep analysis - quality enhancement would not cause undo extra wear on your DVD-rom drive since all subsequent analysis, transcoding would take place directly from the file on your HD.
I suppose if you are worried about the extra work you are putting your drive through, it would be an issue.

[jeanl]

Wait, what about removing all the unwanted stuff? Can't do that in shrink (unless you use reauthor, and then the menus are gone). If you're going to use something else to remove unwanted material (titlesetblanker, vobblanker, pgcedit), then you must rip with decrypter first, in file mode.
That's what I do on a regular basis.
Jeanl

[Karate Media]

3+ hours to b/u a disc with DVDShrink? It usually doesn't take me more than 45 minutes -- not including burning -- and that's if I use Deep Analysis (w/out Deep Analysis, encoding is probably around 20-30 minutes). Your specs aren't much slower than mine (1.9Ghtz P4 w/ 768MB RAM) -- I wonder why it would take you over 3x as long to b/u a DVD?

[mats.hogberg]

Wait, what about removing all the unwanted stuff? Can't do that in shrink (unless you use reauthor, and then the menus are gone).

What's the use of a menu, if you've taken out all "unwanted stuff"?

/Mats

[jeanl]

Wait, what about removing all the unwanted stuff? Can't do that in shrink (unless you use reauthor, and then the menus are gone).

What's the use of a menu, if you've taken out all "unwanted stuff"?

/Mats

You're kidding right? Chapter menu, extra menu etc etc. Removing all the unwanted stuff does not mean keeping only the movie! (and even in that case, I'd hate to lose the chapter menu)...
Jeanl

[mats.hogberg]

Yeah, kidding - a little. But actually, I either do a movie only rip (reauthor with Shrink) or keep it all, possibly setting really unwanted stuff to stills, and setting max compression for stuff I'm having doubts about.

/Mats

[cyflyer]

Two further thoughts. Does Deep Analysis really offer any advantage ? Has anyone actually noticed a difference ? Cos to me the extra time taken is not really practical when you have more than one dvd to write, and are tying up the computer for most of the night.

Secondly, 30sauce, the more I think about your 3 hours, the more I think something ain't right, like do you have a Pentium 1 or such ? or have you done a virus scan incase something in there is eating away your cpu cycles ?

[30sauce]

I think there must be something wrong too. Just recently did a virus scan and that came up clean. I'm running a P4 1.6 w 512 RAM -- not great, but certainly capable of faster than the 3+ hr I'm pulling now. Not running many other apps in the background -- Norton SysWorks and ZoneAlarm are the biggest. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

J

[jimmalenko]

Wait, what about removing all the unwanted stuff? Can't do that in shrink (unless you use reauthor, and then the menus are gone).

What's the use of a menu, if you've taken out all "unwanted stuff"?

My thoughts exactly

(FWIW, I think jeanl and I have had a discussion somewhere else regarding this )

... in good fun ...

[jeanl]

(FWIW, I think jeanl and I have had a discussion somewhere else regarding this )

... in good fun ...

you're right! I'm just a stubborn bastard!
Jeanl

[JohnnyCNote]

I use Decrypter, and if it doesn't work, I use Shrink. Then I finish with Nero Recode. It works great for me...

[cyflyer]

30sauce, I also have a P4 1.5ghz 256ram, and the longest film doesn't take more than an hour from start to finish.
Redo a virus scan, check also your cpu % usage during ripping/writing, and as for not running many apps in the background, don't run ANY apps while ripping/writing. Infact don't do anything else on the computer when you are dvd'ing. Nortons etc you don't need unless you're on the net or doing a scan. Try also straightforward back-up rather than DeepA. Let us know what happens.

[DVFun]

I find the combo DVDDecrypter+CloneDVD to be irreplaceable for easy-to-use and quality.

[mats.hogberg]

Norton SysWorks and ZoneAlarm are the biggest. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Yes, just the other day, I read a thread where someone (don't remember who, but I believe it was a trustworthy member, otherwise I'd not remembered it) in passing made a note of SysWorks being a real hog - try disabling it!

/Mats

[p_l]

I think there must be something wrong too. Just recently did a virus scan and that came up clean. I'm running a P4 1.6 w 512 RAM -- not great, but certainly capable of faster than the 3+ hr I'm pulling now. Not running many other apps in the background -- Norton SysWorks and ZoneAlarm are the biggest. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

J

I'd put my money on Norton SystemWorks being the culprit. It's a notorious SystemHog. Use just the antivirus.

[SaSi]

Norton SysWorks and ZoneAlarm are the biggest. Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Yes, just the other day, I read a thread where someone (don't remember who, but I believe it was a trustworthy member, otherwise I'd not remembered it) in passing made a note of SysWorks being a real hog - try disabling it!

/Mats

I abandoned SysWorks more than a year ago, after discovering that they hogged the system in terms of performance. Let alone making decisions for me .

In terms of ripping with DVDShrink, I also think it has a good ripping functionality, although it could not rip a foreign region DVD with region code protection on it.

Ever since I wasted a night trying to understand what was wrong with a Smartripper rip, I stick with DVDDecrypter and it has never failed me.

BTW, with a deep analysis enabled, the DVD must be read twice and this is slow. Once ripped on the HD (using a fast DVD-ROM it takes 15 minutes or so), the whole process can take less than 30 minutes.

Also, I prefer to have the DVD ripped on disk so that I can try different approaches. Use DVDShrink, use dvd2One or - if all fail - demux and re-encode then author.

BTW, why use an umbrella in the rain when you can have a raincoat with a head-cover? The umbrella just wastes a hand.

[30sauce]

I'll uninstall Norton tonight and try again -- my virus subscription is about to expire anyway.

While we're talking about it -- what do you guys use for firewall/antivirus? Cheap (or free), reliable and not a resource hog -- what are the best options?

J

[ricky1756]

zonealarm for firewall, avg for virus, both free