DVDShrink misreads extras as main movie?

[Gurm]

Ok on a couple of discs I've been looking to transcode recently, DVD Shrink thinks that the extras are part of the main movie.

As a quick example, I'm trying to backup Trekkies 2.

The main movie is Title 1.

The primary extras (more locations they couldn't cover in the main film) are Titles 2 through 22.

DVD Shrink lists, under "main movie", two sets:

Title 1 (1:33)
Title 2,22 (1:01)

Now this would hardly be an issue, except that then it ALSO lists titles 3 through 21 separately under the extras.

This means that ALL the calculations are all screwed up. I can, of course, INDEPENDENTLY set the compression level for titles 3-21, but not for 2 and 22.

This is NOT the only movie I've seen where this happens lately. Any advice on how to handle this?

[yoda313]

Hello,

Are you backing up the WHOLE disc??? If not just use reauthor and choose the main title.

If you are backing up the entire disc try a few different rippers. Try ripping to iso with dvd decrypter and then opening it with dvdshrink.

If it still persists use another transcoder. Here are some others beside dvdshrink:

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?s=19#19

Good luck

Kevin

[Gurm]

*sigh* perhaps you misunderstand.

1. I always rip with DVD Decrypter.

2. I know there are other transcoders, of course.

3. I think I've been here longer than you.

I will confess, however, that the idea of switching transcoders makes me feel all icky inside. But I'll give it a shot and post back.

[sammie]

What Yoda said, if you are re-authoring, just pick the titles you want. Even if you aren't re-authoring, you can still select the titles you want to increase or decrease compression for independently. The easiest way is to selct say title set 1 in your example, choose to set the compression ratio and set it to where you want. Leave the other titles as automatic and they will be reduced accordingly.

Other times what I'll do is I know there is a big block of crap I don't want, usually movie promos. I still want the menus to work so I don't want to reauthor. I just select the titles I know I don't want and set them to still pictures.

[sammie]

As a P.S. I don't think it's necessarily that DVD Shrink is wrong. I've seen a trend towards ridiculously complex DVD navigation. The companies argue they are just making more interactive content. To be honest it looks to me more like they are just trying to raise the bar and make it more complex to back the things up. They can't change the encryption, so all they can do is increase the knowledge required level.

As a P.P.S. seeing your 2nd response, I'd say give us more info on what your are trying to accomplish that mis-reading extras as the main movie is causing problems? I understand that using say DVD ReBuilder that only allows selecting extras as a block this would create problems, but DVD Shrink allows you to select individual titles regardless of their status as a main movie or extra.

[Gurm]

Well I'm mostly concerned that I'm getting overcompressed.

Ok see here's the deal.

DVD Shrink sees Title 1 (Main Movie) and Title 2,22 (ALL the extras wrapped into one big bundle) as "Main Movie". THEN it lists titles 3-21 separately.

I'm mostly concerned that it'll judge compression incorrectly because it doesn't know that the title sets are duplicated.

For example, trying to back up the Finding Nemo disc in its entirety is absurd - DVD Shrink thinks it's bigger than a DVD can possibly be, because it has a duplicate title set that encompasses the entire movie PLUS some of the extras... so it thinks that the "main movie" is 10GB, and then the extras are another 2! In THAT case there was clearly no choice for me but to nab JUST the main movie in reauthor mode.

Now on THIS disc (Trekkies 2 again), I tried CloneDVD just now (latest version), and it ALSO saw things incorrectly. It saw Title 1 as the main movie, and while it DID see Title 22 as an extra, it saw it as being an hour long... which it isn't... and as encompassing all the extras. It got things even WORSE, thinking that it had to squish the disc down to 40% in order to make it fit!

[sammie]

Ah Ok, now I understand. I have seen what you are saying, but not with extras. Usually what is going on is on a multiple angle movie. DVD Shrink follows both (all) possible program threads and therefore shows each angle as a full size movie. I'm guessing in this case the DVDs are for some reason are setting up the extras as in line with the main movie or as multiple angles (seems unlikely, but hey I think I've seen every combo). I haven't used it, but there used to be a setting under DVD decrypter to not use multi-angle. Others can probably give you more help there, but that might work.

If that doesn't work, you are probably going to be stuck with using somthing like IfoEdit to re-link things. I'd hate to try with a complex DVD, but it should work.

Finally, make sure and run DVD Shrink analysis first, then back it up and look at the results. In the case you've given, the results should be vastly overcompressed and pretty obviously bad. I'm pretty sure I remember a similar sitation on a multi-angle and I just let it run and things were fine. Shrink didn't appear to overcompress as you fear.

[skebenin]

That's odd.

It sounds like there is a 'play all' pgc for all the segments contained in titles 2 through 22. Since the play-all is long and large (man, don't that sound dirty), Shrink thinks it's a main title.

I seen this once or twice, but I've never seen Shrink mess up it's compression calculations because of it. Just to confirm that it is messing up, pop over to re-author and drag the main title and title 2-22 into the left-hand pane. I'm not suggesting you re-author here; just use it to check on Shrinks compression calculation.

Also, what happens when you toggle view/combine shared titles?

[Gurm]

Toggle view/combine shared titles? Where, praytell, does one find that option?

[Gurm]

As for messing up, if I reauthor, and drag Titles 1 and 2-21 into the left pane... it all fits - recompresses the movie to 60% but it fits.

If I then drag over title 22, it no longer fits. Goes over into the red.

[skebenin]

FYI: I just checked out my Finding Nemo disk (R1, disk 1). One could argue that it's missreporting the length of the disk (because there are so many shared cells), but I don't think it's overreporting the size of the disk, or misreporting the compression ratio..

Full disk, no compression, says the disk is approximately 8 GB. It's also showing ~52% as the ratio (~58% when I put unreferenced material to still images), which is in the ballpark for an 8 GB disk.

I've sort-of confirmed this by popping over to re-author and dragging over title 1, 2, 5-52, and 53-99. The compression then shows ~60% (about right because this excludes the menus). I left out titles 3 and 4 because they are the 'play-all' titles.

[skebenin]

Combine shared titles is on the View menu in Shrink. It just gives you a different representation of the disk - it doesn't really change the way Shrink works.

Could title 22 be a 'play all' title? Could title 2 be another 'play all'? I don't own Trekkies 2, so I can't look for myself.

[Gurm]

Ok yeah, uncombining them took 2 away from 22, looks like 22 IS a play all. Changing its ratio alone changed the ratios on all the included titles. Hmm... ok so this works. Sort of. I think I can wing it from here. Still gonna be an assload of compression, but hardly matters since the source material is camcorder.

[yoda313]

Ok yeah, uncombining them took 2 away from 22, looks like 22 IS a play all. Changing its ratio alone changed the ratios on all the included titles. Hmm... ok so this works. Sort of. I think I can wing it from here. Still gonna be an assload of compression, but hardly matters since the source material is camcorder.

Hello,

Camcorder?????????

Well if you could get a hold of the original tape you'd be better off at recapping it so you can make the dvd over again

Kevin

[Gurm]

Have you SEEN "Trekkies"?

It's a MOVIE, professionally produced, that uses lots of camcorder footage of star trek nerds taken at conventions and such. It's professionally produced, but the footage could best be described as "a lot like TV quality".