no good ripping apps?...

[gnznroses]

i'm backing up this dvd and i want to copy everything. all bonus features and everything (when i don't i use dvd remake). BUT i want to be able to use different compression ratios for each featurette. normally i would use dvd shrink (just cause i rarely ever compress movies), but dvd shrink is being stupid and grouping toegther seven different featurettes (this whole dvd is bonus content) as "Main Movie". it says something like "Titles 1-7 Main Movie" and then lists Titles 8 through 20 or whatever all separetly. i don't want all 7 to have the same compression ratio. what other programs are there that let you individually set ratios? i also would like to be able to use CCE as the encoder as well, since i have it (dvd shrink spits out bad quality video when i do use it, even at low compression).

[69mako]

First off, if you click on the header, there should be an option to ungroup similiar titles. I believe its in the file header. That should make every title singular.

Second,, if you want ot use CCE I would suggest DVD Rebuilder. its an encoder while DVD shrink it a transcoder. What version of DVD shrink are you using? I've always had good results with it.

Mako

[gnznroses]

thanks for the reply. i did download dvd rebuilder, but it seems you can't set a different compression ratio for each title. if there is a way to do that can you tell me how?
i will try unchecking that option in dvd shrink. i'm using v3.2 btw. i've only used it on a couple movies, but one movie was only 2hrs in length and for some reason was like, 6 or 7 gigs. no special features or anything. no extra audio besides english. not evben surround sound i don't think. but i used dvd shrink and i dunno what percent compression it had to use (i'm thinking around 65% but i dunno) but it looked horrible. things that should be static (as in not moving) like a wall, were just full of activity. lots of fuzz and "particles" moving all around and really standing out. like the wall is just crawling with something. of course i've seen before that in even studio releases, so i dunno.

[jtoolman2000]

but one movie was only 2hrs in length and for some reason was like, 6 or 7 gigs

That's not surprising at all. That particular film was encoded at a high bit rate so it ended up at a nice proper 5+ gigs . Any dvd movie you get that is 2 or more hours should fill the whole dual layer DVD in my opinion. I personally have NO use for any extras which in order to make them fit, my movie has to be compressed and thus suffer in quality in order to make room for useless extras. Horrible pratice if you ask me.

[CrayonEater]

DVD-Rebuilder has an option called "Steal space from extras" in one of the menus, I think the Mode menu, at least on older versions. You can compress the extras much more if you want.

But on movies more than an hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours, you really should use a DL disc. If you look at the source disc's size and it's about 6Gb or more, then quality will suffer unless you cut out extras. And above 7Gb or about 2 hours of movie length, it probably suffer even with the extras cut out. Unless you burn to a DL disc - then you won't need any compression.

Food for thought: Verbatim DLs can be bought at Supermediastore or Meritline for $1.79 each. It probably takes about $0.80 to $1.00 worth of electricity to run your computer for the time it takes to re-encode with DVD-Rebuilder (about 8-10 hours, WMMV), and you figure the blank DVD is $0.25 to $0.40 cents each. Therefore, burning to DL isn't THAT much more expensive.

[normcar]

You can also use VOBBlanker first. This will allow you to replace anything you want with a blank screen. This blank screen is short, so you don't even see it. You can replace the Copyright notice, etc. to save as much space as possible. I even blank the end credits especially if they are in a seperate section. Everything you can get rid the DVD of before using DVDShrink will allow decreased compression and increased quality. I usually get rid of everthing except the menu, main movie, and deleted scenes.

Otherwise use VOBBlanker to copy the movie to 2 DVDRs by blanking everything except the movie and burn on the first DVDR, and then blank the movie and burn on the second DVDR. This will allow for increased quality of the main movie, without losing any extras you may want.

[gnznroses]

thanks all for replies,
here's a better explination of the situation: i'm backing up a disc that is all special features. since it's just special features i don't care too much about quality. some special features i do, like a making of or special effects thing, but this is mostly appearences on tv shows, interviews, things where quality doesn't really matter. there is only i think two segments i want in high quality, for instance a thing about choosing shot locations and the movie's style.

so i don't want to blank out anything i just need most segments compressed. i'll try dvdshrink again, looking for that one option about grouping. but there's no other program where you can adjust quality of each segment while using a higher quality encoder? i know of only one other app where you adjust quality like that, and that's intervideo dvd copy. problem is it has a preview window of what it'll look like after compression (i really wish dvd shrink did) and it doesn't work for me, it's just blank. works on my brother's computer, but not mine. so i dunno 1. how good it'll look and 2. if it'll work at all.

[gnznroses]

ok, dvd shrink is being stupid again. i unchecked "combine shared titles" and it ungroups them. but then when i set a certain title to a custom ratio it screws everything up. i set it to custom and titles near it that i have on automatic will change to "mixed compression". wth? i don't see how it's "mixed". i mean why not have say, title 4 at my custom 80% and the rest of the titles automatically use whatever is needed to fit. and it changes some to mixed and leaves others as automatic, like the titles are connected somehow (same way they were grouped before i unchecked that option?).

[normcar]

Mixed compression simply means that at least one of the group is custom or one of the other types of compression other than the default DVDShrink compression. So don't worry about it.

[manono]

Hi-

but there's no other program where you can adjust quality of each segment while using a higher quality encoder?

CCE or TMPGEnc in CQ or OPV Mode. Do the segments you don't care as much about first, at a lower quality, and save the remaining space for the segments you care more about. Something like DVD-RB's "Steal Space From Extras" or Shrink's percent compression only compress by a certain percentage, without regard for the quality (as measured by the average quant) when done, or the relative quality of the various segments. If you truly understand what you're asking, the only way to accomplish your goal is with manual encoding of the various segments, and without the use of any all-in-one app.

[gnznroses]

normcar, what constitutes a group? why are some titles grouped together with others? i mean if you can set each individual title to have it's own compression ratio, why does changing one title to Custom affect other titles? that's what confuses me.

manono, maybe i don't fully understand what i'm talking about. the technical details. how come the only way to accomplis what i'm talking abour requires manual encoding of the various segments? i mean i know that's hat needed, but i thought an app like dvd shrink does that. if each title is a different file, then it's just batch processing each file at the selected compression settings. it's just that dvd shrink does not allow you to use external video encoders like CCE. the dvd.box.sk guide i read gave dvdshink one of the lowest scores when it comes to quality (intervideo dvd copy i think was rated highest). so it just boils down to there being no app with the features of dvd shrink that allows external encoders, right? not a technical issue.

[normcar]

normcar, what constitutes a group? why are some titles grouped together with others? i mean if you can set each individual title to have it's own compression ratio, why does changing one title to Custom affect other titles? that's what confuses me.

A group is anything that is expanded under the highest level {+} The movie is one group, the menu is a group and the extras are a group at least on the DVDs I've used in DVDShrink. If you change the compression type on any part of the group, it says the group has mixed compression.

[manono]

how come the only way to accomplis what i'm talking abour requires manual encoding of the various segments?

OK, how do you measure quality? One way, and as far as I'm concerned, the best, is with the average quant. DVD production houses don't generally care about even quality for the different parts of a DVD. If you were to check the Q-Level of the different PGCs of a retail DVD using Bitrate Viewer, you'd find the ave quants all over the place. Any app which just gives you back a percentage of already differing quality PGCs will maintain those different qualities.

Now, I'm assuming you want the majority of the PGCs at a lower but similar quality, and 2 of them at a higher and similar quality. Although it's theoretically possible using Shrink at different percentages, if you know the average quants in advance, it's in no way possible to do that using the free version of DVD-RB. In addition, the people that use Shrink don't know and don't care about the concept anyway.

In addition, quantisation matrices can also come into the picture. Do the lower quality PGCs using a lower bitrate matrix, and the higher quality PGCs using a better matrix. Not possible in Shrink, as it keeps the original matrices. And although you can switch matrices around in DVD-RB, you can't really do what I'm suggesting.

...so it just boils down to there being no app with the features of dvd shrink that allows external encoders, right?

Well, the free version of DVD-RB comes close, although you can't pick the percent compression, but only pick one of several choices. You can do this for movie DVDs. For DVDs such as you have, and for doing what you want, it's pretty much useless. The Pro version has more features, but I still don't believe it can do what you're asking.

So, I repeat, if I understand what you're asking (lower and equal quality for most of the PGCs, and a higher and equal quality for the 2 most important ones), you have to do it manually. What's so hard about encoding manually? Try it, you might learn something.

[gnznroses]

ok. thanks for the detail. i'll try to see what i can find about how to do it manually... it's just that if it takes me 2 hours to do it i might as well just use a DL DVD and use that time on something more constructive, y'know? but i'll look and see what i can find.