Unhappy with compression of DVD Shrink

[Jah_Rankin]

I'd swap the DTS for DD 2 or 5, and you should see an improvement because there'll be much more space for the video and therefore less compression. The other thing that might be a factor here is your HDTV. I have commented in one of Jah_Rankin's "DVDShrink Sux" threads that my boss has a projector, and gets very poor results when DVDShrink goes below 90%. Because of the resolution of your TV, what might look good on a standard 27" could look pretty poor.

You have a couple of options - 1 is to re-encode (I'd use TMPGEnc 352 * 480/576 2-Pass VBR and AC3 2.0 with ffmpeggui), 2 is to try DVD2One, 3 is to do a 1:1 backup to Dual Layer. I sense that HDTVs might require DL backups for acceptable results in the future unfortunately .

Nonsense, When I use a different program for back ups I see no pixelations on my projector viewing, therfore the problem is Shrink.

[Jah_Rankin]

wbg113 wrote:

Jah Rankin,

Brand new, an NEC ND-3500A. Asking for trouble because I'm asking for help with a popular product?? That's pretty lame.

Bill

To wbg113: Ack! don't pay attention to what Jah Rankin has posted. :P he's just being lame because he could never get DVD REBUILDER installed correctly on his computer and couldn't get the program to work for him. your new NEC 3500 burner has nothing to do with the DVD SHRINK problem you've encountered. try out DVD REBUILDER if you need help with installing the program just ask for help in here. you can use DVD REBUILDER with a trial version of CINEMA CRAFT ENCODER (CCE).

I'm not the only person that did'nt get rebuilder to work if you check the forum you'll see there were others as well.

[jimmalenko]

I'd swap the DTS for DD 2 or 5, and you should see an improvement because there'll be much more space for the video and therefore less compression. The other thing that might be a factor here is your HDTV. I have commented in one of Jah_Rankin's "DVDShrink Sux" threads that my boss has a projector, and gets very poor results when DVDShrink goes below 90%. Because of the resolution of your TV, what might look good on a standard 27" could look pretty poor.

You have a couple of options - 1 is to re-encode (I'd use TMPGEnc 352 * 480/576 2-Pass VBR and AC3 2.0 with ffmpeggui), 2 is to try DVD2One, 3 is to do a 1:1 backup to Dual Layer. I sense that HDTVs might require DL backups for acceptable results in the future unfortunately .

Nonsense, When I use a different program for back ups I see no pixelations on my projector viewing, therfore the problem is Shrink.

Not nonsense, my boss's experience. Your experience varies. That's fine.

[jtoolman2000]

I have a sony wega 50" lcd tv and even on some broadcast material that is supposed to be HD, you can easily see compression artifacts on plain areas like sky and dark areas. How does that original DVD look on your TV? I have a few DVDs that already were compressed to the limits of quality to make room for all the estra crpa they movie companies seem to think we want. Whne you then try to compress further, even if it is only 10-15% extra, the results will not as good as those where the original was of execellent quality to begin with. I did Pirates at max and 5th elemnt at about and they look great.

[skebenin]

I agree. It often pays to pay attention to the ratio slider. If the slider is all the way to the left, even if the ratio is a high number like 85%, the results probably won't be much good. Slider all the way to the left means the video isn't very compressible, meaning the studio already compressed it nearly as much as is practical.

I'd argue that you won't get good results with one of these 'already heavily compressed' disks no matter what tool you use - including CCE. I've seen the results of compressing an action movie to under 3,200 kbps using CCE, and it ain't pretty. If you can't get good results with DVDShrink, you can try other tools, but you're probably better off just splitting it to two DVDRs.

[wgb113]

"A Concert For George" is a tribute concert for George Harrison after he died. It is listed on ISF's website as a reference DVD in both sound and video quality. The original looks breathtaking on my TV with sound to match.

The movie is 2hrs 26mins long so yes it's on the long side of things. Perhaps the 2-Single Layer DVD approach for films such as this (or a dual layer disc) is the answer. Which leads me to another question: I've seen the guides for splitting a movie with DVD Shrink but an Shrink be used for a 1:1 dual layer?

Bill

[jimmalenko]

Which leads me to another question: I've seen the guides for splitting a movie with DVD Shrink but an Shrink be used for a 1:1 dual layer?

Think about it ....

1:1 ....

No need to shrink, therefore no need for DVDShrink

DVDDecrypter ISO Read / ISO Write should be all you need.

[mighty_mouse]

I have copied more than 100 discs with compression more than 45% (max. 60%) with Instantcopy 7 [/color]and get perfect results everytime. I let the computer do the work overnight, cause it will take about 3 hours per movie. But this program is the best in picture quality by far.
Give it a try.....

[skebenin]

I've tried instant copy. It is better than DVDShrink 3.0b5 and 3.1.x in terms of block noise at low ratios, but at low ratios it does introduce a fair amount of ringing. As of DVDShrink 3.2 with Max Smooth AEC though, Shrink and IC are on par with each other for block noise, and Shrink has less ringing.

If you find block noise absolutely intolerable and you don't mind (or can't see) ringing, you'll be very happy with Instant Copy (though you'll also be happy with version 3.2 of Shrink using AEC, and Shrink is free). If, like me, you find ringing objectionable, you'll prefer Shrink (when you don't decide to just split the disk).

[SaSi]

DVDShrink, DVD2One, Nero Recode and all the popular transcoders all suffer from quality loss when compression ratio increases.

It also has to do with the way the original movie was encoded. Several DVDs seem to have been encoded with an overkill bitrate, so transcoders can do a fine job chopping off the fat.

Of all transcoders, DVDShrink seems to be the worst in picture quality although it is the best in features and versatility.

You should perhaps try Nero Recode, which is the new incarnation of DVDShrink since Mr. DVDShrink got a job from Nero. Quality there is much better.

Wrong, recode produces macro blocks as well

Tou are correct there but I find Recode to produce better results, much more in the league of DVD2One. That said, all these transcoders "destroy" the video. I have also found that DVDShrink can also create unviewable results even when performing a 98% compression to make a slightly oversized self-authored DVD fit to a DVDR. DVD2One and Recode seem to show some more respect there.

[Jah_Rankin]

You are correct there but I find Recode to produce better results, much more in the league of DVD2One. That said, all these transcoders "destroy" the video. I have also found that DVDShrink can also create unviewable results even when performing a 98% compression to make a slightly oversized self-authored DVD fit to a DVDR. DVD2One and Recode seem to show some more respect there.[/quote]

With this said I prefer IC/DVD8, No macroblocks so far with thi proggy.
I've been hammered for makig this point clear before.

[skebenin]

Some people say DVDShrink sucks. Some people say it's excellent. Some one has to be wrong.

I'm glad that DVDShrink is free so people can try it and decide for themselves.

[Capmaster]

Some people say DVDShrink sucks. Some people say it's excellent. Some one has to be wrong.

I'm glad that DVDShrink is free so people can try it and decide for themselves.

I don't think there's any "right" or "wrong". Different apps use different algorithms to compress ...placing emphasis on some things and compromising on others.

It's a matter of perceived quality which is different from person to person. What you think is perfect, I might see all sorts of flaws with it ...and vice versa

We're lucky that we have so many quality FREE apps to choose from

[DereX888]

Blank DVD*R media is not a VHS tape! "Better" DVD*R will not give you better picture quality ROTFL! Its either error-less or with errors if it comes to discs...

True, but only if the drive can read the media well. If the media is dodgy and the drive can only just barely read it, you'll get all varieties of artifacts from minor picture corruption to major blocking, picture stutters and freezes, audio drop outs, and player hang ups.

Since many set top players will do their damdest to read a disk, you really do get bad video quality with bad media (where you'd probably be better off if the player just told you the media was unreadable).

Well, thats true what youre saying, but it also proves what I said. If you burn any disc and you do comparison test with your source file, and it is errorless - then you gotta have perfect picture, no matter what brand of the media it is burnt on.
Unless your player is one of those hokey-pokey Sony or similar junk, that is picky about the blank brand and it reads perfectly burnt discs like they were crap? Well, in such case it is the *crappy player's* fault obviously.
My dad's expensive Sony player was like this. He finally listened to me and bought cheap Apex that plays anything. One of my friends had some Samsung or other lil' jap machine with same problem, it hated one of the dvd-r brands for some reasons known to itself. My friend managed to replace the dvd-rom inside of the player with lite-on ltr-166 dvd-rom somehow, and it works perfectly now, except for the beige in the middle tray, which looks cool anyway LOL (but his tray's original 'extension/ending' fits on it perfectly).
My point with above examples is again that brand of media shouldn't matter when it comes to quality of picture since its all digital. I wouldn't ever buy any player that is "picky", and if I did by mistake - I would have just return it right away, and send 1000 complaints to manufactrer and store's headquarter too.

[DereX888]

Some people say DVDShrink sucks. Some people say it's excellent. Some one has to be wrong.

I'm glad that DVDShrink is free so people can try it and decide for themselves.

I don't think there's any "right" or "wrong". Different apps use different algorithms to compress ...placing emphasis on some things and compromising on others.

It's a matter of perceived quality which is different from person to person. What you think is perfect, I might see all sorts of flaws with it ...and vice versa

We're lucky that we have so many quality FREE apps to choose from

As usual - its all in the eye of beholder... apples and oranges... etc etc

But yes - the more the merrier!
I too have my fav. apps and ones I hate, but IMO we all shouldn't say too many harsh things about FREEWARE apps, unless there is something really really wrong with them. Those people who wrote them certainly devoted lots of their time to do it, while all those who usually bitch the loudest - they usually never gave anything of value to the rest of mankind (unless we count their shit as fertilizer?).

[skebenin]

Well, thats true what youre saying, but it also proves what I said. If you burn any disc and you do comparison test with your source file, and it is errorless - then you gotta have perfect picture, no matter what brand of the media it is burnt on.

Agreed, with one caveat. There is crap media out there - the stuff you test and it *does* have errors. The caveat is that the players that will play anything will valiantly try to play this crap media, with unsurprisingly bad results. It only bears mentioning because there are people out there who buy this crap media and don't understand why their backups look so bad.

[DereX888]

Well, thats true what youre saying, but it also proves what I said. If you burn any disc and you do comparison test with your source file, and it is errorless - then you gotta have perfect picture, no matter what brand of the media it is burnt on.

Agreed, with one caveat. There is crap media out there - the stuff you test and it *does* have errors. The caveat is that the players that will play anything will valiantly try to play this crap media, with unsurprisingly bad results. It only bears mentioning because there are people out there who buy this crap media and don't understand why their backups look so bad.

So true. I have left one of the boards because so many idiots there were blaming i.e. shrink for bad quality, while they were burning their backups on some 1 penny cheaper impossible crap... (not that I "like" or "dislike" dvdshrink, I just dont have use for it, but whats due is due and I hate brainless ppl anyway).

[shelbyGT]

And by the way, there is nothing wrong with using Roxio to burn. I've used it for quite some time now and have never ran into a problem. Don't try and fix something that ain't broken.

[wgb113]

I'm convinced that in this case it was simply too much compression that was required to fit it onto one disc.

From here on out if it's a disc who's quality is important to me on the backup I'll either use DL media or split it between two single-layer discs.

Thanks to everyone for the help on this topic. I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing a setting or procedure that resulted in a lousy backup in this case.

I'm happy with the results from Shrink when No Compression is needed and will continue to happily use it in that respect.

Cheers!
Bill

[LRD]

I notice CCE Basic used by Rebuilder is a CBR only encoder as per CCE's website--http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/basic.html

Does Rebuilder enable VBR encoding? Does it matter?

Thanks

LRD

[guns1inger]

LRD, you have miss read the page you posted. CBR for Program Streams(PS) (mixed audio and video), and VBR for Elementary Streams (ES). CCE-Basic allows for up to 2 passes (usually more that adequate), while the more expensive versions allow for many more passes. DVD-RB works on ES only, as it does not touch the audio. Therefore you can use 2-pass VBR encoding when using CCE-Basic as your encoding engine.

As yes, it does matter (a lot)

[LRD]

guns1inger

Thanks, I see now my mistake. I bought TMPGE about 8 months ago, and am hesitant to shell out $60 more for yet another encoder. Is it worth it?

LRD

[guns1inger]

Depends. Tmpgenc has an easier to use interface, and lots of filters that can be handy. It is however much slower than CCE, and cannot be used in DVD-RB at this time.

If you backup a lot of DVDs and want the best possible quality, the cost is US$60

[ZippyP.]

edit: nevermind

[stackner]

dvdshrink all the way untill dual layer media is better priced.