slow ???? DVD Shrink

[misterc2010]

Hi there folks,
please can someone give me a little bit of guidance with DVD Shrink. I'm new to DVD back-up and have found the information and guide in this site invaluable.

I use DVD Decrypter to 'rip' the DVDs to my hard drive and then use DVD shrink to compress the file for burning. Waht I'm finding is that it's taking around 3 hours to complete the 'shrinking' process.

Is this normal??

I run Windows XP with an Athlon 1.33 Ghz processor.
If you need more info. about my system, jusk ask.

Thanks misterc2010

[wings123]

Sounds like it is taking way longer than it should. How much memory does your PC have? Do you have other programs running while shrinking?

[steve2713]

It depends what settings you're using with Shrink for one. If you're using Deep Analysis and AEC at smooth or max smooth, 3 hours would not necessarily be off for a slower processor such as yours. With AEC in particular, max smooth takes the longest, smooth next, sharp, then max sharp.

P.S. - please put your computer specs in your user profile, there's a reason why it's there, so you don't have to tell us your specs every time you have a question. Thanks

[Capmaster]

Good advice.

Also try:

Make sure Ultra DMA is enabled in your IDE interface for the HD (in device manager)

Make sure the priority for the app is set as high as it goes

Right-click the App desktop icon and make sure it's not running in Windows 95 compatibility mode

[misterc2010]

Thanks alot guys for the replies, much appreciated.
I've put my specs into the 'profile' window, thanks Steve2713.

I was indeed using 'max. smooth' for the 'shrinking' process, I'll have a go with the default settings next time.

Is there any rule of thumb for which is best with which compression?
i.e. what's the 'best' setting for, say, 75% compression?

Thanks again
misterc2010

[archaeo]

cut out decrypter - you can rip and compress with shrink alone.

[akrako1]

I'm running a similar system (Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4Ghz)), and compression takes about the same time for me. Contrary to what Archaeo states, I would suggest using DVD Decrypter first, then shrinking. - for this simple fact: when you use all the quality enhancements, DVD Shrink reads the entire DVD twice! On most computers this speed is limited by the speed of the dvd drive. Why read the whole disc twice at slow speed? Read it once at slow speed to the HDD, and then Shrink can read it off the hdd twice as high speed. I've been doing this for a while now, and it seems that this process is faster. Anybody else have any experience?

Also, with weird copy protection schemes being employed, DVD Decryptor has greater success at reading the entire disc the first time. Why waste a few hours on a dvd to find that Shrink won't read it completely, and you'll have to use Decryptor anyways... Also, DVD Decryptor is continually being updated - while DVD Shrink is not. Any drastically new copy protection schemes come out, and you'll HAVE to use Decryptor.

[steve2713]

Thanks alot guys for the replies, much appreciated.
I've put my specs into the 'profile' window, thanks Steve2713.

I was indeed using 'max. smooth' for the 'shrinking' process, I'll have a go with the default settings next time.

Is there any rule of thumb for which is best with which compression?
i.e. what's the 'best' setting for, say, 75% compression?

Thanks again
misterc2010

misterc, my 'rules of thumb' for using AEC are more or less as follows: first off, NEVER use 'max sharpness' (the descriptions don't necessarily fit what they actually do with the picture quality), I'd suggest 'sharp from about 75-80% and less compression. Between about 65-75%, use 'smooth'. Once you get down around 60% or below, switch to max smooth.

At 75% compression I'd probably use 'sharp' if the main movie was fairly large in size to begin with, or 'smooth' if the original was compressed more than your average disc. Your 3 hour compression with max smooth will probably take around an hour or a little less at the 'sharp' setting. Good luck

[JSB]

I'm running a similar system (Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4Ghz)), and compression takes about the same time for me. Contrary to what Archaeo states, I would suggest using DVD Decrypter first, then shrinking. - for this simple fact: when you use all the quality enhancements, DVD Shrink reads the entire DVD twice! On most computers this speed is limited by the speed of the dvd drive. Why read the whole disc twice at slow speed? Read it once at slow speed to the HDD, and then Shrink can read it off the hdd twice as high speed. I've been doing this for a while now, and it seems that this process is faster. Anybody else have any experience?

Also, with weird copy protection schemes being employed, DVD Decryptor has greater success at reading the entire disc the first time. Why waste a few hours on a dvd to find that Shrink won't read it completely, and you'll have to use Decryptor anyways... Also, DVD Decryptor is continually being updated - while DVD Shrink is not. Any drastically new copy protection schemes come out, and you'll HAVE to use Decryptor.

I second everthing akrako1 said.

I also like to rip to one hard drive .... and use Shrink to output to another hard drive. I am not sure if this really benifits Shrink, but I know it is a good habit for most video apps.

JSB

[misterc2010]

Thanks for all the pointers guys.

Again thanks to steve2713 for giving guidelines to compression settings.

I've just done a shrink using 'sharp' and it did indeed take a little less time, so I'm alot happier now.

Thank you
misterc2010

[Gurm]

Oh ripping to different drives will ABSOLUTELY make things faster.

Ideally, you should:

1. Rip with DVD Decrypter, because letting Shrink rip just piles on the time.

2. Rip to one drive and encode to another.

[jeanl]

Oh ripping to different drives will ABSOLUTELY make things faster.

Ideally, you should:

1. Rip with DVD Decrypter, because letting Shrink rip just piles on the time.

Funny, I would have thought just the opposite. Shrinking is very CPU intensive, while ripping is very IO intensive. It seems to me that shrink can rip at the same time it shrinks without adding extra time, because the ripping happens while the shrinking is done. If you use decrypter, you have to wait until it's done before you can shrink... (I do use decrypter all the time, though, cause I like to do some reauthoring before shrinking).
Anway, I don't want to start a controversy, but your comment made me wonder...
Jeanl

[Scottie]

I've just upgraded my PC about 9 months ago I was using a Athlon 1.1 GHz and Shrink takes the same times as on my new XP3200 so I don't think it's your CPU, also my older system had 256 MB of Ram and my new one has 512 MB so I don;t think it's that either. my guess is your setting for shrink Deep Analiser takes longer and so does the other options for Quilty I'm uncheck them and it should take alot less about 15 - 20 minutes if your just doing the movie.

[mattyboy]

Oh ripping to different drives will ABSOLUTELY make things faster.

Ideally, you should:

1. Rip with DVD Decrypter, because letting Shrink rip just piles on the time.

2. Rip to one drive and encode to another.

But when you read the dvd with decrypter it reads the whole damn thing 6-8 GB. Thats not faster.

[mattyboy]

DVD Shrink[/url] reads the entire DVD twice! On most computers this speed is limited by the speed of the dvd drive. Why read the whole disc twice at slow speed? Read it once at slow speed to the HDD, and then Shrink can read it off the hdd twice as high speed.

Reads it twice? What hell are you talking about ? It analyzes it once for about 50 seconds when a disc is inserted, and then reads what part you what to burn. Explain maybe Im missing something

[akrako1]

If you enable the 'deep analysis' and other quality enhancements, DVD Shrink will read the disc once - stating that it is 'analyzing' (you can watch the entire disc scroll by in the preview window), and then it will read the disc AGAIN when it is 'encoding'. And again, you can watch the entire disc (if using full-disc mode) scroll by in the preview window. The 'analyzing' you see when you pop in the disc is just a quick scan to read info about all the chapters, extras, and audio tracks, etc - Clear?