VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 16 of 16
Thread
  1. Hey guys

    Having only used DvdShrink a couple of times, I was wondering how much compession on the main movie you can get away with before you start to notice it? And do you have a point where you think 'this is gonna be awful if I go ahead'?

    I ask because with my last movie (an xxx title ) I had to fully compess everything before I could get it to fit on a dvd, and I thought it looked awful afterwards.

    Cheers
    Bedlam
    Quote Quote  
  2. Member
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Peterborough, England
    Search Comp PM
    It all depends on what the movie is. An action movie with lots of high speed movement will look pretty grim with not a lot of compression. Something that has little rapid movement will still look OK with much more. I find that anything lower than 80% gets quite noticable but that only happens occasionally as I always re-author and only keep the main movie.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Miskatonic U
    Search Comp PM
    To many factors to give an absolute. I use Shrink mainly for re-authoring, and DVD Rebuilder with CCE to reencode to size. If it is only a few % then I'll leave it up to shrink, but otherwise . . . . .

    But each to their own. We have had posters claim they can't tell the difference between the backup and the original at a 55% shrink.
    Read my blog here.
    Quote Quote  
  4. Member mats.hogberg's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Sweden (PAL)
    Search Comp PM
    Yes, I first try full disc, and if I go below 70%, I reauthor and keep main title only. At times, I've been forced to go as low as 60-65%, but I've found the quality acceptable (=hardly any noticable difference from the original to my eyes) even at this high compression.
    But it all comes down to: Source bit rate (if the video is already @ 4000 kbps, 50% shrinking will look awful, but if it's 9000 kbps, 50% might still look very good), and content

    /Mats
    Quote Quote  
  5. VH Veteran jimmalenko's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Down under
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by Bletch
    I was wondering how much compession on the main movie you can get away with before you start to notice it? And do you have a point where you think 'this is gonna be awful if I go ahead'?
    Trial and error, my friend ... trial and error.



    Only YOU can decide at what percentage YOU start to notice it. After all, it is YOUR eyes watching YOUR backups on YOUR TV ...



    Any number of factors can contribute to the final quality, including (but not limited to):
    • bitrate used in the original production of the DVD
    • your eyesight
    • your viewing device

    You really just need to try a few, and see roughly where your threshold sits.
    If in doubt, Google it.
    Quote Quote  
  6. The responses you've gotten so far are on the money. As a general rule of thumb, however, I've noticed that going below about 60% of the original filesize with DVDShrink produces some fairly ugly compression artifacts that are readily visible.

    You might think about dumping DVDShrink and trying ReJig instead. ReJig in my experience does a better job of compressing video more without generating obvious compression artifacts. Even with ReJig, though, if you find yourself forced to get down below around 50% of the original filesize it's time to either think about splitting the movie into 2 DVDs or using some computer-only encoding format like divx, or just learning to live with compression artifacts if you absoultye positively must have the complete DVD backed up onto a single DVD-R disc.

    ReJig and DVDRebuilder make a dynamite combination.
    Quote Quote  
  7. Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    You can reduce the amount of compression needed by getting rid of things you don't need such as extra sound tracks, other languages and unwanted features. A 5-channel sound track can take several hundred megabytes for example. Better quality video at the expense of keeping only 2-channel stereo is a pretty good tradeoff. If you want the whole magilla, don't shrink it to start with.
    Quote Quote  
  8. Member
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Peterborough, England
    Search Comp PM
    Removing extra soundtracks and picture substreams is a good idea but be careful removing the 5.1 soundtrack and leaving the 2 channel one. On the vast majority of commercial DVDs, the 2 channel soundtrack is the directors commentary and not the movie soundtrack. The other thing to bear in mind is that you may not have a 5.1 system at the moment, but if you buy one in the future then you will need it.
    Quote Quote  
  9. Thanks for your input guys, at the moment I'm trying not to use more than 20% compression, sometimes leaving off extras or foreign language tracks.
    Quote Quote  
  10. Originally Posted by jimmalenko
    Any number of factors can contribute to the final quality, including (but not limited to):
    • bitrate used in the original production of the DVD
    • your eyesight
    • your viewing device
    Going by the genre of the video (X rated), I don't think eyesight is going to be too much of an issue... 8)
    Quote Quote  
  11. Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    south wales
    Search Comp PM
    i like the last comment but to be fair - he was only asking a question no matter WHAT the content!

    The problem with the majority of xxx titles is that they are videos put onto dvd. They usually are very poor quality to start with.

    If you have poor source in, you will have crap out.

    so, even if you use the best backup method of DVDRebuilder and CCE, you will still come up against this problem.

    XXX usually means - You Have Been Fleeced Sucker!
    Quote Quote  
  12. VH Veteran jimmalenko's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Down under
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by garryheather
    Originally Posted by jimmalenko
    Any number of factors can contribute to the final quality, including (but not limited to):
    • bitrate used in the original production of the DVD
    • your eyesight
    • your viewing device
    Going by the genre of the video (X rated), I don't think eyesight is going to be too much of an issue... 8)
    All he said was that "I ask because with my last movie (an xxx title )..." - he's actually asking about all movies in general, and not just XXX AFAIK. That was just an example of his last movie


    ... and I answered it much more generally for the 1,000's of other people who will no doubt ask this question in the future.
    If in doubt, Google it.
    Quote Quote  
  13. [url=http]text[/url] Denvers Dawgs's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Right Behind You. . .
    Search Comp PM
    I once asked this question myself. and got the same "you must choose for yourself answer."

    That's all you can do
    What We Do In Life, Echoes In Eternity....
    Quote Quote  
  14. 6 years later and Blue-ray player/HD tv upscaling does a GREAT job advancing and erasing this primitive problem.

    I'm from the future, and I won't be back!
    Quote Quote  
  15. Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    California,United States
    Search Comp PM
    And then again, You could always switch to one of the converter compressors that will convert the mpg2 to h264 and get some real compression without much loss to quality.

    Tony
    Quote Quote  
  16. Banned
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    ®Inside My Avatar™© U.S.
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by ninjinturdle View Post
    I'm from the future, and I won't be back!
    Really ?

    And you obviously like the past.....
    6 year old thread for that bit of wisdom ?
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!