How to shrink DVD9 to DVD5 with no Quality loss?

[CERO]

Hiya, I am really new into this, I got a DVD9, and I want a DVD5 copy out of it, what apps do I need, and what settings, I just dont want to lose any quality at all. Any help? thnx!

[manono]

Hi-

I just dont want to lose any quality at all.

You're asking the impossible. Now, if the movie alone is less than DVD5 size, and you remove everything else (menus, extras, unneeded audio and subtitle tracks), then you'll be able to pull it off. But whether you use a transcoder (DVD Shrink) or an encoder (CCE, HCEnc, TMPGEnc, etc.) to shrink the size, there will always be quality loss. You may or may not be able to tell the difference, but it will be there. The best quality will be a full reencode and for that perhaps the free version of DVD-Rebuilder is the way to go. There are plenty of guides around for its use.

[guns1inger]

And any software that advertises that it can do it without quality loss is

a) lying

and

b) usually going to introduce a fair degree of quality loss

[CERO]

I see well let me redefine my question, How to shrink DVD9 to DVD without any noticeable Quality ( Video/Audio) loss, I gonna watch it on my Sony Bravia 40 inch screen with a home cinema set, so sound is also important, could u help me out now? Thnx

* edit Is it possible to burn a DVD9 content 2x DVD5 ( spreading over 2 DVDs?) instead of shrinking it to 1 DVD5 size

[guns1inger]

There is no absolute answer to question one. For question two, look at DVDFab Platinum for a simple solution, or to the guides section for more manual methods.

Back to question one.

As pointed out by Manono, some discs can, once you strip away all the menus/extras/unwanted audio etc, fit onto a single DVD5 with little or no re-encoding required.

Others will have to be re-encoded and the size reduced by up to 40% or more, which may be a big ask.

It is also difficult to predict just how much quality might be lost by re-encoding, as this varies from disc to disc. Some movies can withstand a large decrease in size with minimal ill effects. Others show artifacts after only a small squeeze.

Start by opening the disc in DVDFab HD Decrypter. You can quickly see just how much space each item takes up. If you are really serious about quality, do a movie only rip with just the audio and subtitles you want. No menus, no extras. Then, if it doesn't fit, use DVD Rebuilder with HCEnc to reduce the size to fit.

However the best solution is to use Dual Layer discs if you really want to preserve the quality.

[CERO]

Thnx a bunch guns1linger, I will experiment with the apps u mentioned, if it doesnt work out the way I like, I will just get some dual layer disks :up:

[Richard_G]

I use DVDShrink and only copy the main movie. I remove all menus, extras, foreign audio tracks, subtitles, etc. Probably about 70% of movie releases will then fit on a DVD5 without any compression so the quality doesn't change. Of those that still won't fit without compression, it is going to be quite low. Anything less than 85% usually won't be noticable, any more will depend on what it is. Lots of fast movement may show noticeable degradation, but it all depends on how critical you are.

[jman98]

* edit Is it possible to burn a DVD9 content 2x DVD5 ( spreading over 2 DVDs?) instead of shrinking it to 1 DVD5 size

Yes, but it's not always easy to do. Unfortunately, I can't give you any exact guides. Depending on the contents and how the DVD is laid out, you can do this with IFOEdit and you may possibly also have to use VOB Blanker. Note that most of time this will involve splitting the movie into 2 parts.

If you want to shrink your DVDs to single layer size and do it as well as possible, my suggestion would be to use DVD Rebuilder with either CCE or HCEnc as your encoder.