Really need some serious helps with DVD Shrink!!!

[coxanhvn]

Hello, I am trying to copy my DVD 9 to my DVD 5. I have tried to shrink twice, but the size won't fit on my DVD 5.

What should I do now?

Why some people say that DVD2One could do it but Shrink wouldn't? Isn't DVD Shrink designed to shrink?

[victoriabears]

use a DL dvd blank, best idea in the long run, what decrypter are you using, coz if you are relying on shrink its very old.

[guns1inger]

DVD Shrink is a transcoder. It works by looking for data in the original encoding that it believes it can get rid of. This method usually works, but has some limitations. If the original was already fairly heavily compressed, Shrink may not have much to work with, and therefore cannot get you down to the right size in the first attempt. Some people suggest that you should the results of the first pass through Shrink again to get it down to the target size.

My take on it is that if Shrink cannot do it in the first pass, then Shrink is the wrong tool to use for that disc. If it does get the size down on the second (or even third) pass through the data, the quality will be so low you would not want to watch it anyway.

This leaves you with two choices;

1. Use an encoder to reduce the size. The best free option is DVD Rebuilder with HCEnc. This will take longer than Shrink, but the results will be far better.

2. Burn to a Verbatim +R DL disc, as the source is so jam packed that any reduction will cause an unacceptable loss of quality.

Of course, as you have given no details on how you are using Shrink, for all I know you may have simply screwed up.

Did you re-author ?
Did you change any of the compression settings ?
What is the size of the source disc ?
What is the combined running time of all the assets on the source disc ?

[hech54]

I have tried to shrink twice, but the size won't fit on my DVD 5.

Virtually impossible. DVDShrink has not been updated in many years. Most likely you are
trying to shrink a new(er) disc that DVDShrink cannot handle as far as copy protections goes.
Rip the entire disc to your hard drive with DVDFabDecrypter....then open that with DVDShrink
and transcode.
Read some guides on DVDShrink. Re-authoring and taking the "movie only" is the best bet.

[gll99]

First you must do what heck54 says about ripping with a more current tool then....

DVDShrink is not always meant to run with the defaults. You need to look at what is selected or de-selected. Maybe you want to keep an audio track or subtitles that have not been selected. You may want to change warning video or menus to an externally chosen picture etc.. You also may not agree with the compression chosen for the extras, like trailers where you could choose to use more compression leaving more room (and less compression) for the main movie. Each adjustment you make will have an impact on size and DVDShrink tries to adjust automatically but I find it better to do these things manually for a better result. There is an indicator/progress bar at the top just above the compresssion settings label with the number of MB shown just above it. That should show a pretty accurate file size that DVDShrink will produce. If the MB shown seem too large then you have to increase the compression, drop something (trailers, extra audio) or switch to main movie only mode (re-author) to compensate.

[Bjs]

Dvdshrink in reauthor mode ... or you can use custom ratio for video ... also possible to run dvdshrink again on the output from fist run but quality of picture may start to suffer.

Also shrinkto5 basic

[coxanhvn]

Hola, sorry all for not being so clear... The movie I'm trying to copy is "Twilight" (2008). Its length is ~2hrs, and the size is ~7GB. I would like to copy the main movie and menus only, but I just can't, so I did the full backup. Is there any good soft out there I can try to back up the main movie and keeping menus and subtitles, etc?

I also tried to re-author the main movie only like hech54 said, but it would take ~6GB, almost the whole DVD9 disc! I just like Shrink because I feel it's simple for me (newbie 8)), but I'm about to try out the softs that you guys have just suggested, so please show me if there is more similar programs like DVD Shrink!

I do care about quality, but I like to go with "enough for a normal person!" So my other question is what is the maximum length a video SHOULD I put on a DVD5 for a NORMAL use? And I think it's obviously not 2hrs, because that is the length some producers have chosen for a movie on a DVD5 (hope I said it's right )

Lastly and will be "repeated," thanks for all!

[Dv8ted2]

I had no problem backing up Twilight with anydvd and dvshrink. Hit the analyze button in Dvdshrink and it will fix the filesize to the correct size then shrink away.

[hech54]

I also tried to re-author the main movie only like hech54 said, but it would take ~6GB, almost the whole DVD9 disc!

YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!!!!!!
DVDShrink WILL give you what you want....no matter how big the original movie is.

[Noahtuck]

Maybe i missed it but, what are you ripping the disc ith before putting it into shrink ??

I did my son's copy of twilight by ripping with DVDFab HD Decrypter & shrunk it with Dvdshrink.

No problems at all & it was an older version of dvdfab as i did it right after he bought it.

[coxanhvn]

YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!!!!!!
DVDShrink WILL give you what you want....no matter how big the original movie is.

I'm sorry but I thought like you too, but I tried to shrink with the original disc, and the "main movie" will take ~6gb if I try to reauthor it. I hope this explains you why, because I haven't had any problem when reauthoring the main movie with my other discs.

Maybe i missed it but, what are you ripping the disc ith before putting it into shrink ??

I did my son's copy of twilight by ripping with DVDFab HD Decrypter & shrunk it with Dvdshrink.

No problems at all & it was an older version of dvdfab as i did it right after he bought it.

I just shrink it with the original disc, no software used before that.

Anyhow, I tried to use AnyDVD as Dv8ted2 said, and it worked, just don't know why it won't in DVD Shrink.

Thanks for all for your suggestions, but I still have some other ques (I bolded them in my post), please help this newbie out

1. I would like to copy the main movie and menus only (no ads and extras), but I just can't, so I did the full backup. Is there any good soft out there I can try to back up the main movie and keeping menus and subtitles, etc?

2. I just like Shrink because I feel it's simple for me (newbie ), but I'm about to try out the softs that you guys have just suggested, so please show me if there is more similar programs like DVD Shrink!

3. What is the maximum length a video SHOULD I put on a DVD5 for a NORMAL use? And I think it's obviously not 2hrs, because that is the length some producers have chosen for a movie on a DVD5 (hope I said it's right)?

4. How do I join my 2 DVDs into one, but still keeping the menus?

[hech54]

I just shrink it with the original disc, no software used before that.

Anyhow, I tried to use AnyDVD as Dv8ted2 said, and it worked, just don't know why it won't in DVD Shrink.

What part of this didn't you understand from 3 days ago?

DVDShrink has not been updated in many years. Most likely you are
trying to shrink a new(er) disc that DVDShrink cannot handle as far as copy protections goes.

[guns1inger]

DVD Shrink has not been updated in years, so it should not be used for ripping newer films. DVDFab HD Decrypter is free and will rip pretty much anything. Keep it up to date and newer films won't be an issue.

Once you have it ripped you can load it into Shrink and play around with it.

Shrink won't let you do a movie only copy with menus. You can replace the extras with a black image to reduce the space they take up, but might still have to sacrifice a couple of hundred MBs. Better to use VOBBlanker to remove the assets if you must keep the menus.

Length is not the issue. The universal rule is File Size = Bitrate X Running Time. Make the bitrate lower, and you can fit a longer running time. I have seen many commercial discs with movies around the two hour mark that will happily fit on a DVD5 without shrinking once all the extras, unwanted audio tracks and menus are removed. Personally, I never saw the point of keeping the menus on a movie only rip.

If you have two different DVDs that you want to combine on a single disc and keep both menus then about the only simple option is DVD Remake Pro. This will let you join the discs, and will add a top level menu that will let you pick which movie you want to watch, and then go to the menu or that movie.

[RabidDog]

Or (average)Bitrate = 4.7gb / running time .. plug in 8.9gb if you are using a Dual layer blank.

EG 4700 / 240 = 19.83mb/minute average bitrate.