BatchShrink, a batch wrapper for DVD Shrink 3.2

[midders]

Hi there

I've just released the first version of BatchShrink, a free tool to enable you to encode multiple DVDs one after another with no user interaction using DVD Shrink 3.2

You can download BatchShrink here: http://www.batchshrink.co.uk

Please use this thread to post feedback, bug reports, questions, comments etc. or email me via the website above.

Sláinte

midders

[midders]

If there are any problems with the website it is mirrored here: http://batchshrink.qupis.com/

[Chris K]

Your download links don't work in IE 6. I get a invalid zip with a php source in it.
The mirror says something like file not found. http://batchshrink.qupis.com/getfile.php

[Noahtuck]

First page gives me a zip file to DL but it is an invalid ZIP & will not open, second page gives me some weird error that i can't post here because this site won't let me when i copy and past it



Firefox 3.5.2

So it's not just an IE problem.

IE 6
And i thought i was reluctant to upgrade software

[midders]

Thanks for the heads up; I'm troubleshooting it now.

[midders]

Working on it; seems to be some problem with the hosting. Doh!

[Baldrick]

I now get http://error.000webhost.com/ on main site download.

If you need some space and bandwidth for your downloads let me know.

[midders]

I've kludged a fix using my adrive account for the moment; the download link on batchsrink.co.uk should work now (fingers crossed!). Apologies for the snafu, I'll sort a more permanent fix in the next few days. Rest assured: I'm much better at C++/Win32 than I am at websites!

@Baldrick: if you could let me know about some download space, that would be great; it seems that the "free" hosting that I've opted for doesn't allow file downloading. Thanks.

midders

[Chris K]

OK! The download link at your main website now works.

I hardly ever rip DVD's but I'm curious so here's my first impression and comments.

Currently your app is just a Icon at the system tray that translates a user batch file
into a series of DVD Shrink command line calls (Am I right?).

FWIW...

I don't think the average user will be happy to enter two long command lines with numerous
source and destination paths in a simple text editor. Think of the typos that will be made.
You do no checking for path validity when the batch file is loaded. Currently, everything that
has gone wrong during the process has to be read afterwards from the log file you write.

Your app should startup with a gui where the user can drop the paths to the iso's and/or
VIDEO_TS folders and your app should create the batch file, not the user.
For the destination you could let the user enter a workdir where your app automatically
stores iso's and/or folders with names derived from the source names.

I would include a local help file in the zip with a description like at your website.
I would also add the ability to set the DVD Shrink settings per job. Not only once
for the whole bunch of iso's and/or video_ts folders to process.

Although the basic idea is nice and there would probably be employ for it, I think you have
to re-consider the concept to make it of interest for a wide audience.

Chris

[midders]

OK! The download link at your main website now works.

I hardly ever rip DVD's but I'm curious so here's my first impression and comments.

Currently your app is just a Icon at the system tray that translates a user batch file
into a series of DVD Shrink command line calls (Am I right?).

Sort of... batchshrink uses the windows api to send messages directly to the DVD Shrink window handler.

FWIW...

I don't think the average user will be happy to enter two long command lines with numerous
source and destination paths in a simple text editor. Think of the typos that will be made.
You do no checking for path validity when the batch file is loaded. Currently, everything that
has gone wrong during the process has to be read afterwards from the log file you write.

Your app should startup with a gui where the user can drop the paths to the iso's and/or
VIDEO_TS folders and your app should create the batch file, not the user.
For the destination you could let the user enter a workdir where your app automatically
stores iso's and/or folders with names derived from the source names.

Give me a chance! I agree that a graphical user interface to create the batch file is definitely the way to go and I will be releasing one in the near future (watch this space). My priority was to get 'proof of concept' for the application itself. The GUI will be written using Windows Forms .Net and will require .Net to be installed, unlike batchshrink which is a pure win32 application. Using a default output folder is a good idea and I will implement this in the next release.

I would include a local help file in the zip with a description like at your website.
I would also add the ability to set the DVD Shrink settings per job. Not only once
for the whole bunch of iso's and/or video_ts folders to process.

Which settings in particular would you like to be able to change? As far as I can see, the only useful one that I've left out is the destination size and this is scheduled for the next release as mentioned on the website.

Although the basic idea is nice and there would probably be employ for it, I think you have
to re-consider the concept to make it of interest for a wide audience.

Chris

Thanks for taking the time to feedback; I'll get working!

Sláinte

midders

[Chris K]

Which settings in particular would you like to be able to change? As far as I can see, the only useful one that I've left out is the destination size and this is scheduled for the next release as mentioned on the website.

All options that are now global for all jobs "could be" made available for each individual job.

There are listviews that allow combos (dropdown lists), check boxes, radio buttons etc. on each line.
I don't know but assume that .Net supports that kind of listviews.

Note that this is technically spoken. It's quite a while ago I used DVD Shrink and I'm not able to say
which settings could stay global and which could be useful to set individually.

[drjtech]

I've been using MultiShrink for years and I'm quite happy with it. I'm not sure what advantage batchshrink brings to the table.

http://www.dvdshrink.info/chetwood/

https://www.videohelp.com/download/MultiShrink1.4.sfx.exe

-drjtech

[midders]

The obvious advantage would be that batchshrink only ever has one instance of DVD Shrink running at any one time; this could prove significant when shrinking large numbers of sources. It can also be run directly from the command line, for better integration with batch processing; this would also allow remote execution without having to run remote desktop connection or similar.

I wasn't aware of MultiShrink when I started writing batchshrink, but I would probably have written it anyway; as a programmer I think it's a cleaner and more technicaly pleasing solution to the problem.

Sláinte

midders

[midders]

Version 1.01 is now available for download. This is a bugfix release and addresses the issues experienced by some users when selecting a folder for the shrink destination.

Thanks to Dewz at club.dcfreaks.com for the logfile that helped me isolate this problem.

Sláinte

midders

[Techflaws]

I wasn't aware of MultiShrink when I started writing batchshrink, but I would probably have written it anyway; as a programmer I think it's a cleaner and more technicaly pleasing solution to the problem.

Right, so how does your cleaner solution select only one of three present english audio streams?

[greymalkin]

ha! welcome to user acceptance testing

[midders]

By default Batchshrink selects audio streams using a substring match so that /audio="English Audio" will match "English Audio 1", "English Audio 2" etc. The exception to this is the keyword "Director" which is used to identify Director's commentary streams and exclude them from processing as standard audio streams.

There is currently no way to select between audio streams that have the same name. If you think it would be useful to be able to select audio streams by other criteria such as size, or encoding type I would be happy to consider it as a feature request.

[Techflaws]

Wow, I was merely pointing out that I do not agree with your assumption that BatchShrink is a cleaner solution, not sure how you turned that into a feature request. But don't bother, I'll simply stick with MultiShrink since it already does everything I need and has been doing so for many years.

[midders]

Wow, I was merely pointing out that I do not agree with your assumption that BatchShrink is a cleaner solution, not sure how you turned that into a feature request. But don't bother, I'll simply stick with MultiShrink since it already does everything I need and has been doing so for many years.

I was trying to respond reasonably to a blatantly critical post.

Batchshrink is a cleaner solution in that it only ever has one copy of DVD Shrink running at a time, and communicates with that program via the windows API as was intended by the designers of the windows interface. This may not be a problem for batches of one or two DVD's, but try processing hundreds at a time and wait for the crash...

If you were interested in helping to improve BatchShrink rather than just bashing me for its limitations you wouldn't be surprised by my earlier response.

[Techflaws]

I was trying to respond reasonably to a blatantly critical post.

Same here.

If you were interested in helping to improve BatchShrink rather than just bashing me for its limitations you wouldn't be surprised by my earlier response.

Why would I be interested in improving BatchShrink when MultiShrink already does all I need?

[midders]

I was trying to respond reasonably to a blatantly critical post.

Same here.

Which one was that then?

If you were interested in helping to improve BatchShrink rather than just bashing me for its limitations you wouldn't be surprised by my earlier response.

Why would I be interested in improving BatchShrink when MultiShrink already does all I need?

You're the one posting in the BatchShrink thread; if you're happy with the solution that you use, why did you bother posting in the first place?

[Techflaws]

if you're happy with the solution that you use, why did you bother posting in the first place?

Because I simply couldn't stand your comment about Batchshrink being the cleaner solution where it's clearly lacking features the competition has been offering for years. After all, this is a discussion forum, right? But don't worry, I've gotten tired of debating already.

[wjones]

Hi All,

I found this tool via google - and thought it sounded really interesting.
I have lots (6tb) of movies all ripped to VOB under moviename/video_ts folders. I want to remove the menus on all of them. but keep all the audio & subtitle streams.

It seems that batchshrink would do that job perfectly.

However, the websites linked at the top of this message are dead, google cache has forgotten them too.

Does anyone have a sample batch file layout this tool requires? or a copy of the online help?

Thanks in advance