DVD Shrink requires Nero

[jyeh74]

so you guys are saying with DVD Shrink, whether you 1) create an ISO and burn with Imgburn or 2) burn with Nero (using Video_Ts and VTS files, the output is the same, just different ways of creating the output?

[jyeh74]

So are you guys saying in DVD Shrink under "Select backup target", whether you 1) Burn with Nero or 2) Create ISO image file and burn with Imgburn, it all comes out to the same output, it is just two different ways of doing it?

[Jim44]

Yes. And you can burn video_ts folders with ImgBurn too. You don't have to create an ISO if you don't want to. Use "Build" mode.

[roguefriar]

I know this thread is very old, but thought I'd start here in my search for advice. I cannot really follow the discussion very well. I used to just use dvd decrypter, then dvd shrink to make backup copies of my dvds. Then I made the mistake of upgrading to Nero 12, and now I cannot burn the dvd with dvd shrink. As I understand it, shrink uses an older version of Nero in the background and the links are no longer valid. Since this thread is over four years old, I guess my question/decision at this point is as follows: I ether try and install an older version of Nero and see if it works as it used to OR I look for another way entirely to make backup copies of my DVDs. Anyone other there have any advice?

[hech54]

I know this thread is very old, but thought I'd start here in my search for advice. I cannot really follow the discussion very well. I used to just use dvd decrypter, then dvd shrink to make backup copies of my dvds. Then I made the mistake of upgrading to Nero 12, and now I cannot burn the dvd with dvd shrink. As I understand it, shrink uses an older version of Nero in the background and the links are no longer valid. Since this thread is over four years old, I guess my question/decision at this point is as follows: I ether try and install an older version of Nero and see if it works as it used to OR I look for another way entirely to make backup copies of my DVDs. Anyone other there have any advice?

DVDDecrypter is OUT OF DATE and will not work with newer copy protections(but still a very useful tool).
DVDShrink does not "burn" anything(and is also terribly out of date).
DVDFabDecrypter has a free portion of the program and is probably the most popular decrypter around today.
STOP using Nero to burn DVDs.
Use ImgBurn to burn (it's also free....but be careful to opt out of the additional "stuff" it supposedly tries to install...or just use an older version like I do.)

[OllieTSB]

...try and install an older version of Nero...

I use the other option entirely:

I uncheck DVDSHRINK's "BURN WITH NERO" option and I create the DVD File-Sets to my hard-drive. Then I call up the working version of NERO and burn from there. Then I go back and clean up my hard-drive every so often. It needs to be anyway...

[roguefriar]

I am sorry I am so ignorant about all of this . With DVDFab, do I want to copy, rip, convert or create if I am trying to back up an encrypted movie? Is my goal in this process just to decrypt and copy, or am I trying to shrink/compress? Am I changing file formats? Thanks in advance for your patience.

[CobraPilot]

roguefriar:I am sorry I am so ignorant about all of this . With DVDFab, do I want to copy, rip, convert or create if I am trying to back up an encrypted movie? Is my goal in this process just to decrypt and copy, or am I trying to shrink/compress? Am I changing file formats? Thanks in advance for your patience.

If all you're trying to do is back up an encrypted movie, then you want to copy. Shrink/compression comes into play IF you want to burn to a disc smaller than the original; i.e., from dual-layer (DL) to single-layer (SL) (DVD9 to DVD5). DVDFab offers that choice near the bottom of the screen and will automatically shrink/compress the original DVD9 files to fit on a DVD5, maintaining DVD compatibility.

[Hoser Rob]

The way I prefer to back up commercial dvds (DVD-9's) to DVD-5 is:

Use dvdfab hd decrypter (the free and best part of dvdfab) to remove the copy protection and copy the disc (actually usually just the main video) to a video_ts folder on my HD.

Then, I'd use that folder as input for DVDshrink, which doesn't care if it takes input from a dvd drive or a compatible video_ts folder. DVDshrink may be out of date as far as decrypting but it's a very good encoder. Some DVD source video is grainy to begin with, and compressing it to fit a DVD-5 makes that worse. So I sometimes use the soften filter.

The other thing with DVDshrink is that 2 pass encoding (they call it "deep analysis") gives you way better quality, and I'd use it always.

Using one program to rip (ie. decrypt) and another to encode/compress may sound slower but it actually isn't. Even though it takes another step I think it's faster. You're doing the part that takes less CPU (decrypting) and doing it from the DVD drive. And then the stuff that takes a lot of CPU (encoding) and doing it from the HD, which is much faster. I think this way is easier on the DVD drive as well.

Then I use the .iso file output from DVDshrink and burn it with imgburn. Nero sucks. Everything they make I've ever seen stinks. None of their crappy products will ever grace my Windows partition again.

[Seeker47]

To add a few relevant points:

1) There is an alt. version of Shrink (probably still linked in the VH Tools Section) that calls ImgBurn for burning, rather than Nero. That said, I also long ago unchecked the automated 'Burn' option, in favor of handling each step separately and specifically with the individual tool.

2) Earlier versions of Nero (like 6, which I used to use, up through -- maybe -- 9 ?) do not seem to be compatible with Win-7, and especially the 64-bit versions, so I've given up trying to make them work, and use 12 for those infrequent occasions when I reach for something other than IB.

3) DVD-Rebuilder shrinks with better results than Shrink, and is almost as easy to use.

4) Many seem to feel that the other things Fab does, besides decrypting, it does not do all that well, and so only make use of its decrypting portion. You probably don't want to let it transcode, which will happen if you shrink with it, or maybe even just divide into a couple reconfigured DVD-5s.

I like the custom Re-Author features available in Shrink, which allows menu and selective item retention, or dividing into a couple DVD-5s with selected divide points and No Compression, if I wish. The one place both Shrink and Fab have totally failed me was with 3-hours and longer movies that would have required 10 Gb. or greater in order to retain a good PQ. They both choke and die trying to load such a project, so I get no opportunity there to divvy up the run time into -- say -- three DVD-5s. And AVStoDVD does not seem to offer me a way to output multiple discs. Maybe the answer will be found in BR / AVCHD . . . but I haven't had enough reason to get into that yet.

[nic2k4]

I can't understand why you'd want to use an old program that hasn't been updated in year like DVDShrink. Nero 12 includes Recode which is made by the same guy that did Shrink, it's had many bugs fixed and would let you keep the same workflow you're used to.

As was mentioned before, the only other thing to change is use DVDfab HD Decrypter to rip, but forget about using it to shrink your movie; it doesn't do as good a job as Recode.

[lordsmurf]

I can't understand why you'd want to use an old program that hasn't been updated in year like DVDShrink.

DVD Shrink is still one of the best transcoders.
It's not obsolete.

The alternate Imgburn version is here:
- Burn with ImgBurn in DVDShrink, modified DVD Shrink 3.2 files [DOWNLOAD]

[nic2k4]

DVD Shrink is still one of the best transcoders.
It's not obsolete.

Can't argue with that, it's the same as Recode (just different presentation). All I'm saying is Recode is newer and has had bugs fixed. If all one does with it is transcode, then it probably makes no difference; the transcoding may have been improved over time, but I can't say if the difference is that noticeable.


One thing I can say is that when I trim a movie with newer versions of Recode and convert in AutoGK I don't get out of sync audio like I used to get with Shrink or Recode 2 (from Nero 6).