DVDShrink - The latest in 9->5 software

[mysterio1]

I just downloaded DVD shrink 1.3 now it says in the "add movie segment" screen that "This material will not function correctly as menu's" when you click on include menu's icon, i guess its not made to work with menu's. Yet anyways.

[Bob W]

I just downloaded DVD shrink 1.3 now it says in the "add movie segment" screen that "This material will not function correctly as menu's" when you click on include menu's icon, i guess its not made to work with menu's. Yet anyways.

I think that's just in re-author mode not in re-encode mode.

[jayhawk22]

Thank you very much for the help. It seems that my rca recorder will not play dvd+rw but will play dvd+r. It is working great after i found all the info on the site you gave me and i now have the new update of shrink and it works great. You dont need much or lots of time to make a backup of your movie. I used nero express and it took less than and hour with both shrink and nero. I cant thank the author enought for this hard work and will donate soon. This is a real piece of great work. You no longer have to have so many programs and alot of smarts to copy a dvd. WOW this is great. Thanks again for the help! this is a great site and lots of help.

[yg1968]

As mentioned above, a new version of the software (1.03) has come out today (April 10th 2003):

www.dvdshrink.org

Version comments:

Hi everyone,

I finished version 1.03 which contains mainly bug fixes and a few enhancements. I am taking a couple weeks holiday from tomorrow so it was a bit of a rush and not much time to test the result, I hope I haven't broken anything. I have sent it to everyone kindly hosting this software for me so it should appear soon.

The following changes were made (they are also listed in the new help file) -

Re-encoder:

Added extra encode levels. This is not a final solution to the encode interface, just a temporary measure.

Added "Still Movie" encoding: only copy the I-pictures, heavily compressed. This gives huge compression as an alternative to deletion of the entire video stream, which people seem to want, but re-encoder module can't handle, because it alters the navigation structure of the DVD. Audio and subpicture streams will still play normally.

Increased number of samples taken during analysis, so it takes 50% longer but gives more accurate expected sizes. Maybe this should be a user option.

The "not a system pack" error is fixed, by removing non-system packs during the re-encode, rather than throwing an error. I still don't know what these non-system packs are doing in the VOBS, or if they shouldn't be included instead. If they occur, a little message pops up after re-encode is finished.

Re-author:

Increased brightness of video preview in re-author module, add and crop dialogs. Preview windows in other modules are DirectDraw YUV surfaces for performance, so not so easy to modify.

Removed support for multi-angle from re-author. Too many problems. Adding support again will require a virtual rewrite of the re-author module. User is now offered only angle 1, which will prevent crashes.

Added a message next to "include menus" checkbox in re-author, so hopefully people will stop thinking they can, um, include menus.

Added code to strip all buttons and button commands from menus that are added in re-author, actually from anything that is added at all. Most of them contain invalid links or commands, esp. in the case of menu vobs because they move from the menu domain to the VTS domain when the re-authored DVD is built. I guess no buttons is better than invalid buttons.

General:

Fixed stupid bug where region and provider ID changes were written to the .IFO files but not the .BUP files, so they came out different.

Modified error reporting dialog. Now attempts to report the cause of an error using GetLastError() API.

Added check that source and destination folders are different. Not entirely foolproof because of shortcuts.

Just to make sure, encoding/copying will not proceed unless the destination folder is empty of DVD files.

Changed distribution name. From now on, DVDShrink103.exe, and so on. This seems to bugger up the list of recently-used-files which are stored in the registry under the old name, so they are reset when you first start the new version.

An undocumented feature: you can select "options..." from the system menu and delete the recent-used-file lists. Otherwise the lists can become full of invalid folders over time. Or you can just edit the registry

------

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback.

dvdshrink

[sammie]

Hey, looks like he figured out what the region coding problem might be too. I'll give the new version a try.

[Gil T Pleasure]

not a typo cos if you tick them all then open the IFO it says all regions enabled 1,2,3,4,5,6,7+8

if you tick 1 + 2, then it enables 1,2,7+8

I know about regions 1-6, but what is 7 and 8?

[yg1968]

Region 7 and 8 are said to be "reserved". I am not sure what they are reserved for...

[DoubleShadowIce]

Region Codes

1) U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2) Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3) Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4) Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5) Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6) China
7) Reserved
8) Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

[jollyrodger]

When my movie starts to encode, I get the error message UNHANDLED EXCEPTION ON IDLE FILE and then it stops. I've tried this with three movies and all end up the same. I rip to hard drive with DVD Decrypter first as I do with DVD2One.
Has anybody else seen this problem? I am using version 3.
Thanks.

[ElQueso2]

I have copied 2 dvds with DVDShrink and both of them did not turn out well.... InstantCopy did a much better job but at 2x the wait.

Oh well,

DVD Shrink was a nice try.

[PumpkinKing]

I think DVDShrink is better than just a nice try..

The sooner he gets the slider bar in so you can adjust the compression to just under 4.37gb the better. Needs another level ratio between Level 1 & Level 2 (Level 1.5?).

Most films around the 2 hour mark with 5.1 sound get too compressed at the moment. Even if you take out all the extras and leave just movie & sound you're still getting a file size of 4.50gb! And I'm not going to venture into Level 3 compression territory...

Think I'll stick with Instant Copy for now as it works better with menus & gives me great picture quality. But I will keep an eye on DVDShrink as it's shaping up to be something great!

[Kubrick]

I've been using DVDSHRINK since wednesday, here's my observations.

1) This program is *IT*, I can't believe that the author of this freeware app is just giving it away. DVDSHRINK TOWERS above DVD2ONE and every other inferior app. For complete backups, this app is the one! I love the fact that using a 2X DVD-R you can now make an almost perfect DVD backup of your DVD movies in just under 60 minutes!!!

2) I've successfully compressed and burnt over 20 discs in the past couple days, every single one of them worked like a charm on my NORCENT DP-300 DVD player (This DVD player is the BEST! Get it for $50 at Wal-Mart! It plays ANYTHING!).

3) The media I used is OPTODISCS, and they wouldn't play on my modded PS2 (no big deal, I'll be buying a NORCENT DP-300 anyways). The DVD-R's wouldn't play either on my Powerbook G3 using OS 9, they did work however using OS X!

4) The strongest features of DVD SHRINK is it's amazingly streamlined interface, it's easily one of the easiest programs to figure out. Just select what you want to compress or re-encode, then use NERO to burn the discs! I know it sounds silly, but it's actually FUN encoding/authoring DVD's with this incredible app!

DVD SHRINK was the app that convinced me to pluck down the big bucks and buy a LG-4080B dvd-r. I can't thank the creator of this app enough. If there is an award for FREEWARE APP OF THE YEAR, this guy should seriously get it! C'mon VCDHELP! Recognize the man!

Sincerely Yours,

- Kubrick

[Bob W]

"If there is an award for FREEWARE APP OF THE YEAR, this guy should seriously get it! C'mon VCDHELP! Recognize the man!"

LOL I understand he took off on a two week vacation shorty after releasing the latest version of DVDshrink. Lately I have been using it over the other programs because it it fast and I like to play with the compression ratios to see if I can get the main movie into level two (sometimes this requires I make some of the extras still pictures).

[Kubrick]

"If there is an award for FREEWARE APP OF THE YEAR, this guy should seriously get it! C'mon VCDHELP! Recognize the man!"

LOL I understand he took off on a two week vacation shorty after releasing the latest version of DVDshrink. Lately I have been using it over the other programs because it it fast and I like to play with the compression ratios to see if I can get the main movie into level two (sometimes this requires I make some of the extras still pictures).

Gone on vacation...or gone into hiding! This app is soooo good that it's guaranteed to raise the eyre of the MPAA.

Screw DVDXCOPY, DVD SHRINK is the cat's meow!

- Kubrick

[patricia3470]

DVD Shrink works like a dream,have decoded several 6 to 7GB files,down to 4.38GD, and they look great, This piece of equipment works 100% Also no problems burning with Nero.
Highley reccomended.

Cheers david.

[vric]

I dont have a DVD-RW yet, but I did try it for fun. the new 1.3 version is great !

You can rip the movie + Working menu Menu and keep only some extra..

You just need to re-encode the Extra you don't want at the lowest setting (praticly always below 10meg) (still movie)

I Did try with FInal Fantasy DVD. The movie it self is under 4.7gig, but over with menu.

1. I made the movie at Level 4 and the big making of (over 90 minutes) at level 8. Movie look good, some quality lost but still good (remind me DivX Quality) and the making of is... look like VCD

2. I made the movie at no compression, and compress a bit the menu. Compress to still movie every other extra. On power DVD, the Menu work and Scene selection work too.

This soft look very good, and probably the easyest way to keep only extra you want and dont corup the DVD or menu (just compress to Still movie for the extra you don't want.)

Now I need to find a DVD-RW

EDIT: Anyone can try this ? It work on my PC, but Want to know if it work on a standalone DVD player.. All chapiter selection work, extra too (but are like 1fps for those I didn't want) IF it work, then i will be happy

[mysterio1]

"If there is an award for FREEWARE APP OF THE YEAR, this guy should seriously get it! C'mon VCDHELP! Recognize the man!"

LOL I understand he took off on a two week vacation shorty after releasing the latest version of DVDshrink. Lately I have been using it over the other programs because it it fast and I like to play with the compression ratios to see if I can get the main movie into level two (sometimes this requires I make some of the extras still pictures).

Gone on vacation...or gone into hiding! This app is soooo good that it's guaranteed to raise the eyre of the MPAA.

Screw DVDXCOPY, DVD SHRINK is the cat's meow!

- Kubrick

Yeah right, I tried it a few times and the menu's dont work, Its a great app though, Ill use it for some movies it fast and very easy to use.

[rdalcanto]

DVDShrink - My impression....
I think DVDShrink is great for movies that don't require re-encoding. The fact that you can easily stip away extra sound tracks, and even crop the crap at the front of the film and the credits, means I will be able to fit more movies on a DVD-r without re-encoding than I could using IFOEdit. AND, it is MUCH easier to use than IFOEdit. Very nice package.
Movies that require re-encoding will be backup using DVD2DVDR. I tested Lord of the Rings with both, and there was a definite quality difference. The transcoding of DVDShrink can't compare to the encoding of CCE. If you have a regular TV, it probably won't matter. But, since I have a 50inch HDTV with a nice DVD player, it makes a big difference for me.
So, out with IFOEdit, in with DVDShrink. DVD2DVDR still rules for re-encoding.

Rick

[neogeosnk]

Got a 65 inch hdtv. Can't tell the difference. Not waiting for 5 hours for marginally better quality.. Dvdshrink is good. Dvd2one is good also. Tv is calibrated and still can't see the difference or should i say a dramatic difference... So why waste time. If you want a perfect copy, buy the original.

[Bob W]

Got a 65 inch hdtv. Can't tell the difference. Not waiting for 5 hours for marginally better quality.. Dvdshrink is good. Dvd2one is good also. Tv is calibrated and still can't see the difference or should i say a dramatic difference... So why waste time. If you want a perfect copy, buy the original.

I agree waiting three or more hours for programs like Instant Copy is not worth the questionable improvement in quality IMO.

[Harvy2001]

hmmm just used this for LOTR and it seems bloody good enough for me.


Is it me or does this actually produce better quality than DVD2One???


I noticed it seems to compensate very well for the complicated scenes or when thier a lot of movement as you can clearly see the bitrate jumps.


So whats the definitive verdict?

[rdalcanto]

Neogeosnk,
With a 65 inch HDTV you should definitely be able to tell the difference. What DVD player are you using? Are you using the component inputs (the three stranded cable)? If you are using an cheap DVD player and S-video you are depriving yourself of the visual experience you payed good money for. I like DVDShrink, but there is no comparison between transcoding and re-encoding with CCE.

Rick

[neogeosnk]

Hmm.. Lets see. Mitsubishi 65 incher w/ 3:2 pulldown. 1 1/2 year old Pioneer elite dvd player w/progressive scan. Connected via monster component cables. Calibrated to 6500k/geometry professionally (fixed red mitsu push also). I just did grave of the firelies, looks about 95% the same (some slight noise). Got lazy and did the whole dvd and not strip items off. Think it's pretty damn good for 17 minute encode + 32 minute record. Have almost an exact copy of Grave of the firelies for the price of a netflix membership + $0.75 dvdr. Hmmmnn.. Sorry not convinced enough to go back to CCE and wait 4 1/2 hours just to have a dvd that looks 97% as good as the original.

[JasonK]

Definitely better quality with CCE on my HDTV. I'm pretty picky though. I want my backups to be as close to my originals as possible.

[txpharoah]

Works fine so far. Backs the disc up quickly and easily. Just open your favorite burning software after DVDshrink works its magic.

[tjtoed]

I used DVD2One and DVDShrink to back up the movie only of Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets and the DVD2One backup was much better. The DVDShrink backup was twitchy and jerky, while the DVD2One backup played flawlessly...

It's slick, but not enough so for me to dump DVD2One.

[Gil T Pleasure]

Found this @ Doom9.org...

IfoRegionFree removes RCE from DVDShrink output.

Check it out 8)

[Scumbag]

I just used it back up Chanmber of Secrets, and it worked flawlessly - both the movie and the extras disk. First time I've used the tool, and I'm sold. Well, the price is right.

jr

[wonderuss]

Did Back to the Future region2 (7.52gb) with DVD2ONE and was able
to fit it onto a DVD+R no problem and the quality was good, but when
i tried the latest version on DVDshrink it will still only go down to 4.63gb!
The new encoding settings are a good adition but i think it still needs to
go a bit lower!

[Bob W]

Did Back to the Future region2 (7.52gb) with DVD2ONE and was able
to fit it onto a DVD+R no problem and the quality was good, but when
i tried the latest version on DVDshrink it will still only go down to 4.63gb!
The new encoding settings are a good adition but i think it still needs to
go a bit lower!

You need to do a custom level compression. There is a button to do just that on the level screen.