Even if I have used it several times, with rather good results, I have seen two effects:
1) If you leave the automatic compression Shrinks suggests you can get some image artifacts.
2) If you set your compression manually, as I do, you can stretch it up a little (5GB), but if you go too high (more than 5.1GB) you can get audio glitches.
DVD Shrink compresses the data found on a DVD-9 to fit onto a DVD-5. It does not alter the audio in any way, it can only not include it in the backup.
1. I have never left compression set at automatic. Set to custom in the drop down selection box and set to custom, this will free the slider bar...select menu and move the slider all the way to the left. Do the same with special features and unreferenced materials. This will apply maximum compression to the menus and special features etc., leaving the main movie with a lower compression ratio, resulting in a higher quality backup. But who watches all those special features all the time anyway? Why not just backup in reauthor mode with just the main movie...you've always got your original if there is some directors commentary you just have to hear.
2. I always remove all audio except AC3 5.1 and remove all the subtitles that I do not need.
Set target size to 4300, do not burn at more than 4X, use quality media such as verbatim, taiyo yuden or Sony, Fuji, Maxell ( made in Japan).
Something seems to be going wrong when I send my replies or try to open a new thread on an AfterDawn forum. It happened today when I opened this thread and now when I answered the second thread. It never got there.
Here it goes again:
As I said I never use Shrink's automatic setting. Always works on the slider going up to 5GB in disk size. It works fine. Going more than that seems to cause some clitches on the audio. Using the automatic setting causes image artifacts.
I always burn at the slower speed, usually 2x, but do exceed 4.3GB for total target size. It seems to work fine with the media I use and with CloneDVD2.
When I rip DVDs using Shrink I always leave just the subtitles I need and leave menus in the smaller size.
My concern is this: why when I rip a DVD which is say 100 minutes long it always fits on one 4.7GB disk and when I try todo the same with a captured video that long it won't? How do you set Shrink on such cases?
Backing up DVD's doesn't have as much to do with the length of the video files as it does the size of the files. For example, your basic hour and a half chick flick (monster in law) with no special effects or such could be as little as 3.5 gigs, where as an hour and a half animated movie such as madagascar could be as much as 5.5 gigs. It just depends on the size...I am assuming that when you say captured video, you are referring to home movies from a camcorder. You can run the file through DVD Shrink twice, using the Deep Analysis and AEC controls on the first go 'round to ensure for the highest quality possible since you will be using a whole lot of compression. Ignore the size notification if it says the file is too big and just create an ISO image, when the backup is complete reopen DVD Shrink and go to file, open disc image, and open the ISO image you've just created. Run through the encoding process again and see what you get.
I am assuming that when you say captured video, you are referring to home movies from a camcorder.
Not really, but films captured from my tapes, off satellite or downloaded from the web. On videos shot in DV files do not seem to be so large.
You can run the file through DVD Shrink twice, using the Deep Analysis and AEC controls on the first go 'round to ensure for the highest quality possible since you will be using a whole lot of compression.
What are the AEC controls?
What I do is put my AVI file through Canopus Procoder to get a high quality MPEG2 file. Then use TMPGEnc DVD Author to do the VOB files. When the files are too large TMPGEnc will refuse burning the DVD, so I then use CloneDVD2. If they are still large I use DVDShrink to make them fit.
Ignore the size notification if it says the file is too big and just create an ISO image, when the backup is complete reopen DVD Shrink and go to file, open disc image, and open the ISO image you've just created. Run through the encoding process again and see what you get.
I got a bit lost here. After the Analysis I use the slide control to make a size that I know will not give me any problems. I did try several sizes backups, burning DVD-RWs to see what I got, and still do sometimes when I have any doubts. 5.1GB seems to be the top I can go without audio glitches, after encoding that also with TMPGEnc. Is that what you mean?
