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"Quality Settings" tab. Here you can select if you would like DVD Shrink to perform a "Deep Analysis" before actually encoding the DVD to improve video quality and almost guarantee output size. It is highly recommended to put a check mark in that box! Also you can put a check mark in the A.E.C. box. A.E.C. stands for "Adaptive Error Compensation". This will also greatly improve video quality. Screen shot below:

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there are two different types of "Analysis" that DVD Shrink will perform. Quick Analysis (QA) & Deep Analysis (DA).

The first analysis that will happen on every DVD you open for the first time is known as a "Quick Analysis". (After you have already opened that particular DVD with DVD Shrink, it will no longer do the "Quick Analysis" on it. After the first time, it is stored in "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\DVD Shrink" so that you do not have to perform a "QA" each time you insert the same DVD.

"Deep Analysis" looks at all the GOPs (Group Of Pictures), as "Quick" analysis is roughly 45 times quicker than the deep one, my guess would be that it looks at 45 time less GOPs. A GOP can contain up to 15 frames in PAL or 18 in the NTSC video format.

What does the "Quick Analysis" do?

It gathers information from the DVD, and then DVD Shrink makes a calculated estimation (Its not really an estimation, it may be off less than 1%) of the amount of compression it is going to use to shrink it down to fit on a standard single layer DVD-R. The time it takes to do a "QA" is generally around 30 seconds to 5 min depending on the size of the DVD.

What does the "Deep Analysis" do?

"Deep Analysis" does two important things:

It verifies that the output file size will NOT exceed the standard 4.37Gb limitation you have with a standard single layer DVD-R.
It greatly improves the output quality of the backup. What it does is analyzes each individual scene of the DVD, and decides how to allocate the bitrate (compress some scenes more than others.) so that the overall output quality will be better since DVD Shrink can apply the compression more accurately. (By no means am I implying that if you do the "DA", you wont have those artifacts or pixelation! I do a "DA" on every one of my backups.)
When using the "DA" feature, your backups will take considerably longer than before if you weren't using "DA". (Usually around 35 min up to an hour depending on the amount of compression that is going to be used and the CPU in your computer.)

NOTE: If the "Deep Analysis" button or option is grayed out (meaning it won't let you select it). It means 1 of 2 things. Either "DA" has already been done for this particular DVD or there would be no compression is required

DVD Shrink 3.2 Quality Enhancement:

Adaptive Error Compensation or "AEC" as it is more commonly known is a quality enhancement feature released in DVD Shrink 3.2.

Although at high compression 30%+ (70% or less on slider) using AEC will provide better output results but better results come at a price - Time. The AEC settings love using up your CPU's juice. If you have a slow computer then it may take you a substantial while longer to make a backup, although (in my opinion) it is worth the wait. If you do not use the AEC settings your backup will be completed a lot sooner and you will yield similar results to version 3.1.7.6.

So which one to pick?

nwg gives this advice:

Using AEC under any setting is better than not using it. Max Sharp is the fastest, while Max smooth is the slowest.
I have found the default AEC setting is fine for most DVD's.
Max smoothness can be good when having around 50% compression. It can reduce or stop the pulsing/pumping effect that can appear from using too much compression.
The AEC is not normally activated at it full effect until below 80% on the compression slider. Max smoothness is activated all the time when it is chosen.

90-99.9% - Max Sharp
80-90% - Default Sharp
65-80% - Smooth
<65% - Max Smooth

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