As the title states... What does everyone think? I really only need to compress my dvds after ripping them. Just not ready to dish out $70 for Dvd2one. So does popcorn do a good job @ compressing? Well lets see what everyone thinks.... Or other alternatives rather than using Dvd2one.
Theres no reason to spend a penny on and dvd ripping/burning software. DVD Shrink is freeware and does a beautiful job. My eyes and ears can't tell a difference between the originals and the hundreds I've backedup using just freeware. Shrink to compress and DVD Decrypter to rip and burn.
Heres a great guide for you:
http://forum.dvddecrypter.com/index.php?showtopic=7984
Thanks bro for the follow up! Unfortunately, I'm a new converted Mac user. I love my PCs, but since I got an Ibook I can't put it down, and I'm slowly learning that there isn't much freeware out there for Macs. The software you refered me to isn't OS X compatitible! Thanks again, sorry I didn't clearify that I need compression software for MacX.
On a side note, you may want to consider purchasing an external firewire or USB DVD burner. Ripping and burning DVDs puts a hell of a lot of wear and tear on a drive and the internal ibook drives are not cheap to replace, not to mention the amount of heat that constant reading or writing DVD media can create for your ibook.
Has any had any problems or issues burning dvds with their ibook/powerbook? I guess I could see that being feasible because it takes so freakin long to rip,compress, and burn. I really really doubt I'll buy an external drive... Completely defeats the purpose of having a superdrive. Thanks for the heads up though. Back to the main topic real quick. Using Popcorn to compress really hurts the qaulity. Does DVD2One really lose video quality?
The quality will be hurt regardless of which program you use for compressing - keep in mind that you're compressing a video stream that has already been compressed considerably to begin with - ever see how much space an uncompressed DV (Digital Video) stream takes? The mpeg stream on the DVD is the result of a compression by a factor of say 8 or 10... so, compressing that by another factor of 2 is not going to work wonders on the quality. That's simply a given. There's only so much a compression program can do.
I usually decide whether or not to compress based on movie content and size. If the movie proper (without extras) is say 5.2 GB in size, compressing it down to 4.5 won't usually affect quality all that much. If it's 6.8 and the content is visually appealing (so that compression artifacts will be detrimental) I don't compress, I split on two -R blanks. I use DVD2OneX both for compressing and splitting. Never regretted the money spent.
Just my 2 cents. YMMV.
Iffin you want an opinion based upon the original thread title -
DVD2One is a most excellent encoder, far better than most used in other programs. CloneDVD2 is a user-friendly program with a fairly fast encoder / burner and both can be used to compliment each other.
My suggestion would be to use CloneDVD2 for any DVD's requiring 92% or less compression and DVD2One for anything over that.
Both programs require a ripper and with RIPGuard upon the horizon I would lean heavily towards AnyDVD. Ripguard is said to attack ripping programs that rip from the disc to the HD. As AnyDVD is a "driver-type" decrypter it is my feeling that it would be one of the few rippers against which Ripguard would have no effect.
The last proggy I would consider for our Mac friend would be CopyToDVD as it is one of the fastest, if not THE fastest burners around PLUS it works hand-in-hand with DVD2One.
The bottom line ? That would be a set of programs that would take care of anything you would ever run across and do it in style.
