When backing up a DVD-9 to a single blank DVD which method of encoding provides the best video quality.
A: Compressing using DVDshrink or
B: Converting to DivX and then burning it to a data DVD
I would stick with DVDShrink. "Re-author" and just copy the movie and audio you need, then be sure to do a deep analysis. Deep analysis will ensure the best quality in graphic intense scenes like shootouts and explosions.
When I re-author I often end up with a movie that doesn't need compression at all. Often the movie is still too big and trimming (using Set Start/End Frames) some of the end credits will fix that. I always trim the bs from the beginning anyway. If you successfully trim so compression is not needed, then the program will not need to compress it, therefore zero quality loss. Zero compression will also save a lot of time in the backup process. But even if the movie still needs to be compressed to say 80% for example, I see no loss in quality. I even have one movie (very low action scenes) that was compressed to 55% of its original size and it still worked, but still I think got lucky on that one. 95+% of my movies are 80 to 100% after trimming. So far all my animated movies were 100%, Bugs Life, Toy Story etc. Great because those get destroyed or lost by the kids in no time.
I use Nero 6303 for everything. I?ve still had a few burns that went bad because I was doing other stuff on the computer like checking my email. Bad idea. The burn is sometimes ruined if the computer is doing other things, so as hard as it may be, leave it alone during the burn process. I click ?block traffic? on my firewall and disable AV.
If you really want the most concentrated effort from your system, then go here: C:\WINDOWS\PCHEALTH\HELPCTR\Binaries\msconfig.exe. (btw, this is on my XP Pro machine, not sure about others), Click ?startup? and ?disable all?, then restart computer. Be sure you are unplugged from the net because this will disable your firewall and antivirus. Besides internet traffic may interfere with the burn too. Be sure to reset this back to original and restart before connecting back to the net.
DivX mpeg4 cant compare to even a compressed mpeg2 video. DivX vs DVD Shrink isnt a comparison i've ever thought of. Two really different things which arent usually an either or...
I think your question is not that irrelevant. If you want to keep extras and/or languages from your original DVD, you always end up with compression. Even if you keep only the movie in one language, you sometimes have to face compression if the movie is more than 2 hours long. And unfortunately, Shrink is free and very user-friendly but is not good at compression. According to dvd.box.sk, it's even the worst tool regarding that matter! Have a look at this comparative study: http://dvd.box.sk/articles8.php
So you may want to use another tool when the image quality level goes under 80% in Shrink. But even with a good tool, compression still means quality loss. DivX/MPEG4 would allow you to compress the size without compressing the quality.
But remember very few home DVD players accept DivX/MPEG4. And I don't have a clue about which tool you should use to make a DVD-compliant DivX disc...
Thanks for the replies, although I think my question has been slightly mis-understood.I wish to backup a movie that runs to over 2hrs 35mins onto a single blank DVD. Even with stripping out menus, extras, unnecessary audio streams it will not fit onto a disk without compression. So my question is really whether compressing with DVDshrink at about 70% will provide better video quality than encoding to DivX at about 3500 kbits/sec?
Compressing at about 70% with Shrink will not provide a good image. You will see the quality loss if you have good eyes. But I can't tell whether DivX would provide a better image or not.
Anyway, if you really want to backup such a long movie and if you care about image quality, don't use Shrink. Give DivX a try or just buy a good tool such as DVD2One or DVD X Copy.
