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--How
to copy a DVD-9 using DVD Shrink 3.2
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The 3.2 version of DVD Shrink
introduced many new features, enough to make the need for a
new guide essential. In this guide we are going to see how to
copy a DVD using DVD Shrink and the new features and settings.
For those that do not know what DVD Shrink is: it is probably
the best DVD copy application out there today! It is freeware,
it includes many advanced quality features and also a CSS ripper,
which means you can copy protected discs. You can download it
here. Install and start reading this guide! |
When you first start DVD Shrink you need to load the DVD. The
Open Disc button will open a DVD disc you have in your DVD reader
drive, the Open Files button will load DVD files you have in
a folder in your hard disk. We are going to use Open Disc for
now.
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Things are pretty simple here. You just have to select the drive
you have the DVD in and then click OK. Then DVD Shrink will
unlock and analyse the DVD before you continue. If you have
trouble loading the DVD here, try to play the disc for 30secs
with your DVD playback software and then try loading again.
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This is the screen you'll see after DVD Shrink has loaded the
DVD.
(1) These are the contents of the DVD by category. If you select
the category you can edit all it's content as I have done here.
I you want to change the settings for each video track seperately
you can click on the + sign and select each one of them. When
you select one track or category you can change the settings
in the right, that we are going to explain right now.
(2) Here you can select the compression. The bigger the % number
is, the better quality you'll get. The options here are Automatic,
that selects the right compression to fit the DVD automatically,
Custom Ratio, which lets you select the compression you want
(usually used in the extras to lower the quality and gain a
little bit in the movie). Keep in mind that you need to have
a look at the green bar you can see in the top and make sure
that your project fits into a single DVD. Over options are Still
Image, which replaces the video with an image and you use it
when you want to remove that video track and Still Pictures,
which replaces the video with compressed pictures from the movie
taken evey few seconds (pretty useless, unless you want to keep
the audio).
(3) Here you can select the audio tracks you want to keep. Be
careful as some tracks may be director's comments, view the
DVD to make sure what is what and make the right selection.
(4) Here select what subtitles you want to keep. Even if they
seem small, they take some space, so keep the ones you really
need.
Let see an example. |
For example here I have selected the main movie track. (1) The
compression is set to Automatic (2) and I have just selected
one audio track and one subpicture stream. Note because of the
removal of 2 audio tracks and 5 subtitle streams the quality
of the main movie has raised from 59,4% it was in the picture
before to 67.6% now. |
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Let's demonstrate some things you can do with DVD Shrink before
we show how to start encoding!
When you're unsure about which tracks to keep and which not
you can use DVD Shrink's preview feature. Just select the
track you want and then click Play in the preview area. You
can now watch the track and decide weather to keep it or not!
Every track you don't want to keep, you can just replace it
with a still image. Removing it doesn't exist because that
would change the DVD structure. But you don't have to worry.
Just select the track you want to remove (all the whole extras
category if you want to remove all extras), then select Still
image in the video compression drop-down menu and that's it!
You can even select your own image to use by click the Browse
button!
Finally if you want to keep the extras it would be a good
idea to reduce their quality (do the same with the menus)
so that the main movie - which is the thing you should always
give your attention - has better quality. To do that just
select the category (menu or extras or both of them) and in
the video drop-down menu select Custom Ratio. Then move the
slider to the left in order to decrease quality. Make sure
you have set the main movie's setting to automatic so that
it increases quality automatically when you lower the over
parts of the disc. Also make sure the bar in the top is green
- a red edge means that you are over the limit, while a grey
one means you are not using all the available space.
When you have done all the settings, it's time to encode our
movie.
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To bring up the backup options screens you just need to click
the Backup! button in the toolbar in the top of DVD Shrink
window.
First options screen is the Target Device one. Here you just
select what to do with the DVD files DVD Shrink will create.
The first option is to burn the files with Nero (you must
have it installed). If you have CopyToDVD installed this option
will appear also. Also you can create an ISO file and, if
you want, burn it afterwards with DVD Decrypter. Be careful
because this does not mean you can burn just with DVD Decypter
as you need Nero installed again to create the ISO file. Finally
you can just output the files in a hard disk folder and then
decide how to burn them.
The "Select folder for temponary files option" above
the back-up target one (hidden by the menu here) is the location
that DVD Shrink will put the DVD files before burning them.
Make sure the hard disk you select has enough free space and
that you remember where they are as you have to delete them
manually after the burn.
We are not going to go through the DVD Region tab, as you
just leave everything to default (just select Region Free
and leave Provider ID empty). Now you are ready to click the
Quality settings tab.
Here the things are pretty simple. If you want the encoding
to take the less possible speed leave these two options unselected.
This will increase the speed. In the other hand if you want
to have the best possible quality you should enable both of
them, but be ready for a long encoding time. If you click
the "What do these options mean?" link in that window
you can read more about these options in DVD Shrink's help.
For your convenience I have uploaded this document and you
can read it here.
Now click the Options tab.
Here select "Run backup in low priority mode" if
you want to use your PC while DVD Shrink will encode. If not
(I suggest you leave it alone!) then deselect it. The other
two options are obvious so make your selections and then click
the Burn Settings tab.
Here just type the label you want your DVD disc to have and
select a burn speed (Maximum is fine usually). Then click
OK and the encoding begins!
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After that the encoding will begin. Depending on your PC and
the settings you have selected it should take from 30mins to
2hours. After that, depending on your option a new window will
come up to burn the DVD or create the ISO image.
You now think you are a DVD Shrink master don't you? Not yet!
You have successfully made a backup but lets have a look at
another useful small thing! |
The little thing you need to know about is re-author mode. Let's
have a look.
To enable re-author mode click the button in the toolbar (1).
What this mode does is pretty simple. It authors the DVD again
so that you just keep only what you need. When you press the
button the screen changes like the picture above. From the DVD
Browser (2) you can drag-and-drop the tracks you want to keep
in the Re-authored DVD area in the left (3).
Here's the point that needs some more explaination. You can
add whatever you want, BUT the menus will NOT work. Which means
that you'll see the menu animations like a video and you won't
be able to make any selections. So you understand that you should
not add the menus.Without the menus though, there is no easy
way to see the extras (you need to use your standalone's controls
to move between the tracks, not being able to see which track
is what).
So you easily understand that the re-author mode is meant to
be used when you want to keep just the main movie. Actually
re-author is the best way to copy big films like Lord Of The
Rings and others over 3 hours. When you want to keep the menus
and some extras use the guide as we showed above. When you just
want to keep the main movie, use re-author! |
