I was following Scuba Pete's page a while back to learn how to configure, decrypt, rip, and burn my DVDs for backup. Somewhere I got lost in his instructions and instead accidently used DVD Shrink to do everything but burn my DVDs. After recently reloading my PC, I had to reinstall all my software, so I following Scuba Steve's instructions again. At that point in time I realized that I wasn't doing it as told. I read more constantly that DVD Decrypter is the better to rip with. Is there any difference and why so? Personally I like to skip the whole first step with DVDD and just use Shrink, and then DVDD. Obviously most people are doing the extra step for a reason, but why?
Back then DVD Shrink could do all the steps. But DVD Shrink stopped having updates of the program. Which made the decrypting of the DVD's obsolete due to new copy protection coming out and DVD Shrink not being able to decrypt it. So some would use DVD decrypter to rip the files to the Hard Drive and then load them into DVD Shrink. DVD Decrypter was updated frequently keeping up with the new copy protection. Now DVD Decrypter isn’t updated anymore so it is obsolete in decrypting the newer copy protected DVD's. Now allot of people use AnyDVD which is updated frequently and keeps up with the new copy protection. I used to run AnyDVD while using DVD Decrypter just to rip the DVD to the Hard Drive. But AnyDVD has added a ripping option so it will rip to the Hard Drive now. I like to rip the DVD to the Hard Drive instead of having the transcoder (AnyDVD) read the disc from the DVD Drive. So the main answer to your question is... DVD Shrink couldn’t handle some new copy protection so you used DVD Decrypter to rip the Copy Protection away. Also some would rather rip the DVD to the Hard Drive instead of having a transcoder (DVD Shrink) read the DVD from the DVD Drive. If you’re interested in AnyDVD you can get it at http://www.slysoft.com
Another good reason to use Decrypter (or any good ripper) to move the files over to the hard drive is because it's faster. Encode just takes less time working with files on a hard drive than on a DVD.
Digerati8 larrylje and Jigen make good points. I doubt anyone could have explained the situation with copyright protection better than larrylje. The software can only do what is was programed for. The authors weren't clairvoyant, so without updates, they can't process the more difficult protections added since loss of support. On a historical note, DVD was recommended by the author of Shrink when a problem was encountered with decryption. So as long as DVD Decrypter was supported, it was the "go to" for Shrink. As Jigen pointed out, a source is more easily processed from the HDD. One has to add the time to get the source ripped as well as processing from the HDD. The AnyDVD Ripper processes for compliance on the rip to the HDD. If compliance issues come up with using DVD Decrypter + AnyDVD, an app such as FixVTS is needed to process for compliance. The files are on the HDD to work with if that is needed. The AnyDVD incorporates FixVTS for compliance. So, either way, it can pay to have ripped files on the HDD with some of the harder copyright protections. There's still releases that DVD Shrink can do alone. King Kong is a good example. There's an even larger number that DVD Decrypter can do. Then there are some of the newer releases that require the newer software. With some of the newer releases, they've had to be processed by way of HDD files with compliance editing software. [bold]So there in a nutshell is the why of the extra steps, increased copyright protections.[/bold] I intentionally didn't mention decryption using DVD Decrypter, PgcEdit, and the PSL2 files and compliance processing with FixVTS. That's even more steps and a separate thread. There's guides for that for those interested. Check out Alkohol.
Here is a link to that guide. http://www.k-probe.com/backup-movies-DVDDecrypter-PgcEdit-VobBLanker-Nero-Recode-2.php
