I thought the preferred method of backing up disks was to use decrypter followed by shrink. Now, I'm hearing all this talk about a program called DVD rebuilder. Is there really a difference in video quality between these methods? I mean, I've used decrypter and shrink for a while and I can't tell the difference in my originals and backups. I haven't tried rebuilder yet...... advice???
Personally I think DVD-RB when used with CCE Basic to encode is far better than Shrink but whether it will make a difference for you is something only you can determine. Many people think it's worth the $58 for CCE and the extra time while others either don't see a difference or don't see enough of a difference to make it worth the time and money. The trial version of CCE Basic won't show you enough to make a good decision but there is a more expensive version (CCE SP) that will give you almost identical results and the trial will encode an entire movie (the CCE Basic trial will only encode a few minutes) so you can get a pretty good picture of the results.
I thought rebuilder was a free program. Is it really that much better than decrypter/shrink? It seems like everyone I talk to uses decrypter/shrink and only a few support the quality of rebuilder.
I briefly scanned an article called MPEG-2 encoder shootout. It looks like that CCE encoding won the shootout. What encoder does DVD shrink use???
DVD Rebuilder isn't as popular as Shrink for many reasons. First off, while it's free you still have to spend some money to use CCE. It's also possible to use a free encoder called QuEnc with it, but not as many people do that. Second Shrink has been around a lot longer so it's had more time to gain popularity. Finally Shrink can do many things that Rebuilder can't like reauthoring and compressing menus. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who use Shrink first to compress menus and then Rebuilder to compress the titles. There are also people who can't tell the difference between a DVD compressed with Shrink and the original. If that's your situation then I can't imagine there's any benefit to switching to rebuilder. DVD Shrink doesn't actually use an encoder at all. Programs like Shrink simply remove details from the video stream to make it smaller where an encoder re-creates the video stream at a smaller size. Most of the time CCE will give you better quality IMO. Some people find that movies like Return of the King (and others that already have encoding artifact) actually look better when compressed with Shrink. The difference there is that CCE will actually be trying to reproduce the artifacts (because it sees them as in intentional part of the picture) while Shrink can sometimes partially remove them because they appear as fine details which is exactly what Shrink tries to remove. I can't give you an opinion on those movies because I wouldn't try to further compress a movie (with any program) that's clearly been compressed too far to begin with.
DVD-RB is the way to go. If you have to compress a movie a lot, then shrink just won't cut it. If you don't have to reduce the size of a movie that much, then DVD Shrink is excellent. My preferred method is to Shrink the menus of a DVD with Shrink, then encode the rest with DVD-RB using CCE, or Procoder mode.
For shrinking the menus, then using Rebuilder for the rest? Darn if i know, but it's pretty straight foward. You decrypt your movie, then open it up with DVD Shrink. Then use no compression for your main movie, and any extras you want to look nice. The rest you compress with Shrink (i.e. menus). Theres plenty of guides on how to use Shrink on this forum. It'll tell you the movie's too large, blah blah. Output it anyway. Then you run what Shrink puts out through DVD Rebuilder. Heres their homepage http://dvd-rb.dvd2go.org/ . They have a nice installer there, that will set things up for you. Plus they have good guides. The thing to remember with DVD-RB is, DO NOT USE ONE CLICK MODE. Use three click mode, then after the prepare stage use RB Opt. Just go to their homepage and learn how to use it. You won't regret it. I think people who don't like DVD-RB are the ones that tried it once or twice in one-click mode, then gave up on it.
ummmmmm why not use it in the one click mode?I use it alot and ive always used the one click mode. For great guides for dvdrb/cce, just check out our resident dvdrb/cce guru and author of said guides, vurbal's signature.
I don't like using it in one click mode because i like control over what i'm doing. I prefer my main movie to at least have a bitrate of 3000. I've noticed that when it prepares movies sometimes it splits the main movie into 2 or more parts and assigns then different bitrates. And a decent amount of the time, it asigns the main movie less then a bitrate of 3000. Never anything totaly bad, dont get me wrong, but like i said i like my main movie to have a bitrate of at least 3000. But i can make do with, at least, 2500. When it's between 2500 and 3000, i can use RBOpt to add custom matrices to the main movie (i prefer Kika Comic High ), and that basically gets rid of all the noise that otherwise may be in the movie. I also like to use the matrices on the extras, you would be supprised how nice something at a bitrate of 1000-1500 can actually look! I just prefer the level of control and options 3 click mode gives you, but mabey my statement against 1 click mode was a bit strong. But i think one thing (almost) all of us can agree on is that for quality purposes it's hard to beat DVD Rebuilder. However you use it, whatever guides you use, where ever you get it, DVD Rebuilder is well worth the time to learn to use.
I'm a long time user of DVDShrink...decided to give DVD-RB a try...took 3:30 mins to do a 4 pass 1 click backup of ROTK using DVD-RB...I realize it's a 3hr+ movie but I didn't see that much difference to justify the time involved to do the backup
Ok...I'll have to remenber that next time...I thought I read somewhere doing a 6 pass was the recommended amount...I thought I was going short not long
Well from what i've heard, there is no noticable diference between 2 passes and 4 passes when you use CCE. If you want to get the best results out of DVD Rebuilder, then use 3 click mode, then after the preperation stage use RBOpt. It will give you more control over what youre doing in a fashion similar to DVD Shrink. But the main thing RbOpt will let you do is use custom "matrices". The best way to explain these is that they are a more advanced version of the 'sharp' and 'smooth' filters in DVD Shrink. Except there are far more options. I kid you not when i say that ive been able to shrink extras to what would be around 33% in DVD Shrink, and have them come out looking like i only shrunk them to around 55% with Shrink, just by using the right matrice (AngelBestLow). I know it sounds really complicated, and if youre a total noob to using it, it can seem hard at first, especially if you dont have the right guide. But i promise, once you take a little time to figure out how to use it, you'll be suprised at how simple it will become to use. I'm long winded i know. LOL.
