A Burning Desire for Information

I have spent several hours reading through the excellent advice in the Forum.
I am puzzled as regards the capabilities of the enabling software.
For example flip 218 says that DVD Decrypter will rip and burn , Shrink will rip and compress and that we should use Shrink to compress and Decrypter to burn.
How come that when I use Shrink it analyses, then backs up and then asks for a blank disc which it burns ( without fail ).
Also, sometimes, I use Decrypter and then have to use Clone to burn as Decrypter can't do this ?
This seems to be at odds with some of the Forum guidance.
I am glad to say that presently I am not having problems but I would like to understand how things work.

regards

 

If you click the Help button in Shrink -- the very first paragraph will explain to you that Shrink will burn IF you have burning software of your choice installed. In other words it is not Shrink that does the burning , it is that software of your choice.

By the same token, if you by chance have Nero installed, then Shrink will automatically switch to that software to burn.

 

Also, Decrypter CAN burn but only if you've ripped the DVD as an .iso file (which you can only do if your hard drive is formatted NTFS instead of FAT32 -- FAT32 has a 4gb limit on files and most DVDs would exceed this). In other words, Decrypter can rip in both file mode AND .iso mode but can only burn in .iso mode. So if you have a DVD that's under ~4.4gb, Decrypter can both rip & burn if you do both in .iso mode. If the DVD is >4.4gb or thereabouts, you can use Decrypter to rip, then compress with DVD Shrink to an .iso file (you have to use Shrink here because Decrypter doesn't compress), then go back to Decrypter to burn the .iso file. Or you can just use DVD Shrink to rip, then back to Decrypter to burn (this makes more sense to me than going through 3 steps -- Decrypter, Shrink, Decrypter), but occasionally Shrink runs up against a DVD it can't open.

It's confusing at first, but OTOH it's good to have options too.

 

Well put Karen, ~~smiles
Could not have done better.

 

Karen, that was well done, But I swear I think I'm confused now! LOL

 

oh noooooooooooooo!! How did I confuse you? On the 4th, no less.

Happy Independence Day everyone.

 

Thanks Karen Jeanc and Big O. I think I get it ! But I am reading and reading again Karen's explanation.
Once demystified some of this stuff begins to make sense.
Am I allowed to ask questions about downloading + copying ?

 

Absolutely NOT! Read the rules, #5. HAPPY 4TH!!!!