Hi asiaminor, Thanks for the info. Interesting guide. I hadn't seen it before. I don't sea how it could be DVD Shrink that's doing it as the guide rightly says, DVD Shrink is a straight copy proggy. The only thing that I can sea happening is, if your movie is large enough, that the whole thing doesn't fit on the first 1/2 of the split, the menu may "tag" along with the second 1/2 thereby showing up after the start of the movie. The movie, having assumed the beginning of the file forces the menu toward the back. (I see it in my mind but I don't know if my words relayed my thoughts clearly. Just some added thoughts. Back in the "Day", as they say, when it was DVD Shrink ver. 3.0, you might have noticed some "artifacts", blocks throughout some action scenes, skips and/or pixelations. Removing enough of the DVD to end up with a decent back up was indeed necessary,. unfortunately, at the loss of your menu functions. It was something we just had to live with The method you are using seems like an excellently work-around, especially as the majority of us had been dumb enough to purchase XCopy, we might as well use it for something. I wish I had seen this guide then. But that was then, this is now. Things have indeed changed. For one, DVD Shrink has been worked on to the point that it doesn't resemble it's former self. The encoding package has been reassembled and tweaked so the quality is many times better than it was, as a matter of fact, a new addition has been added called "Quality Settings". It allows you to do a serious Deep analysis AND compress the video with high quality adaptive error compensation to get rid of the artifacts that plagued many programs of that time. It might be worth your trying. My suggestion would be to engage the Deep analysis and set the quality enhancements to Maximum Sharpness for Horror and high action movies and set the quality enhancement to Maximum Smoothness for regular type films like "There's Something about Mary" or "Meet the Fockers." Using DVD Shrink in this manner you will have the entire Discs copied exactly as the original and the quality compared to DVD Shrink's ver 3.0 will be far, far better. My last thought, consider using Nero's Recode2. Like you, I like to have the main attraction and related extras and detest the extra garbage. An excellent proggy which is "hidden" in the proggys that make up Nero's Ultra Edition Suite is Recode2. Made by the same fellow that made DVD Shrink it continues where DVD Shrink left off. It does everything that Shrink did BUT when you use the re-Author mode (called "Remake a DVD") it maintains the menu. Using this is easy and quick and like it's it's older brother DVD Shrink, Recode2 has an encoding control which "UP's" the quality of it's copy. Take a moment and checkout the guide for Recode2 in my sig. Ooohh, just a slight adjustment, In Shrink, go to Edit ~ Preferences and change the DVD target size from DVD-5 to Custom and set the size to 4360MB. This will keep you from writing to the very edge of the discs where the dye is sometimes uneven OR maybe not there at all. This will help avoid freezes, skips or flat out coasters. Cheers, Sorry I wasn't of more help, Pete
Check out the AnyDVD. Under settings look to the Navigation section. There you'll see the option to remove those annoying trailers with options for going to the [bold]Main Movie[/bold] or to jump to the Title Menu. I've noticed a couple of times when I update the app, different selections are sometimes set. I now check those settings periodically. You should see the possibilities. Having the Main Movie option checked in AnyDVD would account for the backup jumping directly into the movie.
Thanks for the info/tips guys. I checked AnyDVD settings and "Jump to Title Menu" (or equivalent) is checked, not "Jump to Main Movie" (or equivalent). So, not sure what may be causing it, but if I happen to be processing a disc whose resultant backup does this again, even with settings as said, I'll mention it. Ciao
Hi I use Decrypter and then DVD shrink and then burn it to a Verbatim DVR. But so far, I haven't been able to make the DVRs play in any player other than the one in my laptop. What could I be doing wrong?
What are you doing wrong? Without any further info it would be hard to tell. Some people have recorded to DVD RW discs which aren't supported by some standalone players; some of the newer players support RW. There are other causes, but that is a common one. Make sure the media you're recording to is supported by the player you're wanting to play it in. First of all, what is a DVR? There are DVD +R, DVD -R, DVD +RW, and DVD -RW. Then you get into DVD5 format and DVD9 with +R. You have issues with compatibility in some cases as mentioned before. Normally output from Shrink plays well on players as long as the media is compatible. Obviously you have a working DVD output if you are playing it on your PC. Out of curiosity, what app did you use to burn the Shrink output? Also, have you tried playing the recorded discs on another PC, or is there something special about your laptop? What is the brand and model of the player your recorded disks won't play on?
Sorry, 1. I have DVD+R discs by Verbatim. 2. The player it on't play on is SONY DVP NS-315 CD mp3/DVD player. 3. I used Easy DVD CD Burner.
From what I can tell, the player should be compatible with +R media. In fact I believe that one may play +RW, not positive. How old is this player? If the Shrink output plays, that means the movie was successfully transcoded. That leaves the media and the players. Sometimes the factory support supplies firmware updates for standalone players to improve playability with newer media. You can check with Sony support and see. If I were you, I'd try the recorded disc on another player and see if it has the same problem; preferrably a fairly new one if possible and make sure it supports +R. BTW, almost all new players support +R, however make sure. A friend of mine got a DVD player as a gift and it would only play factory ROM discs.
Hi DVD05, Here's some info on your player: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers...Search&chipset=&country=&orderby=Name&hits=25 I do wonder about the software you're using. Roxio has a pretty poor reputation around here when used for DVD video work though I did like it a lot when I used it for burning music CD's for my van. Personally, I'd love to sea you burn one DVD using another software (we have some great stuff and it's FREE Maybe Bear could get you started on it - Cheers,
Thanks for the input Pete. That reminds me of a few things. Roxio has Drag to Disc as a burn option. Unless finalized, the recorded disc has to be played on a PC with the same software. Hope that wasn't done, but it may be a possibility. Easy Media Creator has better burn options for DVD backup. With Sonic being involved, the newer versions of Roxio are now decent options for burning DVDs as well as music CDs. Of late I haven't heard of Easy Creator hijacking systems the way it used to. As for the freeware, ImgBurn is the new kid on the block. Not really, it's the burning section of DVD Decrypter by Lightning UK. It's the burning segment where the Decrypter left off, it's improved. Nice to see LUK back with us. http://www.imgburn.com/ is the link to LUK's site. For just a free burner, I'd suggest the ImgBurn. Then of course there are still versions of DVD Decrypter floating around, which was used here as a ripper. When the DVD is ripped in ISO mode and the selection "Open Disc Image" (under File) used in Shrink, select the Decrypter burn option in Target Device in the Backup window. Doing another burn this way wouldn't entail using any extra software. You also have the option of using some full function trial software from VSO and Ahead. That would be CopyToDVD and Nero. Both are excellent. I gravitate to CopyToDVD for most of my burns, just a personal preference. So there you have a few no cost options to check out the problem. If the Drag to Disc isn't the culprit, then use one of the free options as Pete suggested to do another burn to check if the problem is with the Roxio burner app. Can't hurt anything and it's free.
I thought this thread had died and gone it's merry way. LOL There's a few of them. Among the best if not the best is AnyDVD. It's retail. DVDFab Decrypter is along the same lines as DVD Decrypter, it rips to the HD while decrypting (freeware). DVD43 is freeware and a driver type utility, similar to AnyDVD, but with less function and not as good. DVD Region+CSS Free is another retail similar to AnyDVD. It's good, the con is they don't update it regularly enough or at least fast enough when new encryption comes about. AnyDVD is right on the case when a new encryption scheme appears. There's a bunch of programs that incorporate decryption software. It really boils down to what a person wants and is willing to pay for.
Pssst, pssst, hey bear, Don't forget SmartRipper ~ another decent ripper. Not good for some of the later DVD's but the price is right ~
Hey How's it goin 'Pete? Long time no see. ...SmartRipper... LOL There you go. Like you said, it doesn't do a bunch of the newer movies. Not a lot of people keep a newer utility that does the new and old files plus another app, like SmartRipper, that only does the older DVDs. DVDFab Decrypter is a freebie that does most of the new movies. It has support from DVDIdle, so they eventually get around to updating it. That's why I go for the AnyDVD, they get it updated on the fast track. Saves a lot of work and aggravation having it. Usually by the time I get a movie, AnyDVD has the encryption broken. I can't say that for the others, freeware and retail. If you remember, I'm something of a software collector. So I have a bunch of these that I've compared on a personal basis and not just repeating forum opinion.
Just about anything that writes to the HD can be used as a ripper with AnyDVD running in the background. I had smartripper, but I started with DVD Decrypter, so used DVDD most all the time. I liked hammering the files out with it. It always worked great till LUK was forced to drop support.
I've switched from CloneDVD + AnyDVD to DVDFabExpress/DVDD + PGCEdit + VobBlanker + DVDShrink + ImgBurn, which turns out to be a very nice combination for messing with the menu buttons and removing stuff I don't care about, and better customization. Although it's more complex, I took some time to work it out and now I can save more space and disable any consequently pointless buttons, which looks much better than clicking + blackness + menu return. Nice freeware too
asiaminor I do all that too except that I use DVDremake which does all of the things that your other apps do and a whole lot more, and then I use DVD Rebuilder with Cinema Craft Encoder. I gave up using transcoders almost two years ago for quality. But still you have a pretty nice arsenal.
Nice collection. I have copies of it on the system (just in case), but RB/CCE for me. I use FixVTS instead of VobBlanker in the processing phase when making the files compliant. I still prefer to simply use AnyDVD though and copy the files to the HDD with DVD Decrypter. Still got a use for the venerable DVDD. I've yet missed having a successful backup unless I run into the occasional bad disc. Replacements of those always have backed up. So, I find the PSL2 setup successful and a good backup in case all else fails, but I'll continue to do things the easy way as long as it works. As a point of interest, AnyDVD now includes a ripper that incorporates FixVTS. That came about when Slysoft updated for the copyright protection that came along about the time of "The Fog" release.
