I have a brand new Dell XPS W\dvd rom and a burner that has sonic digitalmadia LEV7 software. Now, I followed scuba pete's mini guide and nothing. I started to do all the settings as explained on the 1st pg and go to the 2nd and the problems start in shrink with dvd in it does'nt show the RED BAR and I'm can't finish the mini guide I'm not allow to do anything. Couple questions now. When the guide says to put the dvd's in a Windows box come up with- What do you want windows to do with CD DRIVE:E BLANK CD. The window also has all the formatting and burning options including my burning software SONIC. At the beginning when I put the original in the dvd rom(not burner)the movie starts to play and I close it(Normal???) If I want to burn a Protected Or unprotected dvd 5 I only use decrypter and not shrink ( right??) Shrink is only there to edit or cut down the time to fit a 5 ? A million more questions, but hopefully this will get me going.. Thanks for the help
The dialogue box popup is just an annoying windows feature; it doesn't really mean anything in terms of copying dvds (just hit cancel). It's pretty normal to have dvds automatically play on some computers. Yes, just use dvd decrypter for dvd5's that fit. Yes, shrink compresses so you fit it onto a dvd5. And, you mentioned 'sonic digitalmadia LEV7'; I don't have experience with that program, but there are programs to consider like those you mentioned, and anydvd/clonedvd2 as well.
Thanks for replying PB, but i'm still trying tofigure out why I can't do anything with the settings after putting in both dvd's and going to shrink.
Yep, after i load both discs as described in scuba pete's mini guide, shrink will not alow me to do anything, nothing was filled in and I could'nt finish the reat of the steps. I did manage to get to an ANLYSING screen and it looked as though it was going good and when it got to 13% it just kinda stopped.
If this is a copy protected DVD, there may be some copy protection that Shrink cannot handle. Try using Decrypter first in either file mode or ISO mode. If it is an unencrypted DVD, then you may have a bad disc or your PC is using up all your resources. First, make sure your disc is clean. I just use some of Scuba Pete's patented Fog, but other people use stuff like Rubbing alcohol, or disc cleaning solutions. Then make sure you are not running any other program in the background that should't be there. Also, right click on the task bar and open up Task Manager to make sure you have enough resources. Even though you have a dell XPS, you also have Windows XP, which seems to use about double the resources of other windows. You should have your CPU completely free and about 200 MB of physical RAM free (not Total resources). When you open a file in Shrink, disable the preview. This will free up a bit more of the CPU. While doing the initial analysis, you say it stops at ~13%. Does it give you an error, or does it just seem to crash? If this is the case you could try reinstalling DVD Shrink. Also there may be some type of software clash.
