Is there a manual on how to use DVDFAB?
Ex:
What is the diff. between full disc, main movie, split, customize, clone.

And when I start it choose aut. DVD5 quality. can I change to dvd9???

Hello Koden and welcome

Full Disc gives you everthing that is on the disc
Main Movie gives you just the movie itself
Split will put the main movie on 1 disc and the menu's on a 2nd disc
Customize lets you choose one or more titles ( I think never have used it )
Clone gives you what is on the disc just like "FULL DISC" but does it bit by bit

where it states DVD5 if you open the drop down you can choose DVD9

Hope this helps you

Tim

Thanks..
So DVD5 is one disk and DVD9 is 2 a dubbel.
But Shrink can split a dubbel into 1 disk. Why can't DVDFAB??
Is it because of quality??

When I start DVDFAB is analyzing disc and it starts with DVD5.
I can change to DVD9. But i'm not sure I understand what to choose?

DVD5 78% quality or 100%...diff. by every DVD. Why that???

If you choose DVD5, DVDFAB will shrink (compress) the DVD to fit in a single layer DVD.

If you want to maintain 100% of quallity you will have to choose:
1. dvd9 (double layer) or
2. split (it will divide the content in 2 single layer DVDs)

When you shrink (compress) a DVD you lose some quality.

The files on every DVD are different, some larger, some smaller. Menus, audio tracks and extra features can add to the total size of the disc. The larger the original disc, the lower the "Quality" number when you copy to a DVD5 SL. The lower the "Quality" number, the longer the processing time and the lower the quality of the video on your backup copy. 100% quality=no compression, fastest processing, best picture quality. This is why there are functions in Platinum that allow you to make the files smaller, and make "Quality" hgiher, (Main Movie, Customize) if you do not want to use a DVD9 DL.

Signal,
Thanks, that was a nice, clear explanation. I use custom a lot. But, there are many times when there are 2,3 or sometimes 4 English audio tracks listed, that all say AC- 3/2. Any way to know which ones to choose (or eliminate)?

Okay...thanks for explanation...

Sometimes the copy failed, and I have saved the error in a log. Is it possible to see why it failed?

Is it normal that the copy runs fast up to ex. 20% and then it stops for 30 min. and run on again?

Is it more difficult to copy disc with scratches?
can DVDFAB repair some errors on the disc?

A good point. On some DVDs, the surplus audio is actually identified as Director or Comment, but most often it's not. Unless I am pressed for space on a DVD5 (which to me means <85% Quality) I just leave them all in. Otherwise I use WinDVD or DVDShrink to look at the disc. Shrink's preview window will let you select all available audios for a quick listen; WinDVD the same. I have never had a situation where, say the third English down on either player was not the third one down in DVDFab's selection window.

Koden,
Yes, you can use any text editor to look at the log. The amount of useful information will depend on exactly when in the copy process it occurred and the type of failure. When you save it a dialog box will appear showing the location. A failure should have produced an error code, all of which are listed here. It is not normal (but not unheard of) for the read process to stop and start when the source is damaged or scratched, which makes copying much slower and more difficult as DVDFab tries to extract data from the damaged sectors. Bigmacnc is the expert on bringing damaged discs back to life. Use the forum search tool for the keyword "Brasso". Repeated read errors will cause windows to drop back from DMA to PIO mode (very slow reads) on your optical drive, where it will stay unless you fix it. Maineman has excellent links in his sig on DMA issues: here is a link to a recent post of his; look for the DMA links at the bottom. You can also tell DVDFab to skip more sectors when it finds an error or to just ignore all read errors, both of which are likely to make the video jump a little but should speed up the read. These options are in Common Settings-->Read.

I wish there was a manual for DVDFAB or at least a detailed explanation for the Common settings and other choices.

May I make a suggestion for anyone having trouble burning DVD9s. I have had problems with write errors.

This is what I do now and it works better.

I use the clone mode and save to a ISO file. I then check it in a virtual drive and then burn with DVD Decrypter on a LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-1673S. The max setting is 4x and it will burn at that speed even if it's 2.4x disc and sometimes I have write errors. I set it to 2.4x and I almost never have a problem.

Joey

Hello, Joey and welcome to the forum. Do you mean a more detailed guide than what is posted in #3 of this thread? Sorry, other than the (now a little dated) review, that's about all there is right now (but that may change in the future). If you have any specific questions about setup or use, try the forum search function or post them and I'm sure you'll get some help.

Hello

Thanks everyone for the great explainations, they answer a bunch of questions. I didn't know that dvdfab compressed.

Terry

Yes...a lot of good answers.
So if I copy the DVD to a HD drive where I have lot of free space it would be bether to choose DVD9?

When I then have to burn to single DVD I have to choose dvd5

Hi koden
If you are planing to use DVD5(SL) disc then you may want to copy the movies by choosing DVD5 not DVD9 this way when you go to burn the disc the program will not have to copy/compress to your HD again before burning it will just burn to the SL disc

Ok..
off course...

But it would be nice to have the best quality and then go down.
So I will live with the way around the harddrive :-)

if you copy to the HD using DVD9 and then turn around and re-copy/compress back to your HD to fit a DVD5 you will get the same quality as if you just copy/compress the first time without the extra step or use of the HD BUT that up to you I guess