Just wanna lend a suggestion to anyone looking to make a higher quality copy of a DVD. I personally use DVDshrink for most of my work. This works very well with older/smaller/shorter movies. I can usually get rid of the excess crap that I don't watch, and retain a perfect 1:1 video quality ratio.

However, if I'm dealing with a larger movie, I prefer these three steps:
1) Rip DVD to hard drive with DVDencrypter (freeware)
2) Load thes files into VOBblanker (freeware) and "blank" anything I don't need... trailers, cut scenes..etc.
3)load the new output file that VOBblanker produced into DVDshrink, and get rid of anything that's left... extra audio tracks, etc.

I have found this to work very well with even longer movies to retain the excellent video quality of the original disk.
Happy back-up 'ing!

y not just use DVDshrink to do the lot ?

That's what i've been doing. Just using DVDshrink. Then burn with
DVDDecryptor. I've got VobBlanker installed used it to copy Resident Evil.
Only used it once, is there any advantage to using that to eliminate files rather than DVDShrink?. Does using DVDDecryptor to rip to the HD give you better quality than using dvd shrink?
I've been cutting out everything but the main movie..don't like any compression
at all. The quality has been excellent just using dvdshrink but always looking for a way to improve it.

Just get DVD Shrink to do that too in Re-Author mode and save yourself a step

The reason I like to use VOBblanker to get rid of the extras, is....
1) no space used at all, unlike the several mb's still used even in "still image" mode in DVDshrink.

2)This allows me to delete everything I want, while still retaining the original menus that you wouldn't get if you used DVDshrink in "Re-author" mode.

You simply cannot cut everything you really want to with DVDshrink. VOBblanker allows the advanced user to really "get into" the DVD and blank they don't want and keep the essentials. Plus.... you are still allowed to keep your menus unlike with the "re-author" mode in DVDshrink

instead of having to use the "re-author" mode in DVDshrink, which cuts your menus, you can blank out everything you want using VOBblanker, while still keeping your menus and the original video quality. To each hi own. Just posting the method I've used for the best results. Take care.

Why use Shrink for that? VOB Blanker can strip audio tracks too.

Really? How do you strip audio in blanker??? That would probably save a step!

dvdshrink's reauthoring mode leaves a lot to be desired. it's not nearly as elegant a solution as other transcoders, which allow you to fully remove extras and keep the original menus.

i think that's the only big drawback about dvdshrink....unless you're backing up the entire disc, you can't remove parts and still have functioning menus.

perhaps a future release would address this...but a new version hasn't been released in at least 3 months.

I agree... I finad that using DVDshrink along with other software such as VOB blanker gives me great results. Oh well.. who am I to complain about great free software!

Doesn't dvdshrink allow you to choose the main movie and remove everything else? By "fully remove extras" do you mean dvdshrink keeps some part of the extras in reauthor mode if the only thing you've chosen is the main movie?

Why would you want to keep the menu?

Well, what you say is true. But I believe many people WOULD want to save the menus. It gives the movie that "cuddly fresh" feeling, plus allows you to skip to your favorite scenes as well as provide a path to any extras that you did happen to leave in teh movie. DVDshrink does an excellent job on rem,oving things, but if you really want to dig deep, use VOBblanker or a similar editor. I have even used blanker to cut some previews, while keeping the previews I like. DVDshrink alone, would just cut the entire "preview" title.

The same as if you wanted to blank part of the movie. Select the main movie and use the strip button instead of the blank button.

Thanks!

dvdshrink does allow you to keep the main movie by itself, but (as you probably already know) won't allow you to keep the menus along with it, which i prefer to keep for the scene selection menu.

I've been using Shrink for a while but am new to VOBBlanker...darn Resident Evil 2 movie

How do you preview which file you wanna "blank" in VOB Blanker?

I've read in other forums that your last step is to hit 'process' in the VOB program but all I can find in mine is the 'process all' button and it doesn't do anything after I click on it. Instead I have to go to 'file' and hit the start command.

What am I missing here?

When you can see all of the titles... "VOB_01"..etc., click on one of them in teh top screen, then you should see the sub "titles in the lower window. OK. Now, right click on any of the subs in the lower window and click "preview/cut"... this will allow you to preview them before cutting. NOTE: in the preview window, notice in the upper left, there is a "cell" drop down box... these are the seperate cells within that "sub". you can even go as far as to individually delete these cells. Hope this helped!

I usually watch movies sequentially, so scene selection isn't important for me. I can always hit "next" a few times.

For me the downside of a menu is that watching the movie requires an extra step - hitting the play button. I suppose I could play with PGCEdit and have the movie start automatically with the menu only appearing if I hit the menu button, but that is a lot of work.

YMMV

There is an easier way around it now. Just pick up the brand new DVD Decrypter V3.5.2 and it will work around the new structured protection on RE: Apocalypse.

Thanks all

Will try

Linkie doesn't work