use WinRAR to open the archive. u can draw whatever conclusion u want from the screenshots.

My conclusion.....CCE two is not perfect but close. CCE 4 is a little better than CCE 2 DVD shrink is dead last as the blocking is certainly evident ..with a frozen screen shot.....probably much less evident at a normal frame rate and at a distance of say 10 feet from an average display probably not noticeable. On a really big front projection screen however I'd say the blocking might be readily evident. big differnce between a 57 inch RPTV and a 100 inch plus front projector I'd bet. So the 58.00 CCE does the job at two passes better than Shrink. I will give you that. No way in hell would the average joe need a 2 thousand dollar software suite......if he does or can afford it he does not need to back up any DVD for his own use ...he can probably afford to buy all the originals he wants

my intent with the comparison isn't to try to convince anyone that CCE Pro is worth the money. my intent is to show that reencoding in general is a viable alternative to transcoding when getting subpar quality. for anyone who's never had subpar quality, that's great; time and money has been saved. i can only say that i didn't encounter the scene in the screenshots by accident.

No , I expect you did not run into them by accident. Its clear you fall in to the one tenth of one percent of those types who cannot stand to watch a film without being overly critical of the video quality. Me, I also like good quality but at times I will watch a favorite that is only of very poor quality to begin with simply because it is a favorite regardless of the fact that it has enough artifacts and edge enhancement to actually be quite ugly even as an original. I did look at some of my episodic Sopranos discs that were duped complete with Shrink and the compression level is very high. I chose the typical opening scenes where Tony is driving home through Jersey and froze the screen at various points. I then moved to within two feet of my display and I can note some macro-blocking in some areas ....not particularly heavy
but more so in some spots. I then moved to my easy chair about twelve feet away........at that point the image appears clean and free of obivious blocking. I then took the original commercial Sopranos season one disc one and ran the same episode intro. At two feet the image is cleaner representative of no compression other than what might be there commercially and of course at twelve feet it all becomes moot. So in closing it is clear that although not scientific in any way my analogy indicates that neither I nor my family is going to be adveresly affected by the degree of compression indicated. Therefore for a standard non episodic movie copied complete using Shrink or CloneDVD with a relative degree of compression of say 85%..would it be safe to say the digital compression artifacts would be minimized accordingly? Id say so. DVD Shrink and CloneDVD in my my minds eye still remain the best value for the money invested and the degree of difficulty needed to produce a readily watchable albeit highly compressed backup for all of us other than the one tenth per centers

Sure, but I'm a bit tired now so I'll do that tomorrow. The ifo tools are only needed if you want to strip the dvd slightly but still keep some extra materials for instance.
//Danne

i'll say it again: i'm not trying to stop anyone from using transcoders, nor do i care if u continue to use transcoders. if u're happy with the quality, then keep using dvdshrink. the point of the comparison test is to show that if one ever feels that transcoders are lacking in quality, then there are alternatives. u clearly don't fall under this group, as u've expressed many times before, so there's no need to repeatedly tell me how overly critical i am, or how great the dvds u've ripped are. u might want to consider not using the "57 inch tv, 10 feet" away example so often, as it has already come up twice in this thread, as well as other threads.

Look AZ ole buddy I'll practice free speech on this forum within the limits it allows as I wish... as you do. Anyone who shills for CCE as much as you do needs at least a few people who stand up for the majority of users who choose to backup DVD and would of course refuse to entertain the absurdity of spending 2000.00 dollars to do four passes with CCE. All the newbies who are attracted to this forum certainly need to realize that CCE is of course a quality product but not an option for the average individual. Unless ofcourse they want the entry level CCE..even then they need to understand that it is not a one or two click susbstitute for DVD Shrink or CloneDVD that does the job better. anyone out there reading with even a hairsbreadth of experience with Shrink or Clone can and will substantiate this

Have a nice day buddy.

to say that someone needs to "stand up for the majority of users" would imply that sides are being taken, with me being a "shill" for CCE, and u on the side of transcoders. i'll just paste what i've been saying in previous posts:

If I feel the end quality is not good enough - simple! I just put it onto 2 discs, it's no big deal to walk over and slip in the 2nd disc.
That way I don't have to freeze-frame, zoom in and ponder over those dreaded block artifacts.
Time should be spent enjoying (or not! ) the end result rather than analysing the technical shortcomings.

@ tony22: Sorry for not replying for a while, I got busy :/
DVD2AVI "merges" your vobfiles to one stream (they're splitted to 1Gb on a DVD) so you'll end up with a continuous stream in TMPGEnc.
IFOEdit can be used to strip off stuff which may save you from the hassle of re-encoding/transcoding.
IFOUpdate along with an authoring program is needed if you want to re-encode and keep chaptors etc otherwise TMPGenc DVD Author is great.
//Danne

Quite correct Balbir. We should take more time to watch the movies or smell the proverbial roses so to speak. And......yes if you should choose to use Shrink or CloneDVD and the film you are backing up is a long one its likely that in order to notice the blocking that may result as in the case of an episodic series with four episodes compressed to one disc with extreme levels of compression...well you will need to freeze frame and then move up very close to actually get a good look at that blocking cause it is not going to be evident at normal viewing distances on displays of say .....57 inches or less in size at a viewing distance of say 12 feet. You can of course take out a second mortgage on your house and buy the just under $2000.00 dollar edition of CCE and do four passes and reduce the blocking even further than what could be done with transcoders like Shrink or Clone. The options are all in the eyes of each beholder and the tutorials to use each of those options are faithfully rendered here on this forum.

Sheesh, you guys are still going on about CCE 4-pass vs DVDShrink?(!)
Face it, CCE 4-pass surpasses transcoders by far but that doesn't mean that its worth the money just as AZImmortal pointed out. Sure, you can do a 1:1 copy if you want but that kinda misses the whole point. In the end, if you want better quality than what transcoders can provide without sacrificing another DVD-/+R and a lot of money go with 2-passes using TMPGEnc Pro or CCE Basic.
4-pass was just used a reference for CCE.

@ burke55
Keep in mind that this thread is about quality not how user friendly the gui is for an application...
And CloneDVD costs about the same as TMPGEnc Pro/CCE Basic.
//Danne

Thanks Danne!

Quite correct Mr. dizzy. I will keep in mind whatever I see fit without being censured by elitists. So.....the most user friendly and best overall DVD copy software based on cost and effort are indeed DVD Shrink and CloneDVD. A cheap wine indeed will leave as pleasing an aroma as the finest french Cabernet and the results of drinking the whole bottle leave one the same level of inebriation. One simply leaves the pocket book intact and the other gives you a sense of high society. the choice is all up to the drinker.