So, CloneDVD2 has been around for a bit, is anyone doing a side- by-side comparison with DVDShrink to see who wins the quality battle? Everyone seems to be impressed with the new CloneDVD quality. But an objective comparison would be nice.

I took a movie and stripped all the extras with Clone and didn't transcode anything by setting target to 9GB or whatever.

I then ran the output in Shrink and Clone DVD keeping everything and set at 80%. I couldn't see any difference in quality. I forgot to compare the output size.

I did the same thing on a project that needed 62% compression.
The the picture quality was about the same again with one exception. Clone DVDs picture had a lot of picture noise around the places like the eyes, and the edges of some objects. That noise wasn't there in the Shrink version. Neither had a good picture overall at that 62%.

Keep in mind that this test was done with a CloneDVD stripped source. This is something that Shrink can not do on its own. Shrinks would only replace with still images and that would take up alot of space. If the test was done with each app working independently of each other. Clone may have evey well won easily depending on the amount of extras.

**Update: This was done with the first Preview release. I need to test the latest one. **

so how come everyone is raving about the quality in Clone-2?

I think its a big improvement of what I saw in older releases of Clone DVD.

Some of the improved, and added features make it attractive also.

I really need to test more movies to see if Clone ever excides Shrink. Its really hard to say without comparing every scene.

If you did a movie with both. I don't think you could tell which was done with what.

I'm really curious because I do a lot of shrinking of authored and copied videos.
Seems to me that any shrinking will be noticable in some way, and that the motion detection (or lack of it) will be the deciding factor in the perceived quality.
I'd love to see comparisons of the same video at 60% and/or 70% compression with no extras.

Don't forget deep analysis wen you do shrink. Another comparison that would be interesting would be IC8.

Still waiting for an head to head comparison, I guess the Clone fans are afraid to make the comparison?

I feel this way.

At anything above 70% you will not see a difference from my testing. Anything under that Shrink seemed a bit better only in some places. At 6*% you wont be impressed with either of these too much.

The problem with Shrink is that it doesnt remove extras completely, so you will waste space. This loose of space will decrease picture qulity. So in most cases if you use only CloneDVD 2 or only Shrink, you will get a better picture quality with CloneDVD 2.

Sure it does. I just do a movie only rip in re-author mode.

I would be VERY interested in comparison's... I think a lot of people are. In fact, if someone has a guide or something for a good way to compare these programs and display results, send them to me and I would be happy to play.

In CloneDVD user's defense, CloneDVD may be one of the easiest programs for copying DVDs. Don't give the users too hard of a time for not caring too much about quality. Also, if you already paid for a program, you're going to use it right? I think Elby has a great team, and they are putting out great products. (What is this Makedisc on their site?)

I have a friend that was using DVDXCopy Platinum, he would not consider anything else because it was simple. When he had a problem with Xpress only copying the menu or something, I showed him CloneDVD and he said "wow that's way easy".

(I know nobody cares, feel free to ignore me)

AS stated, at 70% compression , most people may not see any difference. You probably need a high-end 60" HD monitor to really test such things.
But I'd love to see a comparison at 60%.

I meant using the other method. Sure if you make a movie only disc.

Any comparison of the 2 should be movie-only, as different programs handle the extras a bit differently.

i believe any comparisons should always be full-blown backups of the entire dvd since this will stretch each transcoding engine to its limits, which is more helpful in revealing which can hack it and which can't; any problems become much more magnified and differences in quality will become much more separated. a full backup would also keep everything on a level playing field and would test only transcoding quality. a low-compression backup isn't very helpful in determining how good the transcoding engine is.

I believe that rdgrimes meant in order to compare the actually transcoding evenly between the two.

CloneDVD's strentgh is what it does beyond just transcoding.

Well, you need to compare apples to apples, if one program compresses the movie differently because of the way the extras are treated, then eliminating the extras is the only fair way to compare. The issue at hand is which does a better job of compressing video, not how they handle the extras. (although that may be relevant to many users).

Some day when I have some of those "extra hours" that every one talks about, I'll get Clone2 and try it out. Setting up some screen captures and formatting a true comparison is a lot of work.

i'm not sure what kind of differences you're drawing between the main movie and extras. are you saying that extras aren't video and would be somehow compressed in a different manner than the main movie? because transcoders don't discern between the two when they compress.

if you mean that some transcoders don't handle the stripping of extras as well as others, that's why i suggest keeping it as a full disc backup to keep it apples to apples. that way, the only thing different between the discs is the quality of the video. some transcoders may not even have a "main movie" mode, such as intervideo dvdcopy, which only allows stripping video while keeping the menu (it doesn't even allow stripping of audio), so the only thing every transcoder can do is a complete backup.

I can't speak to Clone2, but Shrink assigns different compression to extras than it does to the main movie. If Clone does this in a different way, then a true comparison is not possible. But as long as the main movie size/compression winds up the same with both programs, then there's no problem. It'll really depend on the particular DVD being compressed.

ah, ok, i see what you're saying now. as far as i know, all other transcoders should default to compressing everything at the same rate. one way to get around this problem would be to start the backup process with clonedvd and look at what its compression ratio is for the whole dvd, then set dvdshrink's main movie ratio to the same percentage.

I did a comparison and IMHO CloneDVD 2 is the winner in time & quality.

movie: T3
backup mode: complete DVD
compression: ~50%
backup time:
- DVD Shrink v3.1.7: ~26min (+ deep analysis: 23min)
- CloneDVD v2.1.4.1: ~16min

I did a couple of 60% compressions and viewed them on my 17in monitor. I used latest Nero Recode 2, CloneDVD 2 (final), and Intervideo DVDCopy 2 Platinum (trial). I did two movies, Beautiful Mind and Phantom Menace. My subjective opinion is:

1. Intervideo DVDCopy 2 Platinum (trial)
2. Nero Recode 2
3. CloneDVD 2


I would concentrate on a couple of scenes in each movie and run them over and over. They are all somewhat in the same ballpark, but IV seem best to me with recode 2 kind of close and CloneDVD 2 a distant, but not too distant, 3rd. One thing, IV Plat. does one thing that the others doesn't do, it does this micro in and out of focus on certain objects in certain scenes. I don't know if it has to do with compression of certain frames or what. It was kind of odd, but its very subtle, but still it seem to be the most clearest and detailed.

Just my opinion. For Joe 6-pack who isn't going to dissect quality and uses a standard TV and wants ease of use and speed and an a easy to understand application, I'd probably recommend CloneDVD 2. Also I have yet to see any "blocks" or apparent artifacts in any of the transcoded movies.

what are you basing your opinions on then?

DiggnSaeg: can you point out in the pictures why you ranked the transcoders the way you did? i gave the screenshots a quick glance but didn't notice much of a difference between them. are there other scenes that show a greater difference?

edit: after taking a closer look, i can see that the clonedvd shot is sharper than the dvdshrink shots.

Clarity, detail, lack of softness or having more softness, seeming more or less out of focus ..... I don't find apparent pixelation in the movies. Yeah when the movie is more degraded and has a softer slightly out of focus image is there maybe an all so subtle finer grain that may be there, sure, but nothing with blockiness like you see on digital satellite channels that are really compressed or any real defect is very apparent visually in the movie.

That's my opinion, too. Shrink's results are a bit more blurry compared to CloneDVD (though the differences aren't big).

I cloned the discs like it is.... all subpictures, all audio....all extras
I only let analyse shrink and clone the dvd and didn't made any changes.

Both programs where telling 54.8% quality

Clone DVD needed 46 min. to read and 15min to burn (4x)

Shrink needed 1 hour and 15 min. (with deep analyses)
(burned with clone 15min)

There was no difference between the two discs exactly the
same quality, but Clone DVD2 was half an hour faster.

Of course you can see a differences to the original because of the
heavy compression.

I would recommend not to go under 60% (quality), if you are under leave away some unneeded material (audios, extras)


(I guess the maximum Shrink allows you is 50% then you have
to leave some extras, with clone DVD you could still do a full
Copy if Shrink already doesn't allow you to do but the quality
is of course not like the original)

Elby Clone DVD 2 could be th new number one,
it's faster than shrink with same quality and it has it's own
burning engine.

Only advantage of Shrink is that it is Freeware.


greetz
Frisk