DVD Shrink and Level 0 (no compression)

[Grover]

Forgive me if this seems like a stupid question.

When DVD Shrink is encoding, is the number in (brackets) alongside the COMPRESSION: field the average compression across the whole disc/encode job ?

Because I've noticed that when I have "custom-streamed" a DVD so that I can re-encode without touching the main movie (ie - set to level 0 No Compression) that when it's encoding the main movie section there is usually a number in there indicating at least some level of compression is taking place. Or am I completely wrong on this. :confused:

Cheers...

[spruceland]

I noticed this too. It said 6.5% and I'm not sure if it's compressing or not.

[thop]

It shows the total compression of the disc. When it says level 0 you can be sure that no encoding is done.

[muralin]

may b it is treating removal of unwanted audio & sub title streams as compression.

[thop]

the dvdshrink author explained it somewhere in the dvdshrink forum on http://forum.digital-digest.com -> dvd backup -> dvdshrink

[Grover]

Thanks Thop. This forum you pointed me to certainly does cover just about everything to do with DVD Shrink...

Most usefull indeed.

Originally I stayed away from it, preferring to use IC7 to get better quality. Then I re-visited DVD Shrink and realised I can use it to "prepare" a DVD for encoding the main movie with IC7.

Especially usefull when you want to retain the original structure and menus of your DVD but compreses the heck out of all the extras down to L8 or even still movie, leaving the main movie at no compression.

Alot more flexible than IC7 in this area.

Then take these resulting file and encode the main movie using IC7.

Lately I find myself thinking "I really can't be bothered waiting 3-4 hours for IC7 to encode this DVD. Let's just run it thru DVD Shrink and see how it looks." (20 minutes versus 4 hours)

And the results are fairly good IMHO.

Cheers...

[thop]

I've dropped IC7 in favor of DVD Shrink as well. If there's one DVD that is really worth waiting a few hours for the transcoding it must be good enough to buy it. Also i prefer the slick and clean interface, and the great re-enconding options. Plus DVDShrink seems to be in heavy development, and the author listens to suggestions by the community. What else can you ask for? :)

I've mad a few tests and level 2 is perfect quality, there is no difference to the original movie. Up to level 4 still gives very good quality. Up to level 6 is still watchable, i use that for extras sometimes. Level 7 and 8 can intodruce some very visible macroblocks in some areas so i'm staying away from that (i use still movie on useless extras).