Why use ImgTool??

[rtan00]

I read the DVD Shrink Guide and other similar guides and they all tell me to use ImgTool before burning. I am wondering what the purpose of this step is. My confusion comes because after using DVD shrink I have just burned the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders together and the resultant disk worked fine on my computer and my home players, unfortunate they are both Sonys and everyone I know also has a Sony player so I do not know if these disks will work on all players. Can someone please tell me if I am omitting a vital step and if I am what ImgTool does differently?

[ammck55]

Welcome to Doom9's forum:

I'm not equipped to discuss the complexities of the different burning utilities, nor a comparison of their attributes, but if you've successfully compressed and burned your files to disc, I don't see you having a problem.:) To the best of my recollection, some of the guides suggest using your "favorite burning app" when you arrive at this point. Imagine how someone would feel if the author of a guide wrote, "Now burn these files with "_______", and you didn't have possession of that particular burning app. If you were just starting out and didn't know better, you might rush out to buy the suggested software, thinking it to be the only one that would work with these particular files. I'd assume that one of the major benefits of using ImgTool, along with it being proven and stable, is that it's freeware and can be dl'ed from this site for absolutely no cost to the end user. Someone with more knowledge of the spectrum of burning app's may drop in with further input, but it looks to me like you're doing fine so far. If your compressed and burned files are recognizable to your standalone, I doubt if you've left out a "vital" step.

ammck55

[HomerJ]

Depends what you use to burn your media with.

In the past, I used Nero (5.5.9.0) This burned the "*.Vob set and other files fine, but I later found out that the resultant disc would not play on my PS2.

So, I created an Image file, and used Ulead DVD Movie Factiry to justt burn an image.

Everything now works fine, and I now have no problems whatsoever in watching my backed up movies.

HomerJ :D

[killingspree]

hi and also welcome to the forum,
as ammck55 said already this is no vital step, but one that is recommended to be taken anyway.

it's roots are in the times when Nero wasn't really able to burn fully compatible DVDs even when handed the exact filestructure. Therefore it was very common that people first created an iso file and then burned it to a disk using DVDdecrypter. This also gives us the advantage of using a complete freeware solution.

Furthermore creating an iso image is a very good idea in order to be able to fully test your newly created DVD. of course this is less vital when working with the DVDshrink process (or alike), but can be very important when using the Big 3 or even manually reauthoring the video. (e.g. multiangle, button over video, seamless branching)

i for my part always test my newly created files this way as i then can be reasonaly sure that it will also work on my standalones (and up till now it always did)

hope this clarifies a bit
steVe