Any way around DVDShrink?

[Dustin Mustangs]

This is my first post on this forum, so I spent some time searching about my problem to save you guys the hassle of answering a question that has been asked a million times before, so here it goes:

I have been having some major playback problems with my DVD back-ups as of late. These include blocking, skipping and pausing and it quite frankly is pissing me off. After some searching on this wonderful forum of yours, I have come to discover that others are having the same problem and are blaming it on DVDShrink. More specifically on the video compresion feature of DVDShrink I belive(?). This didn't supprise me because I too am using DVDShrink as a step in my backup process (DVDShrink 2.3 to IMGTools 0.89 to Recordnow Max 4.10).

So, is there any way around using DVDShrink in my back-up process? I don't only use it for decrypting, but also for making the back-up fit on one DVD+RW (ie. removing extras, compressing the video, yadda, yadda, yadda). I am willing to spend money to get a program that can do the same things that DVDShrink can do without the hick-ups, but of course I would rather it be free.

Any suggestions on programs to use instead of DVDShrink, or other ways to solve my playback problems would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[mudda_t]

You should post this in the 'One click DVD backup solutions' forum.

[PC-GUY]

You don't say what media your using or burner because it sounds bad media. But that just a guess.:cool:

[Doom9]

blocking, skipping and pausinare all effects that are not caused by the transcoding program. You can easily verify that by playing the copy of the VOB files you have on your harddisc. Those problems can mean any of the following:
1) Your media is crap (try another brand)
2) Your RW media contains bad sectors (RW discs can only be written to for a limited number of times) (try another disc)
3) Your player has problems with the media you use (try the disc on another player)
or a combination thereof.

[Dustin Mustangs]

Thanks for all the replies!

My burner came with my Dell Dimension 4550, but I am not to sure which model it is. It's the standard DVD/CD burner drive that they offer. The media I am using is Ritek DVD+RW that I scored off of e-bay so it could be considered questionable. I tend to to think it isn't the media though, because movies that I don't have to compress to fit on a single disc play perfectly everytime, and certain ones I do compress play perfectly also. This also happens on new media the same as it does on media that I have erased and re-used. This problem also doesn't happen as bad or sometimes not at all when I play them on my computer, it's just on my standalone that the problems really arise. Becasue of this, I feel that runing the VOB's from my harddisk most likely won't show any errors that would otherwise show up on my standalone. Also, if I try to rip a burnt dvd that gives my standalone problems, my computer can't do it and ends up giving me errors. I have even tried doing this a few differnt ways and still get the same result. But my computer can play the same dvd with no problems.

This has brought up a few more questions:

Is my ritek media questionable, and if so what is a dependable brand to try instead?

Is there any way to test media to see if it is OK (either prior to or after burning)?

Is there another program availible that does the same things that DVDShrink does that I could try instead (or any other way to check to see if the problems are coming from DVDShrink)?

Any other ideas of stuff that could be wrong are also welcomed.

Thanks again for any help you can offer!

[Toona]

just my thoughts

1. try using the latest DVDShrink (3.0 Beta5)
2. verify that you have genuine Ritek media not quite sure how to do that with + media??
3. Get the upgrade to RecordNow 4.5 it's a free upgrade from 4.1 I think
4. Skip IMGTools step just make two folders called VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS and direct you DVDShrink to drop the files into the VIDEO_TS folder. Then when you open RecordNow Max close the wizard and choose Data Disk and add the two folders previously mentioned. Make sure you have RecordNow Max to recognize dvd structure, go to Tools/Options/Data Disk and make sure the "recognize the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders per the DVD specification" is enabled. Then just burn away
I've had a ton of success doing it this way and I WAS (past tense) having the same problems you are, but now they are gone
I'm not sayin this is the only way it's just my way and it seems to work really well with great compatability

Good Luck!!!!!

[echooff]

Try ReJig. It works fine on m2v files to make them smaller. Do a search of the forum. Latest version is 3.0a.

[mrbass]

Originally posted by Dustin Mustangs
The media I am using is Ritek DVD+RW that I scored off of e-bay so it could be considered questionable.

scored off of e-bay is all you had to say...it's the media. Go down to best buy and get a 5 or 10pack of TDK media and burn it..then you'll know.

[Dustin Mustangs]

Thanks for all of your ideas everyone.

I tried what toona said and it worked, or so I thought. I had burned 2 fast 2 furious with my old methods (see my post above) and it turned out horrible. It started skipping and blocking only seconds into the movie, and it eventually froze to a standstill on my standalone. I tried it on my computer and it even paused and eventually froze here also(this is unique because most discs that my standalone has minor pauses and blockings with will play fine on my computer with not even a hint of either). So I tried toona's method and burned 2f2f again and it worked on my standalone without a single glitch. Mind you this was on the same exact disc that it burned so horrible on before (wouldn't this rule out bad media?).

So now I am thinking toona is the shizzle and I am in the clear, finally. This is until I burnt Matrix Reloaded using what I thought was the sucsessful method toona told me to try. Unfourtuatly I am right back where I started from; minor blocking and audio pausing on the standalone and perfect playback on the computer, errrrr!

This is so frustrating, the backups look perfect for 99% of the movie and then every once in a while they screw up for just a second and it ruins the whole experince for me.

So what do I do now?

Is there any way to test the 'questionable media' to find out once and for all if it is to blame? I feel like because of the fact that my worst performing burn ever was on the same disc that now has a perfectly good burn on it kind of rules out the whole bad media idea. Is this a fair conclusion?

I'm stumped, any more ideas will be truely appreciated!

Thanks again!

[Kedirekin]

I really think you should try some reliable branded media. Consider it money well spent if it helps you identify the issue.

The problem with unreliable media isn't that it generates 100% coasters, it's that you never know when you're going to get a crappy disk (though it sounds like you're getting plenty).

[Dustin Mustangs]

Yeah, but like I said above, will a bad disk always perform bad, or just have the possiblity of doing so?

[Kedirekin]

Do you mean an RW - you reused one disk and one burn was bad and the next good?

If that's the case, I don't see how a disk could suddenly 'heal'; degrade yes, but not the opposite.

RW media is less reflective than R and is typically much more challenging to read. For example, my stand-alone plays +Rs perfectly every time, but will only play +RWs perfectly about one time in three (and that's a same disk situation too). The other two out of three it shows macroblocks, audio dropouts, pauses and what-have-you. Then, when I burn the same image to a +R, it plays flawlessly.

Could you be experiencing something similar?

[Dustin Mustangs]

That is exactly what I was talking about Ked. The first time I used the disk in question it was barely playable. The third and fourth burn on that same disc worked flawlessly. So was I right, does this rule out bad media???

Thle 'RW' theory of yours is very interesting. The disc playback characteristics you describe seem to fit my situation to the T. Not to mention that all I have had problems with so far are DVD+RW's (thats really all I have burned with so far). You could be on to something here. I just thought that DVD+RW was the obvious choice due to the fact that a bad burn doesn't cost you any loot(or so I thought). Maybe my problem is just the RW format?

Has anyone else had experinces similar to Ked's?

Thanks again,


more thoughts please!

:)

[DnGermany]

Try using Dvd+r disk, some stand alone players don't play rewritables to well. Or you could use a bitsetting tool to set the disk to dvd-rom type.