DVD Shrink Video Quality

[floppi]

Hello!

I just found this little program dvdshrink and i have to say wow!

Very good program with many possibilities. And very sad..that this will not be supported any more.

BUT the only reason i dont use it now is..the video quality!

I tested several programs like this and at the end i use the instant copy from pinnacle. i made pics from menus and movies and compared them all together. and thats the problem with dvdshrink. the videos are 1.not sharpen and 2.the colors are not so good. it seems all a little bit washen and dirty. blue is not longer blue..its a mixed grey-blue with dvdshrink. all colors seem to be mixed together and so there is less sharpness at all. AND!...the finished VOB are bigger than the VOBs made with instant! - so i realy dont understant why they are not so good at all. not nearly.

if someone is interested i can upload some pictures i made from the movie "catch a thief" (old good hitchcock classic) to my webserver. the original pics, the instantcopy-pics and the shrink version.
it makes me very sad that dvdshrink videos have not at all the quality like instantcopy. yes..instant takes a lot of time longer..but..for me its equal if i wait 40minutes or 2.40 minutes for a movie. before i used dvd2svcd and many other programs, so it took 1 night to finish a new dvd (with my own menus etc.)

i hope there is someone out there, who can support this shrink program for the future and maybe implement another video "reauthor"-method (more time, better quality) ??

btw: here is a good link, where some of the programs were compared with testpics - read it!
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/114

and here another, because the tested the old 2.3 version, but the for me, the dvdshrink video quality is still..not good.
http://nerds.palmdrive.net/dvds_tmpgenc1.html

soo..now i hope someone will improve the dvdshrink and support it. i think its worth it.

[Jester700]

Remember, that's an old version of shrink, before the Deep Analysis option. It's better now; IIRC even the guy from ElBy has said that shrink's new encoder is a better design.

As for me, I also prefer IC when shrinking way down (like to 60-70%), BUT IC encodes sometimes give me issues with freezes & blocks (not normal macroblocks, but "obvious glitch" blocks). And when I get those after a 2 hour encode, it's REALLY annoying. So I go to my 2nd choice - shrink 3.1 or Recode.

[floppi]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jester700
[B]Remember, that's an old version of shrink, before the Deep Analysis option. It's better now; IIRC even the guy from ElBy has said that shrink's new encoder is a better design.

yes, but i said, i compared the newest version (3.1.3 and now the 3.1.4) and took pictures..shrink has still not the quality of IC. if it would be just a little bit worser i dont care, but the difference is very big i think. its just washen(in german: verwaschen) and not the colors are "dirty"!

shrink would be my 1st choice..if it would be a better video qual., the possibilities are great...cutting some video-files with the re-author part or just to make mixed compressions of 1 movie. u can even "hide" some legal intros or announcements etc. with cutting them down to just a view frames. - thats what i find great. if there would be some kind of filter "sharpen" and "contrast" etc. that would be help.

[ddlooping]

Hi all. :)

Being the moderator of the DVD Shrink official forums (and visiting over forums regularly) I have read hundreds of posts.
Only about 5, including yours, mentionned a "color" problem with "shrunk" files.
I have personally never experienced it myself, but never use more than 25-30% compression. ;)

[floppi]

well, i just compared some screenshots. in most cases the IC copy seems more "brilliant" because its more sharpen. to compete..i uploaded some pics, so take a look.

first...the color prob:
look here:
http://www.an9el.de/pics/6s.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/6i.jpg

u see the difference? the first pic some more purple, the 2nd more blue. ok i didnt manage to take exact the same screenshots, but i dont think thats the cause.

then..the sharpen prob:
look at the boat in the window!
http://www.an9el.de/pics/7s.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/7i.jpg

..and here especially take a look at the trees in the foreground:
http://www.an9el.de/pics/8s.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/8i.jpg

here the same:
http://www.an9el.de/pics/9s.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/9i.jpg

and...to proove that the sharpness is in the original here:
http://www.an9el.de/pics/3_shrink.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/2_orig.jpg
http://www.an9el.de/pics/1_instant.jpg

...and the other pics: the "_s.jpg" is the shrink version, the "_i.jpg" is the IC version.

best: download all pics in one directory, so u can compare with looking from one picture to the next. ..and the screenshots were made as bmp, i just made jpg because otherwise that would be about 18gigabyte!

[ddlooping]

Well, first of all let me ask you something.
What movie is this?? Are there scenes filmed in Nice?
That's where I am from and would love to see pictures of how it all looked 40-50 years ago. :D

[dvdshrink]

After compression with DVD Shrink, sharpness may be lost, or some amount of grain or blockiness may be introduced depending on the movie and the compression level. However brightness, contrast and color saturation are not significantly changed. It mathematically doesn't occur as part of the DVD Shrink process.

I remember some time ago there was a report that DVD Shrink output seemed less saturated than the original.

It turned out that the person who made the report had compared the original movie, and the output from DVD Shrink, side-by-side on a PC with two instances of the same software player. The first instance was doing YUV to RGB conversion in hardware, using a YUV overlay. The second instance was doing YUV to RGB conversion in software, because the first instance had consumed all video hardware resources. This resulted in two significantly different pictures.

I'm not saying this is the case here! But it came to mind because of the color issue.

Also important to consider when making comparisons with another software, is not to do it for just one movie. I have seen movies which DVD Shrink makes a real mess of at low compression, and others which are just fine even at high compression. A lot depends on the "suitability" of a transcoding algorithm for a particular original encoding: this is reflected by many on this forum, who use different softwares in different cases.

[ddlooping]

Couldn't have said it better myself. ;)

Now, to come back to the issue at hand, are there scenes filmed in Nice? :)

[tf]

Having downloaded and compared this pictures, I do agree that the details mentioned do vary in sharpness. But then there are some factors in the IC copy version I don't find that good - all a matter of taste.

As for the colour problem, that seems to be something at your end, because here the two pictures you had posted, do look extremely similar in colour.

Either way, the amount of details you go into, are probably only noticeable when pausing the picture, when it's moving around, you would most likely never be able to notice it.

-tf

[floppi]

hello!

first of all, the movie is called "catch a thief" in german: "über den dächern von nizza", a hitchcock classic with cary grant and grace kelly, shoot at 1954 i think. because i was several times to nice and monte carlo (just for holidays!) i love this movie and visited the hotels and places it was shoot.

second..please dont understand me, i love this little programm dvdshrink, so i will help to improve this and not to say ..bah this is shit, the other is much better!

3rd..u can believe me, the pictures were taken with the same player (windvd) immediatly shoot one after the other - i have the 2 finished dvds here at the same time at my pc..and the original in the dvd-drive :) ...so i took them right one after the other with same settings, in fact i didnt even quit the windvd-prg between the shoots.

sooo..ok, u maybe right saying this lost sharpness couldnt be seen in the movie, but only in the pause-mode. this is not right at all - u can "feel" that the picture is more "smoother" than it should be - or as the IC copy.
for example..now that i know the difference and look the movies..i SEE that there is less sharpness maybe in the scene with boot in the window..or that the start scene is more purple than blue in the shrink-copy. at the end the IC version just looks maybe "newer", more sharp and stronger colors (like the original) - or just same colors.
the color effect is not so important, if there only would be the sharpness i think i will use the shrink again for the copys.

sure, if u dont know the movie and see it first time, u will not recognize this first, but...i want the best quality which is possible..and with the IC copy there is it possible, so it just a matter of the programming.
soooo..it´s just another compress/re-author-routine and can be changed to improve in the shrink program. maybe, i realy hope someone can program this maybe as a other "compress-routine alternate" or somethink like that. for those who want a quick and good copy it will stay like now, for the others they choose this one, have to wait longer and get (hope) nearly or same result as with the IC (or even better ? :) )

or could someone just implement a sharpness factor or somethink like that? i know it when making dvds with the dvd2svcd-program, there is a little avisynth-routinge which u can tell how sharpen the result will be - even with a preview!

that would be my nr.1 wish for the next shrink-version...yes i know it will not be supported after the 3.1.4, but perhaps another good man will do the job for the future?

[floppi]

oops, forgot something important.
yes the difference is not only in this 1 movie. didnt u take a look at my links? there were several movies compared each other, like gladiator, goonies etc. and this website just tell the same result as i noticed: the shrink copy misses the sharpness.

soo, just change this compress/reauthor-method and all will be fine, thats all i want for a new version, if someone will do it.

[tf]

In my humble opinion, IC produces other "artifacts" than shrink, so it's merely a matter of taste.

But if you really want the best quality at all, you shouldn't be using any of the transcoders, instead you should be opting for what is popularly referred to as "The Big Three". This process totally reencodes the entire movie using the reknowned and popular Cinema Craft Encoder.

Of course this is a pretty damn expensive package, but the results are usually very good, as long as you use 4-5+ passes.

If the method seems daunting to you, there's always DVD2SVCD/DVD2DVD. It's a simple package that uses CCE as encoder, but maintains an easy-to-use interface. It will, however, only output movies, not menus etc.

-tf

[northern]

To me it looks like IC is trying to keep the sharpness but compromises the quality on the other areas. You can clearly see how the large areas of similar colour (like the sky with clouds) are missing the "dithering" like sharpness that is evident in the pictures taken from "Shrinked" movie.

For me the Shrink produces better result in overall measures. If better quality is needed then I also suggest that the whole transcoding is scrapped and instead a reencoding is used.

[floppi]

@tf: did u read my first posting? i dit it this way all the time till 2 weeks ago, till i found this shrink prg and startet comparing.
u can believe me, im no newbee at this. i started 2 or 3 years ago with vcdeasy, tmpgenc, then switched to DVD2SVCD with CCE, used several filters, tested it with many options and new ideas and and and...
finally i got copies which were nearly perfect. the only thing i missed at the end was a 2nd audiotrack to hear the movie in its original audio, because my burn-author-prg didnt do this. and then i found this tiny little prg shrink, which did all the things i made in hours and did it in less than 1. i tested it and found it very very good. and i thought..finally! this is all i need any more.

now i started comparing with having 1 movie made "old style" (with dvd2svcd/cce etc.) and same movie made new style (shrink). so i could compare. first it looked very good with shrink, but after comparing and testing with another dvd "catch a thief" and reading many websites with this theme i come to this result, that shrink produces a very good copy - BUT without the sharpness it should be.

it has all the features i need, many possibilities and would be the only prg i need..but i dont like the result. so i buyed IC (after reading many websites and comments) and tested again. and ..IC did it perfect, but now i cant do this fine things like cutting scenes in shrink etc.

ok, maybe its a matter of taste with the sharpness, but its not only my own matter of taste, like the written links show.

or maybe another type of description: the shrink version seems a little more "darker", the movie is not so "fine", so brighten, so new, so sharp...the colors seems to be washed out....well, dont know how to describe. maybe its realy just the missing sharpness. with IC - and with the CCE version it is more similar to the original, nearly the same.

perhaps u have to compare the whole movie to understand me. u just see some pics with the details. when u watch the movie, u will recognize this facts behind all others and maybe wonder..mmh looks in some way not like the original, its...somehow changed.

[Kedirekin]

I think a lot of what you are describing is personal taste. My tastes are different.

But that aside, there's no need to ask that DVDShrink include the transcoding engine from IC (which I'm sure Pinnacle wouldn't share with us in any case) - you can use both tools to compliment each other.

All you have to do is pre-process your DVD in DVDShrink with no compression to get the advantage of it's features - cutting and stripping for example. Then you can put the uncompressed output from DVDShrink into IC and get it compressed to your tastes.

[tf]

Realize the facts? The fact to me is that IC produces results that are no better - or worse - than Shrink or Recode, at least in my opinion. Just because other people share your opinion doesn't necessarily make it more correct than mine.

No disrespect, but I have also been in the "business" of encoding to vcd/svcd/divx/dvd since the late 90s, and I have done loads of conversions using tmgpenc, cce, flaskmpeg, canopus procoder and have used dvd authoring programs right from simple packages like TMPGEnc DVD Author to more advanced programs like DVDLab and/or DVD Maestro.

In no way does this qualify me as a "better" observer than you - or anyone else - but I do have a relatively keen eye on quality, and I sure do know what I like. Heck, even the very popular CCE isn't the be-all-end-all program, interlaced projects tend to turn out... not so good. There are ways around this, and there is always Procoder set to "Mastering Quality" if you have the time and CPU power. But after having done quite a lot of backups using DVDShrink (2.x/3.x), Instant Copy (7/8) and Recode (primarily version 2), as well as some of the other programs out there (CloneDVD), I've come to the conclusion that quality/usage-wise (both terms taken into consideration) the winner is either Nero Recode 2 or DVDShrink.

The latter has the edge on the fact that it's free, but I do like Recode a lot too.

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way "dissing" Instant Copy, I still think it's a great program that is very easy to use, and several of my friends use it since they do not want to spend the time on learning more about the "art" of doing backups. And since IC produces more than acceptable results, why bother with something more advanced. You and I - granted, I'm predicting here - are both people who like to endulge ourselves into the finer details of making these backups, so we spend endless hours trying to improve the way of doing them, and luckily, there are some very talented programmers out there too.

In a perfect world, we would all be re-encoding each movie with a specific set of settings, to match that movie best. But this is isn't a perfect world, and besides, in about 6 month, the whole deal will be a thing of the past, with dual layer dvdr making its way to the market.

-tf

[Richk50]

"I've come to the conclusion that quality/usage-wise (both terms taken into consideration) the winner is either Nero Recode 2 or DVDShrink."

This is a pointless discussion. No one will ever be satisfied with anyone's very biased conclusions and DVDShrink is finished with developing the program. (Only making minor fixes)
Personally, I will never say anything against DVDShrink. He developed all the parts of a very good,useful and complex program, all by himself. It probably took hundreds of hours of intensive tedious programming, then he gave it away for free. A totally selfless act.

[candsh]

I know the arguments, comparisons, etc. go on and on,so, just for my 2 cents! If all the programs being compared were free, DVDShrink would still be my program of choice. I have NEVER been dissapointed in the results. However, I don't try to keep the entire content of a disk unless the ratio merits it. I want to see the movie.

What I am going to miss is the anticipation of the next release (I have not accepted this fact yet) and purchased Recode simply because Shrink was a part of it.

DVD Shrink is an amazing program and if it never gets another update, I will continue to use it and continue to be amazed at how this tiny piece of software produces such amazing results.

Some of the other programs I have tried and couldn't wait to get them off my computer. But I realize, this is simply my choice.

All my back-ups are projected to an 8 ft. image and have never had any problems at all with the picture quality. On one or two I might get a freeze frame or so, but went back, cleaned the original, re-did the movie and the results were perfect.

Thank you DVDShrink for what you did for all of us. I appreciate what you did, hope you prosper at Nero and look forward to the NEXT release of DVDShrink, even if it is five years from now.

[floppi]

@tf: i acknowlegde you nearly 100%. we seem to be both ppl who wanted to make the best. although we seem to have different opionions what video quality is. i prefer a sharp and colorful picture, u seem to prefer a "smooth" pic. so, lets end this discussion in the way...thats my opinion and my matter of taste and the other is yours.

it seems, we both did nearly the same in "video-authoring" the last yours :)

another (last) point: for me quality is not addicted if the program is freeware or costs money. so i bought IC, because - for me - it produces better quality. so, pls end of this matter of taste.

and big thx to kedirekin!

i was blind :)
your idea to make my cuts etc. with shrink and produce a uncompressed "pre-dvd" and take this for IC is simply genius.
...and it will take just about 1 hour more..no prob for me :)

*getting red*

maybe i did too much of this dvd-recode-author-burn-etc. stuff to see this idea :)

ok, thx to all..and very thx to the maker of shrink. i just hoped it will be still improvement :)

[luphy]

@floppi

You like the IC transcoding engine and like DVDShrink's ability to re-author.

What some folks have been doing is using Shrink to reauthor at no compression, and then running those files through IC to compress. Might take a little longer, but still faster than CCE and easier too.

Maybe someone could create a GUI to integrate Shrink/IC....

[djan]

@floppi :

And what about ReJig ? Did you test it ? I agree with you about DVDShrink quality. I stopped using it for that. It's good with small movies but let down for long movies. Using ReJig with long movies gave me very good results. Take a try of it and let us know about.

[Pfc Joker]

And what about ReJig ?

So far ReJig has given me very good results, I think it's very promising. :)

@luphy My latest thing is to use the now free DVDStripper to blank out everything except the main movie. Then create an image of that with ImgTool Classic (free) or UltraISO (not free). Now you can do whatever you want with that, transode it with Shrink or Recode, or go the Big 3 route and use CCE.

I think it's a good way to give yourself a "head start" so to speak on getting the best image quality out of whatever method you use.

[floppi]

no i didn´t try rejig yet, but just downloaded and will give it a try...
if its useful..for my personal taste, i will make pictures to compare :)

[djan]

Yes, take a try and post your results please.

[dragongodz]

a couple of things about rejig.

old engine set the engine in preferences) is good for light transcoding (say up to 15% or so off) but suffers when you start to go past that.

there is also a new/fixed version of the new engine that will be in the next version of rejig and this will be better for higher amounts of transcoding.

[kukyfrope]

based on your _orig pictures, this isnt the best DVD to be doing these quality tests with. it looks as if the movie is already very compressed. old film movies from the 50s would not be the optimal choice when comparing color and sharpness (although i DO see differences...)

GIGO (garbage-in garbage-out)

i suggest you try tests with a newer film to make a better decision.

[Pfc Joker]

Originally posted by kukyfrope
based on your _orig pictures, this isnt the best DVD to be doing these quality tests with. it looks as if the movie is already very compressed. old film movies from the 50s would not be the optimal choice when comparing color and sharpness (although i DO see differences...)

GIGO (garbage-in garbage-out)

i suggest you try tests with a newer film to make a better decision.

I got a good new movie for ya. Open Range. Kevin Costner, Robert Duval western. It's 2 hours 15 minutes, not really any extra's and is 7.37 gigs. Also has DTS, and it's not even that bad a flick.

[floppi]

well,

seems i have a problem with rejig. isnt it possible to copy the whole dvd incl. menus??? i tried several options (with markin all vobs) but the result is everytime only the main movie!
i tried "dvd backup" and ifo mode.

i used the 0.5 version.

what did i wrong - or..isnt this possible to copy the complete dvd?

[Pfc Joker]

I don't think ReJIg by itself will do the whole disc, not yet anyway. Right now it's a main movie only thing. Anyone else jump in here and help me out if I'm wrong. You can use ReJig in combination with DoITFast4U to do the whole disc.

[djan]

Originally posted by floppi
well,

seems i have a problem with rejig. isnt it possible to copy the whole dvd incl. menus??? i tried several options (with markin all vobs) but the result is everytime only the main movie!
i tried "dvd backup" and ifo mode.

i used the 0.5 version.

what did i wrong - or..isnt this possible to copy the complete dvd?

ReJig is Movie Only.