DVD Shrink Help -

[Puzzled]

Friends

I installed DVD Shrink on my machine. Every time I try to back up one of my DVDs, DVD shrink goes about 60 to 90% through creating an image file and then comes back with an error dialog. It says "Run out of disk space". I have more than enough disk space (upwards of 15 gig on windows partition and 100 gig where I have installed DVD Shrink).

Please help.

[ammck55]

Welcome to Doom9's forum:

One possibility is that even though you've deleted previously processed image (or .ISO) files, they may still be present in the recycle bin -- therefore consuming HD space. Try opening up your recycle bin and deleting all files. Norton's is famous for this.

If this is the problem, let us know, if not, come on back for more ideas!

Yikes! I didn't read this closely enough the first time around! If you're confident you have plenty of disc space, and it looks like you are, the problem is most likely caused by your hard drive being formatted as FAT32 rather than NTFS. FAT32 drives can't handle files larger than 4GB's. One sure-fire indication of this is if your .ISO file stuck at 3.99GB's, and Shrink returned the error you spoke of.

Here's a quick way to check. Right-click on your ripping drive in My Computer (I'll assume you're running a Windows OS, here), and select "Format" from the drop-down menu. Under "File System", if NTFS is the only option available, this means that the current format for that drive is FAT32. Yes, it's confusing, you'd think it would be just the opposite, so go figure. You'll get warnings that reformatting the drive will delete all files and information, so if this is the course of action you need to pursue, some sort of backup scheme will be required.

It's still a good idea to dump your recycle bin after each image file deletion. :)

ammck55

[Puzzled]

Thanks. You might be right. Even though I have not tried this in a little while, I do remember that the file size was close to, but under 4gb each time. Also, I do have FAT32. I will try to change the format to NTFS and see.

Is there a RH Linux version of the DVD ripper? Which DVD writer software do you recommend on Linux?

[ammck55]

Providing you have sufficient hd space, if the file was under 4GB's after processing in Shrink, it's a dead-bang "4GB barrier problem". Format to NTFS and all will be well.

Linux? I can barely spell the word, and am still uncertain as to how to pronounce it, but check this link (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16226&highlight=dvd+ripper) from the *LinuxQuestions.org* forum, it might give you a start. Run searches from within that forum, I did, and this is only one of several promising links I came up with. I found lots of discussion there on DVDShrink, you won't have any problems finding those threads; just run a quick search and.....stand back!

ammck55

[Puzzled]

Thanks. NTFS did it. You are running an effective forum. Thanks for your help.

[Puzzled]

ah . another question. I am noticing that the copy is losing some picture quality. This proabably could be due to compression. Are there any tuning parameters, or other setting I should know to control and improve the quality of the copy?

[jel]

the only 'tuning' parameter available in dvd shrink is the 'deep analysis' function, which (basically) improves the compression levels set so that complex scenes receive less compression and simple scenes receive greater compression.

the only other way to improve video quality in dvd shrink is to reduce the contents of your back-up, by removing audio/subtitles (easily done in shrink) and/or by removing unwanted video content.
in dvd shrink you can compress video to 'slide-show', although this still uses up (some) space. if you are feeling a little more adventurous you could try using some of the 'stripping' tools available:
dvd stripper, dvd remake, vob-blanker etc. to remove any unwanted items.

[RLLMoFP]

I use DVDShrink to backup all my DVD's. When I am backing up a DVD-9 I tend to use Reauthor mode and simply copy the main feature, minus the directors comments or any foreign language streams. Doing this generaly gets me a compression of 75% or so which looks great on most titles. It's also possible (as mentioned above) to manualy modify the compression in full disk copy, setting the extras to a greater compression and therefore reducing the compression of the main feature.

There are some great walkthroughs over at DVDShrink.info (http://www.dvdshrink.info/guides.php#reauthor) I know they were of great help to me.