dvdshrink v3.2 is released

[valnar]

Would it really be worth it to save 30 minutes?
No, I agree with you. It sounds like we have a bunch of whiners on this board. :devil: :sly:

-Robert

[krackato]

The point is that it's going to save you 30 minutes and it's going to cost the people who are going to create the database 100's of hours which I think we would all rather have placed into improving the software.

Not to mention, as computers get faster, that 30 minutes is going to decrease and decrease. Already on my Athlon 3200+ it's like 15 minutes or something. I'm not entirely sure since it always runs in the background in idle mode so maybe it's a little more or less.

The point is, as time goes by, the database is going to be worth less and less. And frankly, it just introduces another variable into the equation that could mess things up. Pinnacle used to have a database, but they didn't take it down just because of legal reasons, but also because it just didn't work very well.

my 2 cents.

[smok3]

Originally posted by TheSeeker
Would it really be worth it to save 30 minutes? thats the real question.

[dvdshrink]

Well for reasons already stated by various posters here, it isn't going to happen! Lets change the subject :-)

More interesting would be a discussion of which AEC modes benefit which kind of movies, or of which AEC modes are definitely NOT worth using in certain circumstances, does anyone have experience of this?

[quantum]

This thread degenerates quickly :)

I've been in the process of comparing each AEC mode. I examine them zoomed in virtual dub as described here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58808

There is an obvious difference between version 3.1x and 3.2, but so far the AEC modes are very close in my tests. While there are differences, they're minor even at strong compression. If I had to pick one I think default might be my choice.

I'll be doing more tests. Since I'm settling on the default AEC mode, I think I'll be comparing to CCE next ;)

[krackato]

I'd love to get some comparisons on the different AEC modes. However, I'd like to have the AEC modes sort of built into the deep analysis. How can I be 100% sure that AEC sharp is the best when maybe it might be Maximum Smooth unless I encode the movie 4 times.

Maybe you could have do a deep analysis on the whole DVD and then show an example of how the picture would look at a certain scene with a particular compression amount with a specific AEC chosen. I'm not explaining myself well, but what I'm trying to describe is how Photoshop allows you to set the amount of compression for a jpg image between 1 and 10 and every time you move the slide bar, it shows you what the image is going to look like. Just a thought.

[dragongodz]

yes 4 options may not be the best for ease of use or choice. certainly testing a movie (or even just a large part) 4 times is very time consuming.

2 options "smoother(playback)" and "sharper(picture)" would have been easier for people to test and decide. each of those 2 being a mid point between the current repective options.

who knows though. maybe after a lot of feedback dvdshrink may change that anyway. :)

[dvdshrink]

If you're a programmer your boss often says things like, "well, we have a transcoder, and we have a decoder, so there's no technical reason why we can't have preview, have it on my desk by thursday..."

And then you, as the programmer, feel like jumping off a building because although you agree in principle, the fact of the matter is that you have 1/4 million lines of messy multi-threaded code which expects to be dumping output to a file via a multiplexer through a 120MB FIFO, certainly not direct to a preview window, plus implementing seek with a slider would involve complete redesign of code you can't even remember how it works, plus GUI complexities, and so on.

It's like using Microsoft Word. We all suffer from the programmer's bad design decisions ;-)

[krackato]

Originally posted by dvdshrink
And then you, as the programmer, feel like jumping off a building because although you agree in principle, the fact of the matter is that you have 1/4 million lines of messy multi-threaded code which expects to be dumping output to a file via a multiplexer through a 120MB FIFO, certainly not direct to a preview window, plus implementing seek with a slider would involve complete redesign of code you can't even remember how it works, plus GUI complexities, and so on.

It's like using Microsoft Word. We all suffer from the programmer's bad design decisions ;-)

????

[Bootsy]

I think he means that your suggestion would be difficult for him to implement.

[DVD Maniac]

Not sure my previous post was read in context (it was about AEC NOT the DVD analysis database)-

Just think about all the varibles we have -
DVD Type - Hollywood Movie (High Quality)
Old Movie (B&W?)
Anime TV Series (High quaility)
TV Series (Low Quality)

Format -
Interlaced (Most PAL!)
Progressive
Watched On -
PC CRT
PC TFT
TV Tube (old)
TV Modern Tube widescreen
Plasma
Projector

That's 5x2x6 = 60 possible generic types of scenarios. OK, you can probably get this down to 40 or poss 30 by eliminating the less popular combinations but thats still a lot of work. Add to this the "personal preference" factor and its just not a goer.

So now taking into account what dvdshrink sayas about the 1000's of man hours required to do implement the "preview" mode suggested by krackato (good idea in concept BTW) it really does seem pointless due to the other variables. For example, your Progressive Anime movie might look best with max smoothness on your PC TFT but not so hot on your bog standard TV tube and actually required the sharp mode to look best on that.

If dvdshrink has time on his hands I think there are some better development points to work on -

1. Single frame vob replacement for titles AND menus
2. Batch mode
3. Auto / semi auto menu button disabling (stretch goal!)

Shrink would then blow the competition away (it is pretty much doing that already) and then Mr Shrink can then start charging and making some well earned dosh for all his hard work :)

Not sure what Ahead would have to say though :sly:

[MAPE]

I'm really impressed with the results of shrink 3.2 applied on a music live concert with 2 angles, 70% compression on the movie and the 2 bonus tracks, only keeping 5.1 audio. I selected in first place DA with AEC "sharp" and the image was good but with some noticeable macroblocks on my PC monitor, then tried "smooth" but colours and details not satisfied me enough and finally "maximum sharpness" and... rock it!!! Incredible good looking image even in my PC monitor. It simply terrific, fantastic, awesome I don't speak english very well so my adjetives woud be much more higher than these. I tried with other methods before but without success and now finally get it and as I said before INCREDIBLE.
Thanks a lot Mr.DVDSHRINK, simply the best tool to backups Dvd's.

P.D.: the dvd was Simply Red live in Sicily (Ntsc) and I did it in full backup mode.

[voo_doo99]

Originally posted by dragongodz
yes 4 options may not be the best for ease of use or choice. certainly testing a movie (or even just a large part) 4 times is very time consuming.


What you can do is to use DVD Shrink Re-author mode and the Start/End feature to prepare a favorite 5 minutes clip and manually run it thru the 4 compression modes. After 10-15 minutes, you have 4 sets of video for viewing comparison. I put up this idea for automation, BCS, Best Clip Selection :D during Shrink beta testing. What a feature to tailor your DVD backup, but that may be asking too much from Dr. Shrink :p

[geffroman]

What I find MOST amazing about SHRINK is that even though it is the single best tool out there for ease of use and now rivals even CCE in 2 pass mode for quality that SHRINK gets more feature requests than simple "Thanks for the new version"

It's like throwing a party at your house... It takes you a week to get ready... you invite all the neighbors... you lay out the money for beer and food... everyone shows up and pigs out... and some sorry ass folks sit in the corner and discuss how the food could have been better... the beer could have been colder... the music could have been a live band... Yet NONE of them ever throws a party...

SHRINK is awsome... SHRINK is free... I'm not saying suggestions are not OK... but damn... some of you guys have even suggested SHRINK build in a tool that automates your own testing of his program... and the dumb ass suggestion that in this highly legalized world that someone develop an analyzed file sharing system to save a few precious minutes... Get real...

Does IC or DVD2One or Rebuilder or CCE or DVDXCopy do that... Hell do they do half what SHRINK does so efficiently, so simply...

Flame on... I'm off my soap box now... but some of you just come off as incredibly greedy...

[nwg]

SHRINK is awsome... SHRINK is free..

I agree and Shrink has been my favorite bit of software since the very first version. I managed to do LOTR FOTR over a year ago and went WOW when I saw the results.

Every version since then has been a milestone over that!

[krackato]

Dude, of course we're grateful. You don't see the DVD95copy release thread filled with posts. Not to mention that DVDshrink said:

"More interesting would be a discussion of which AEC modes benefit which kind of movies, or of which AEC modes are definitely NOT worth using in certain circumstances, does anyone have experience of this?"

So I'm sorry if all you want us to say is, "OMG! DVDshrink is better than Jesus!!!!" Yeah, it's a killer tool, but I don't think it's uncalled for to mention a few ideas on how to make the tool better. If they want to spend the time, awesome. If they don't, well we've already got a killer tool.

[HanSolo00]

Regarding the online Deep Analysis database idea:

Initially I thought it made sense, but then when I looked at the way I backup DVD's, I realized it would be useless for me since I pre-process my DVDs before any transcoding or re-encoding. Deep Analysis is (as it should be) the last step done after I've already trimmed down the feature with other tools such as DvdReMake... thus, my pre-processed DVD won't be recognized in the database because it is unique (as a whole.)

However, if one were to retain the Deep Analysis data for only the main movie(s) on the DVD, and use some checksum or other to identify said main movie(s), then it might in fact prove useful. Otherwise, the database would only be of use to people that use Shrink on the original untouched disc.

Of course, I'm making several assumptions about the kind of information stored in the Deep Analysis:)

[Greystorm]

For some reason Shrink 3.2 has decided to start crashing on me. It works fine on my other PC. Never experienced a crash, but on this one it locks up with the CPU going to 99% when I click the Re-Author button after opening a movie from the HDD.

If I don't open the movie and then click re-author, but rather click re-author and then browse to the movie from there it doesn't crash.

I think I need to reinstall windows, but I thought I'd post it in case it's a bug in Shrink.

Edit: I may have found the problem. I also found I could not preview videos so I changed the DirectX Video Renderer from System Default to Overlay Mixer and Shrink is now behaving itself! :)

[Flux]

Is it normal that DVD Shrink let me to choose deep analysis and AEC mode even all I want to do is to replace extras with still image (no still pictures)? There is no compression for menus or main movie. Still DVD Shrink start to analyse and encode. :confused:

Dunno if it happens with other version than 3.2

[nwg]

If the source DVD was originally dual layer then yes. It doesn't matter if you choose still image/still picture.

I did a DVD where I still imaged all the extras and took some audio off. It made the film and menu uncompressed as it was 4.3GB. AEC and Deep Analysis was still selectable afterwards.

[Flux]

Originally posted by nwg
If the source DVD was originally dual layer then yes. It doesn't matter if you choose still image/still picture.

I did a DVD where I still imaged all the extras and took some audio off. It made the film and menu uncompressed as it was 4.3GB. AEC and Deep Analysis was still selectable afterwards.
But it's sure that Shrink didn't touch the main movie or menu which I selected to be uncompressed but just encoded extras to still image?

[usg]

I would suggest a MPEG mode shrinking. Now a days, most DVD players can play MPEG files. People who regularly backup their ReplayTV/TIVO MPEG files and HDTV recordings, will highly benefitted by reducing the file size without compromising the perceived quality to fit DVD-r(s). For this, the DVDShrink will have to relax the DVD requirements for this option. What is others' opinion?

[ddlooping]

Originally posted by Flux
But it's sure that Shrink didn't touch the main movie or menu which I selected to be uncompressed but just encoded extras to still image?
If "No Compression" is used on a title, its video stream is left untouched. :)

[geffroman]

Hi ddlooping...

One thing I would think should be changed is the way Shrink auto selects whether or not to offer deep analysis... I noticed if you have a movie UNDER DVD-5 size there is of course NO option for Deep Analysis... But if you click on a Title you want to remove and select STILL IMAGE, Shrink defaults to Deep Analysis mode... This makes sense if you are compressing for quality... but it can be assumed that Still Image needs no Deep Analysis... especially of the whole DVD...

Not a big thing but something that seems odd in the functionality, if you wanna pass it along...

[ddlooping]

Hi geffroman. :)

I think dvdshrink is aware of this issue.
http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=184601#post184601

[geffroman]

Thanks dd...

[ddlooping]

No problem. ;)