[hello_hello]

Originally Posted by Jer01

Just a few questions/issues.

[1] ""Go into DVD Shrink's options and set the target DVD size to something large (DVD-9 minimum) so DVD Shrink won't try to Shrink the DVD as it re-saves it""

I couldn't find the options menu or any other menu to allow me to do this.

Edit/Preferences/Target DVD size.
I'm pretty sure it's set to DVD-5 by default. This means when resaving the DVD, DVDShrink will shrink it (re-encode it) to fit on a single layer blank disc. Then you're re-encoding it again.
You want to set the size to at least DVD-9. DVDShrink will display the amount of compression it's using when you open the DVD. Generally, using DVD-9 as the output size will stop it from compressing anything, especially if you're removing audio streams. DVD Shrink also has an option to only select audio streams in a specific language or format by default when it opens a DVD. Saves "forgetting" to deselect the others.
You'll probably know if DVD Shrink is recompressing the DVD when resaving it, as without re-compressing it the backup will happen a lot faster.

Originally Posted by Jer01

[2] I am assuming that I would have to use another program [e. g., Dvd Fab, Dvd Decrypter, etc. ]to decrypt commercial DVD's before using Dvd Shrink. Is this correct? e.i, Dvd Shrink does not have the capability to decrypt.

I think it does but it's very out of date. If you run something like AnyDVD in the background to do the decrypting you should be able to open the disc directly with DVDShrink and rip it/re-author it in one step. Something I should try myself. Old habits dying hard, I guess.....

Originally Posted by Jer01

[3] The volume of the backup files was pretty low. I don't know yet if this will be a problem with my .avi files on My media Player. I have not gotten that far yet. But I suspect it may be a minor problem.

Probably because DVDShrink's output size was set to DVD-5, so it re-encoded the video when backing it up.
Of course if you also remove unwanted audio streams, the size of the backup files will be reduced.

Originally Posted by Jer01

[4] One time I forgot to disable the foreign language audios in the Compression Tab - and the new files played in a foreign language. English was the first tab and appeared to be the default language. This dvd plays in English in my dvd player.

AutoGK will include more than one audio stream when converting to AVI. When you open a DVD with AutoGK it only selects one audio stream automatically. It appears the correct (English) one was selected.

Originally Posted by Jer01

[5] One of the episodes had some video problems. I re-authored 3 episodes and saved them. There were some vertical lines on the rhs of the picture on one of the videos. I have no idea if this would be seen on the dvd playback.

AutoGK has an auto-cropping function which attempts to remove the black bars (assuming that's what the black lines are). It doesn't always get it exactly right. It's better to remove them completely when encoding. You can adjust the auto-cropping by pressing CTRL+9 to open AutoGK's hidden options.
You need to select the "tune auto-crop parameters" box. Then (if for example there's some black borders remaining on the right) increase the right "force cropping of" value a little. There's one for each side of the video. Close the hidden options window and use the preview to check the black border is gone. Repeat the process as necessary.

Originally Posted by Jer01

[6] When I used Dvd, Decrypter, I am wondering why my S05 dvd's provided a separate ISO file for each episode [7], and the S01 dvd's provided only one ISO file for the 9 episodes. Why would the file structure be so different in these two 4-disc dvd's?

It's just how they were authored. I don't think there's a logical reason why they had to be one way or the other.

Originally Posted by Jer01

With regard to the "low volume" problem [ [3] above] -- I got the low volume problem when I played the ISO/VOB file on Media Player Classic. After I converted that to an .avi file using Auto GK, and played it with Media Player Classic, the volume was fine. The problem went away. This surprised me. P.S. I used the "Auto" settings of AutoGK. I did not change any settings except change the file size target to 175 MB [for a 25 min episode].

AutoGK will either keep the original audio or convert it to MP3 during the conversion process, depending on the output file size or whether you manually select an option other than "auto" for the audio (advanced settings). In your case it'll be converting it. The converted MP3 audio will probably be louder than the original as AutoGK normalizes it (increases the volume until the peaks are 0db) before it converts it to MP3. The original AC3 audio may sound low by comparison, but that's normal. It's just the way it is.

Originally Posted by Jer01

I read somewhere that "Ripit4Me" uses both DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink under one "Roof" and has the capabilities of both. It supposedly makes ripping & shrinking much easier and eliminates steps. Most people were quite enthusiastic in their remarks about it. Does anybody here have any experience with it?

I use it all the time. It doesn't have the capabilities of DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink as such, rather it uses those programs to do the work. RipIt4Me still has problems with newer copy protections. Originally it's purpose was to rip discs DVD Decrypter couldn't rip, but now it's out of date too. If you try to rip a DVD where the output file size is something ridiculous (30 or 40GB for example) then you've found one of those DVDs. For those I use AnyDVD.
The main reason I use RipIt4Me is because I have a few DVD drives so with RipIt4Me I can rip more than one DVD at a time (it'll warn you about running more than one instance of DVD Decrypter and ask if it should close one but doing so has never caused me a problem). Maybe you can rip more than one DVD simultaneously with AnyDVD or DVDFab but I can't say I've ever tried it.

When ripping a movie DVD, RipIt4Me is fine to use (assuming it can handle the copy protection) as it has a "movie only" mode. No need to use DVD Shrink. If you're ripping an episodic DVD then using something like DVDFab, which apparently will rip individual episodes, might be better to use if it saves having to re-author the ripped files with DVD Shrink in order to encode them.