DVD Shrink Interface

Open up DVD Shrink. A little daunting at first maybe, but this program turns out to be so easy it becomes second nature fast. There are really 4 main things to look at here. Up top we have a button bar consisting of 6 buttons, some of which we will use later.

Below the button bars is a small colour bar (at 0MB and completely gray when you first open DVD Shrink, we will look at the difference in colours a little bit later). Below this is divided into two columns. On the left the top blank section is the DVD Structure box. Below this, the black screen is our Preview window (very much needed).

On the right side of the screen is the Compression Settings area. This is an incredibly important area as we use it to determine where the priority for quality will be on the output DVD.

Last thing, it is very important to know that this is DVD Shrink in Full Disc mode. Re-author is generally used when all you want on the output DVD is the main movie. We won't be using the Re-author section in this guide and once again I remind you that if you want to only keep the movie then read a guide for that purpose by clicking here.

Open a DVD, folder or disc

I mentioned already that I prefer to rip the entire contents of my DVD onto my hard drive before processing with DVD Shrink or any other backup software. However, you don't have to do this even though I recommend that you do.

Open from folder on HDD - To do this, click the Open Files button. A file browser will now open allowing you to navigate through your Hard Disc Drive contents. When you find wherever you ripped your files to, select the VIDEO_TS folder (or whatever folder the DVD Files VOB, IFO, BUP etc. are in) and click OK. DVD Shrink will now start analysis of the files (see below).

Open from DVD disc in DVD drive - To do this, click Open Disc, select the drive number that the DVD is in and click OK. DVD Shrink will now start analysis of the disc (see below).

DVD Shrink Analysis

DVD Shrink will now run an initial analysis on the files that should only take anywhere from 20 seconds to a minute depending on your hardware and the content on the disc. This analysis will provide DVD Shrink with the knowledge it needs to provide us with compression options.

When analysis finishes

When the analysing is finished and DVD Shrink offers settings, it will look something like the picture provided to the right of this text. Notice in the picture that the compression bar has turned green and at the end of the bar it now is 4,464MB. This does NOT mean that your DVD is 4,464MB, this means that the Automatic settings that Shrink gave for compression will result in a full disc that will fit on blank DVD media. However, the automatic settings would have the main movie on high levels on compression in most cases, so you will still need to at least get rid of foreign audio tracks etc.

However, it is not always fully green. Several things can happen here. If you have a bar that is green most of the way and then gray until the finish, with a value of less than 4,464MB, then you do not need Shrink at all. Simply copying that DVD directly should work provided it is not copy protected. If it is protected, you will need ripping software but you cannot get it here. Alternatively, you can simply go to the Backup section of this guide now by clicking here.

If you have a bar that is green most of the way and red for the rest with a value more than 4,464MB, this means with Shrink's automatic settings it cannot compress the DVD enough to fit on a blank disc. Do not worry, if you cut off a few audio tracks and perhaps shrink your menu's if they are too big, then there'll be no problems. It's quite common to see red when u first open a DVD.

First however, before we continue with DVD Shrink, have a look at the size of your Menu's in the DVD Structure box in DVD Shrink. Do you menu's take up hundreds of MB's? Watch the Menu's in your DVD player, they are probably motion menu's. Do you really need them? A program called MenuShrink can convert them to still Menu's with or without background audio. This often reduces Menu sizes to less than 5% of their original size while still keeping full functionality. If your menu's don't take up a lot of space or you would prefer to keep them, then you can skip the next section and go straight to DVD Shrink compression options by clicking here. If you would like to bring that bulky huge menu down and have better quality on your movie and extra's then go to the next section, Shrink Menu's with MenuShrink.

Warning: You can ONLY Shrink Menu's if the DVD files you are working on are on your HDD. If you opened the DVD from disc, then you have to skip right to DVD Shrink compression options.

Introducing MenuShrink

Download MenuShrink from AfterDawn. Open the download with WinRAR and extract the file (drag it out of the archive) into any folder you want. There is no installation, just simply extract and run. MenuShrink is a small but incredibly powerful tool.

MenuShrink converts Motion DVD Menu's to still picture menu's with or without the background audio and keeps full menu functionality. In some cases, you could drop 500MB easily in overall DVD size. MenuShrink allows you to select the still image from the I frames in a Motion DVD menu to have on the output. It is important to mention that you can easily restore the original menu later on if you are not happy with results.

Close DVD Shrink now as you will be working on the DVD files. We will re-open DVD Shrink when MenuShrink has completed it's task.

Open DVD folder in MenuShrink

There is an Open button on the MenuShrink interface, click it. A file browser will now open. Navigate to the DVD folder on your hard drive and locate the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. Select it and click Open.

DVD Size info and background audio

A little bit more information is available now in the MenuShrink window than before. Firstly, look at the title bar. In my case it says "6 VTS found - Total 451.28MB". That is the total size of the Menu's on my disc, and considering I want to make a backup with good quality, that's too much.

We will only focus on what we have to focus on here. There is only 1 real option for us in this section, and that's whether or not you want to keep the Background Audio of your menu's. Personally, I never do keep it. I find it pointless to have a still picture and background audio playing, it's a waste of precious DVD space most of the time. However, if you want the audio, then select Keep Audio. Now click Advanced Options.

MenuShrink Advanced Options

Now we have some more important Options we need to configure with MenuShrink. The first thing you notice here is ability to remove any of the menus on the disc from the process, if you would prefer to keep it as a motion menu. Only do this if you know what menu you are selecting.

Now look under Frame Select. The slider is there if you want MenuShrink to automatically select a still image for you. If you leave it around 85% it will pick a still image at around 85% of the way through each motion menu UNLESS you select Preview Select. If you select Preview Select, then you will be able to change the frame that you select for each menu background during the process. This allows you to choose the best look for your Menu. If you keep it unticked, then MenuShrink will select any background, based on the slider.

Remove "stop" in subpics should stay selected. Inf. still times (no audio) means that if you are not using background audio, the still frames will be set to display infinitely. You also have the option to skip intro/outro clips, which I find a good option and think you should leave it selected. Preview all Cells when selected will let you choose options for cells that would otherwise be automatically handled by MenuShrink (e.g. transitions between menus can be "killed"). When you are done with options, close Advanced Options.

MenuShrink Process without Preview Select

Click Process! to begin the shrinking. The process will be different depending on your Options. If you decided not to select Preview Select then the process will literally only take a few seconds, but your results will vary. You can easily restore the original menu if the results aren't what you expected. I do recommend that you choose Preview Select under Advanced Options as it will allow you to choose different frames as your background and shouldn't take too long (unless of course you have a MASSIVE number of menus).

Check out the result you got. In my case, My menu size is now 2.45MB, which is 448.83MB less than what it used to be.

MenuShrink Process with Preview Select

If you did select Preview Select, then when you begin the process a window will pop up. Here you can use the slider to move left or right until you find a background image to keep on the Menu. Several of these windows will pop up depending on the size of your menu's. It won't take too long.

When you click Kill (if available), then you will cut out a video from the Menu, like an intro video to the Menu. Kill will only be available if there is no buttons on the Menu for example. If you click Shrink with the background you want selected, then that image will be kept as the still image. If you click Abort, then the entire process will be aborted immediately. If you click Auto, it will set your current frame selection but will automatically pick frames for other menus in the same VTS. Keep will keep that particular menu page as a motion menu.

Check out the result you got. In my case, My menu size is now 2.45MB, which is 448.83MB less than what it used to be.

Restoring Original Menus

Preview your results with a software DVD player like WinDVD or PowerDVD (drag the VIDEO_TS.IFO file onto one of the players). When MenuShrink processes a Menu, it creates a new folder called MenuShrinkBackup in your DVD folder. All you old menus are in here. If you want to restore them simply click the Restore Menu button on MenuShrink. If you are happy with your new light weight Menu, you can delete this folder.

Back to DVD Shrink

Now, with MenuShrink out of the way, open your DVD files in DVD Shrink again and let's get ready to sort out our compression settings.

DVD Shrink Compression Settings

With DVD Shrink you can remove audio streams, subtitles and even turn an item you don't want on your DVD into a still picture. It is best to approach these options by parts of your DVD. The first part of this DVD i want to check the settings for is the Main Movie.

Main Movie Compression Settings - Video Compression

Look at the picture I have added to this text. On the left in the DVD Structure box I have selected the Main Movie "folder" (there is no Main Movie folder on the DVD though, don't get confused, this is just here to help). Click the little + beside the folder and you will see the Titles under Main Movie. In some cases there can be more than one title. I will show you in a moment how to determine which is your actual movie.

First though. Take a look into the Compression Settings on the right. Video is set to Automatic. This means that Shrink will automatically change the video compression setting when items are removed from the DVD (or when compression settings for other items are changed). Currently, the compression ratio is at 58.7% from the original state, this is quite low. The best way to boost it is to remove audio tracks and subtitles you do not need.

Main Movie Compression Settings - Audio Tracks

On most DVDs there is foreign audio and a lot of subtitles. Also there is directors commentary and often 2 tracks, one with 5.1 audio and one with 2.0 audio. Obviously, we don't need all of these tracks. Look at the picture I have with this text. There are three audio tracks; a AC3 5.1 channel English Track, an AC3 2 channel English directors commentary track and an AC3 2 channel English track.

I only need the AC3 5.1 channel track so I unselected the other two. However, to be on the safe side, click your Main Movie and then go down to the Preview Window. Right click and select the track you going to keep. Drag the slider into the middle of the movie and then press play (Do NOT seek through the video when it is playing). This will make sure you don't accidentally keep a directors commentary track or likewise instead of the proper track.

I recommend removing any DTS audio also because it takes up much more room than AC3. Of course, that depends on your own preferences when you watch movies. Also, take note that I have removed all Subtitles from the DVD, because I do not need them. The result of these cut backs is my video compression ratio is now 64.5%, a significant rise in output quality. Now let's see if there's any extra's we can get rid of.

Removing Extras

OK, so you want your extras but there might be some you are better off removing. Click the + beside Extras to see just how many you are dealing with. Look at my picture. I have checked mine with a preview already and it is 2 parts of my extras about making the movie. I want those.

Title 4-11 are all my deleted scenes and I want all of them. If I wanted to get rid of one, this is possible and I will show in the next step how to. Title 12 and 13 however, I don't need those. Both are just anti-piracy / copyright notices. I'd prefer not to have to sit and wait through them so I select them and change the Video Compression on the right to Still Image.

A still image will now be placed here instead of the video. You cannot remove the video with DVD Shrink however, this will mess up the DVD Structure. As you can see, you can click Browse and choose a picture from your HDD to put there instead of the video also. There is also another option under video compression you can use, Still Pictures. This converts the video into single frames at 0.5sec intervals. It's not very useful unless for some reason you want to keep the audio. Now lets see if we can remove more extras.

Remove More Extras

As you saw in the last paragraph, I had deleted scenes from Title's 4 through 11. These were grouped together by DVD Shrink because of the DVD Structure. However, this grouping can be turned off and I can decide not to keep certain titles after all.

Click View and unselect Combine Shared Titles. Now click the + beside Extras again and this time you see all the Titles individually and as I have done in the picture, you can decide to select any and replace with a Still Image. This is also good because it allows you to give less compression to individual items (see later).

Now the Menu Compression is next.

Menu Compression

I used MenuShrink on my Menu's so I can't really expect more compression options as a result. However, if you didn't compress you menu's you can navigate through them by VTS on your DVD. If you look at the picture you will see this. You can select any menu, preview it or even replace it with a still image. This is good if you don't want to keep foreign motion menu's.

Edit the menu's just like you edited the extra's. Now we will take a look at one last thing that can make a difference; Custom Ratio Compression.

Use Custom Ratio Compression to improve Main Movie quality

With DVD Shrink, you can set custom compression ratios on all titles on your DVD. Using this properly you can choose what parts of the DVD will be prioritised. For example, I want the highest quality on the Main Movie, but the quality of the "Making Of" parts is not important to me.

Look at the picture. I have selected Title 2 and changed the Video Compression settings to Custom Ratio. I lowered it from 64% to 53.9%. In turn, because my Main Movie is set to Automatic, the extra space that is now available because of the drop in extra's quality pushes up the ratio for the Main Movie (and anything set to Automatic). I highly recommend reducing the quality of Motion Menus and Extra's so that your DVD will have a high quality movie.

Have fun playing with Custom Ratio compression. You don't need to incredibly reduce all of your extras however. Get the main movie compression ratio as high as you can.

Unreferenced Material

I just wanted to add that you often will find an Unreferenced Material folder using DVD Shrink. These can sometimes be menus, copyright noticed, anti-piracy messages etc. It is up to you what to do with these because they vary on all DVDs.

OK, with all your compression settings now selected, it's time to move on to the process.

Backup DVD!

OK With all compression settings set, click the Backup! button and we can set the Output settings (don't worry, this will only take a few moments of your time).

Target Device

For this guide the Target Device should be set to Hard Disk Folder. However, your other options will be to Burn with Nero using your DVD Burner drive, create an ISO Image and Create an ISO Image and burn with DVD Decrypter. Personally I believe it is best to output to files so you can test the quality before it is burned to a disc.

Select target folder for DVD output files: Click the Browse button and look for a folder to save your files into. The best idea is to select the partition you want to save it in (C:\ F:\ H:\ etc.) and click Create Folder. Now select the folder rename it to whatever you want and click OK.

Create VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS subfolders: Keep this selected, it will basically create both those folders inside the folder you just made and place all your DVD files into the VIDEO_TS folder. Ok, now click the Quality Settings tab.

Quality Settings

This is a very important tab and it brings up that old dilemma again. Under this tab you can increase the quality of the output video dramatically, by selecting one or both of the options here. However, if you select one of them, the encoding will take longer, and if you select the two of them, the encoding will take even longer again. Let's a take a look at both options for a minute, I want you to really think about this.


Perform deep analysis before backup to improve quality: With this selected, the encoding will be done in two passes. The first pass (deep analysis) will gather information on the video content for DVD Shrink to help it to determine in the second pass (encoding) how to use it with efficiency in mind. This will also ensure that DVD Shrink makes it's target size accurately. I highly recommend that you enable this option but do remember, it will make the encoding take a lot longer than without it selected. Of course, there is no substitute for using less compression on your DVD wherever possible.

Compress video with high quality adaptive error compensation: Adaptive Error Compensation exists to reduce the number of noticeable artifacts on the output video. During video compression small errors and artifacts occur, this is not just with DVD Shrink either, it is just one of those bad things about video compression. Adaptive Error Correction was added to DVD Shrink to help reduce the number of video artifacts on the output. With this setting switched on, DVD Shrink will compare the original and the compressed frames to check if any noticeable artifacts have been produced. If they have, it will compensate for them accordingly, hence the name "Adaptive Error Compensation".

There are four option here to choose from, Maximum Smoothness, Smooth, Sharp and Maximum Sharpness. Sharp is the default setting. Basically, with sharp selected, DVD Shrink will try to preserve the sharpness of the original video stream. This is vice versa with Smooth. The Maximum Options will be more aggressive. The problem with choosing is choosing one may be at the expense of the other (choosing Sharp may be at the expense of smoothness or vice versa). The choice between both, is up to you. Think about it because in my experience, using Adaptive Error Compensation greatly improves the output quality on most if not all backups. However, as mentioned, the process will take longer with this selected. It is really up to you.

Now let's look at the Options tab.

Options

Here are just three simple options to choose if you wish. Run backup in low priority mode will run the backup in a low priority setting under Windows. This option exists because people like to be able to continue using their computer while a backup is in progress. If you want to use your computer, keep this setting on, if not, then disable it.

Shutdown computer when backup is complete is a good idea to select if you want to start encoding when you go to bed at night. This was you can also choose to perform a deep analysis and Adaptive Error Correction without worrying that your computer time is being eaten up or that the computer will be on and idle for hours if you fall asleep.

Play sound when complete is self explanatory. It's a good option if you are going to run off to watch tv or something while the backup is in progress. Ok, now there's just the Burn settings. All that is available under Burn Settings is Burn Speed and the Volume label so I wont bother giving it a section. It is useless if you selected Hard Disk Folder as your output anyway. Click OK whenever you want to begin the process.

The Encoding Process

Depending on your settings, the speed of your computer and the amount of content to be shrinked, this process could take a while so don't hold your breath. As soon as it is finished I highly recommend using a software DVD player of some sort (WinDVD, PowerDVD etc) to check to see how good the quality came out.

If all is well, then it is finally time to burn.

Burn your DVD

Now it's time to burn your DVD that DVD Shrink created for you. In this guide we use Nero Burning Rom, but you can use any DVD burning software you are used to. If you haven't burned a DVD before, then I suggest you get the Nero 7 package as it is probably the best software package available for DVD burning. Anyway, open Nero Burning Rom. If you don't have a shortcut on your desktop, then go to your start menu and to all programs. Under Nero 7, go to Data and Nero Burning Rom should be there. When it opens, if the New Compilation doesn't come up automatically, click File -> New.

Create DVD-Video Compilation

DVD is an optical disc format, when you watch a DVD on your DVD player you are really watching a DVD-Video compilation. Under the New Compilation window, select DVD from the ting drop down box in the top left corner of the window. Now choose DVD-Video from the list and click New.

Nero Interface

OK, now Nero will load up the new DVD-Video compilation and a File Browser. It should look something like the picture. The compilation is on the left, and the browser is on the right.

First thing to do is give your DVD a name. This is where i have "Paycheck" written in the picture. On your screen, select the text box, wait for a moment, then click it again and it will become editable. Keep it short as there is a character limit.

Now below the name you need to open the VIDEO_TS folder by double-clicking on it. Now we need to copy the files from the File Browser right accross to the compilation.

Add Files to Compilation

Ok, use the file browser to find the folder that DVD Shrink created. Inside this folder there is a VIDEO_TS folder. Double click it. You now should see a list of all the files in this folder appear on the far right column.

Click anywhere inside this column and then hit CTRL + A to select all the files in there. Now right click on the selected files and click Copy to Compilation (or hit CTRL+1 - not the 1 in the number pad though).

Make sure that the files are definitely inside the VIDEO_TS folder on the compilation, if they are not, the DVD will most likely not work in your DVD player. You will also notice the end of the program turning green. This is just to indicate how much space of the blank DVD this compilation will take up.

Prepare to Burn

At this stage, you simply have to click Recorder -> Burn Compilation to bring you to some burn settings. You can also just hit CTRL + B.

Select Writing Speed

Insert your blank DVD media now and Nero will determine based on your DVD writer's firmware the maximum speed you can burn to the media at. It is a good idea not to burn always at maximum speed. Burning at lower speeds means less chance of errors and a better quality burn overall. Select the speed from the drop-down box and click Burn.

The Burning Process

How long this process will take depends on the write speed that you decided on. Don't forget to test out the resulting DVD in your DVD player before deleting any files off of your HDD.

Freeware Burning Option

Nero actually offers a trial on its software but if you've used it up by now and you can't/don't want to buy Nero, then you can instead use another burning method. This method will take more time however, as you actually have to convert the DVD folder into an ISO and then burn it. The software used is ImgBurn and ImgTool Classic.