Hi all,
both dvdshrink and dvdxpress copy have been excellent programs for me.
From what Ive read, dvdxpress copy has a slight advantage over dvdshrink.
Let's say your only ripping the movie contents, what compression level would be your limit in dvdshrink before switching over to dvdxpress copy?

Lastly, does dvdxpress compress audio, or is this strictly video?

Success so far!

Tia! :p

Generally once it gets beyond a level 3 compression then I go with DVD X COPY Xpress. I really can't tell any difference at the lower levels but once I get to a level 4 compression the picture starts to look a little grainy. No program to my knowledge compresses the audio. You have the option to remove audio tracks with DVD Shrink and I'm sure Xpress selects just one audio track (doesn't really give you any options there) and goes with it to save space.

jesertace777,
great info!
If you are right and dvdxpress copy selects only 1 audio track, i think it goes for the best quality one.

For example, i ripped hannibal using dvd shrink and 2 channel audio. I then compared this to the audio output of dvdxpress copy and the sound quality on dvdxpress was much better, almost as if it picked the 6 channel track.

If only there was a definite way of concluding this.

DVD Shrink has something dvdxpress copy simply does not have:- Options, lots of options. On many, many films just be removing the DTS soundstream alone you will find then that DVD Shrink does not need to use any compression at all.

And now with the advent of the v3.0 Betas there are no compression numbers and it actually gives you the "%" of compression used, you can also turn it up or down using a slider so you are always using Max disc space. For me there is not even a choice to be made between the two. Why not try v3.0 Beta 5 which can be downloaded from www.dvdshrink.org/ v3.0 final should be released early September.

They have fine tuned it that much since V2.3? Man I have got to get my computer back up and running so I can try the new version out. I agree that I like using DVD Shrink more than X COPY Xpress so that I can have options but when it comes to higher levels (or now percentages) of compression X COPY does deliver a better quality picture. Or have they fixed that with the newest revision as well? BTW Stevensky next time try using the ACS 6 channel audio track instead of the two channel. My guess is that X COPY Xpress selects a surround sound audio track instead of just a 2 channel.

I read about the latest beta a few weeks ago and didn't realize how solid it sounds. A compression slider so that u always use max space? Sweet!

Jesterace, I will try out your suggestion in regards to the audio selection.

As for max compression, I think level 5 is max, for me. I run a regular tube so I haven't been able to notice the grainy quality that hdtv can spot. (-8

Good job, guys!

v3.0 can also do a deep analysis of the files so the results should be even better than 2.3 though this does of course take longer.

Yeah just done csi series two each around 7.4-7.6 gb on each disc (3 discs in total) did 1 with dvdxcopyexpress to compare against the dvdshrink 3 beta 4 version- to me there is little or no difference if anything dvdshrink is slightly better.

I totally agree with lazaa on this- so much more options on dvd shrink, dvdxcopyexpress output video_ts folder is default 4.13gb- dvdshrink you can goto the limit- i found for my datawrite riteks creating a video_ts file of 4483mb (according to dvdshrink although this actually 4.37 real GB) will work- which is an extra 6% of space- not much i suppose but every little helps!

Secondly with csi which is amulti epsisode set of dvd's you have a making of kind of documentary on each disc which i know i'll never watch so increased the compression in that to increase quality in the actual episodes

one thing i have to say though is that on the adjustable ratio bar- you can't go from 0-100% (100% being no compression) i found that in most cases the maximum compression you could do without resorting to still frames was around 45%. i guess anything less than that is unviewable anyway- in the end each episode was done at about 56-57% and they seem fine- using the deep analysis function.

Never not used the deep analysis function so i'm not sure if it makes much of a difference.

Can i just ask whether those that have used any of the dvd shrink 3 beta versions, whether the output from instant copy 7 is better- (also with ic7 can multi episode dvd's with menus be done easily on one disc?)

I didn't even think of the extra space issue (4.13GB vs. 4.37GB). You're right it may not be much but I'm sure there is at least a little bit of difference.

Lazza/Nimbles,
how high do you guys go with compression on dvdshrink?

Nice point about dvdxcpress copy being only 4.13g.
That is enough of a difference for me to stick with dvdshrink for the majority of burns.
I used xpress copy when the movie is just too big.