Huge DVD file, please help!

gordon_fan_24 · Post by **gordon_fan_24** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 5:09 am

I have a DVD of a movie that I want to backup incase the original gets scratched, damaged etc, I would like to keep all the legal stuff aside, (as it is for personal use, no intention to distribute) I got a friend to use a decrypter (because I dont have one), and asked him to copy it to a DVD-R. The next day, he told me that the DVD files total over 8Gb, first, how's this possible, if a DVD can only hold 4.36 GB, that the company managed to fit over 8Gb on the single DVD, and how would I go about putting it on one DVD for myself (I know about DVD shrink, but I don't want to lose any quality), I thought that since it was a single DVD to a single DVD that It would be simple. Any ideas?

jwarner · Post by **jwarner** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:21 pm

Most commercial DVD's are dual layer so can hold (almost) double the capacity of single layer DVD.

You can either use DVDShrink to make it fit a single layer DVD or buy a Dual Layer DVD burner and media.

You will not likely notice a difference in quality with DVDShrink, especially if you reauthor the DVD to eliminate all the extras. You lose the menus if you reauthor but that can be an advantage since it goes straight into the movie! You can also get rid of all the previews, extra languages etc.

btw, you can also rip the original DVD yourself to an ISO file using another Freeware program called DVD Decrypter. If you want to play the ripped movies from your Hard Drive, DAEMON Tools (also freeware) will "load" the .ISO file as a pseudo DVD drive so any media player will play it.

gordon_fan_24 · Post by **gordon_fan_24** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:58 pm

ok, thanks for the help, but the DVD is only single layer, so thats why I thought It would be easy. I will try removing all the extras and see how that helps.

jwarner · Post by **jwarner** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:20 pm

gordon_fan_24 wrote:ok, thanks for the help, but the DVD is only single layer, so thats why I thought It would be easy. I will try removing all the extras and see how that helps.

One of us is a little confused...

If this is a commercial DVD you are trying to backup, it is most likely dual layer (not to be confused with two-sided - they look exactly the same as a single layer DVD but have two layers of recording on the same side).

A single layer DVD cannot hold more than 4.5gb so the 8gb you have had to come from two layers, 2 DVD's, or from an decryption process that did not maintain the compression.

gordon_fan_24 · Post by **gordon_fan_24** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:48 pm

ok, now I see what you mean, I did confuse dual layer with two sided.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 9:40 pm

As a footnote, DVD Shrink is an excellent program and the quality of the final reduced file is, to the naked eye, no different from the original. I am sure there are measurable differences, but not so you would ever notice.

If you have the Nero 6 suite, there is also a good tool in that called Nero Recode, which essentially does the same thing as DVD Shrink (not surprising, since I understand the German developer of DVD Shrink now works for Nero!) Nero also has one additional benefit in that it has an option just to 'shrink' the main movie and not all the extras that nowadays clog up DVDs and often are nearly as long as the movie itself. By removing the extras, it will also reduce the amount of compression which the program has to apply, and thus the final quality is that much better...

jwarner · Post by **jwarner** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 10:56 pm

I see what you mean about Nero Recode! It's format is almost identical to DVD Shrink - pretty obvious the same code is behind both...

The main difference of course, is that Recode won't decrypt copy protected DVD's like Shrink will - but it will accept .ISO files created by DVD Decoder.