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IMPORTANT: Copying
a DVD is ONLY legal if you are making a personal backup copy of an
original DVD that you own. In some countries, even a personal backup
copy is not allowed. If you break the law in any way, you are fully
responsible for your own actions.
There are several applications that will allow you to
convert a 9 GB DVD into a 5 GB DVD (4.7 GB ones are those that can be
written using an average DVD burner).
It is a simple procedure, althought the quality can vary
considerably according to the software used.
The applications that allow this type of conversion (from 9 GB to 4.7 GB) can be
divided into 2 main groups: fast and slow re-encoding (or transcoding). In the
first case, the procedure is relatively quick (about 30 minutes) as the analysis
conducted is quite superficial.
In the second case, the DVD is analysed thouroughly and is re-encoded accurately
and completely. However, the procedure takes several hours.
As you might have guessed, the first procedure can lead to mediocre results, and
the only hope you have to get a decent quality is to cut out the extra languages
and extra scenes etc. so that you can reduce the amount of things to re-code.
However, if you look closely at some action scene, you'll be able to see all the
limitations in the quality of the video. On the positive side, of course, is the
fact that the procedure is simple and quick and for this reason there are many
more applications that do transcoding than encoding (it is also true that
'quality' is a very personal thing; most people are happy with what some
perfectionists consider as 'average results').
The second procedure, the encoding one, can give you a high quality result
provided that you have fast processor that can be left on working for several
hours.
The main applications are: DVD Shrink (free); DVD2One, Pinnacle Instant Copy 8,
CloneDVD. For slow re-encoding, there are QuEnc (free) and CCE
(Cinema Craft Encoder), both controlled
by DVD Rebuilder (free).
Observations regarding the different applications for copying from 9 GB DVD to
4.7 GB DVD (using a 2.8 GHZ processor and 1 GB Ram) for a 120 minutes DVD:
| App |
Licence |
Time |
Quality |
|
ProCoder 2.0 (+ DVD
REbuilder) |
commercial |
5h 30 min |
Excellent quality. Can match CCE, or even better
with low bitrates |
|
CCE (+DVD Rebuilder) 4 pass |
commercial |
5 hours |
Superb quality. This is THE standard. |
|
HC (+ DVD Rebuilder) |
freeware |
4h 30 min |
Very very high quality. |
|
QuEnc (+DVD Rebuilder) 2 pass |
freeware |
8 hours |
Very high quality (between CCE and Instant Copy 8) |
| Nero
Recode 2.1 (2 pass, H.Q.) |
shareware |
41' min |
High quality, although a few action scenes
may reveal limitations. |
|
Instant Copy 8 |
commercial |
1 hour |
High quality |
| DVDShrink 3.2
(guide) |
freeware |
1h 20 min |
High quality (same level of Instant Copy 8), although action scenes may
reveal some limitations. |
|
CloneDVD 2 |
shareware |
20 min |
Good, especially considering speed |
| DVD2One |
shareware |
20 min |
Reasonably good, although nothing as good as the
other applications |
DVDShrink guide
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