Hi: I've been trying out AnyDvd and recently Clone DVD 2 to see how to make backups of my collection. I normally use DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter but there are some titles Decrypter won't handle (Sony, anyone?) and sometimes Shrink can't handle a DVD even after AnyDVD has decrypted it. I love the ease of use and speed of CloneDVD 2 (especially after Shrink started slowing down, which by the way you can fix by deleting your Primary and Seconday IDE drivers in Device Manager and rebooting, but it's a pain), but I have one big question before I spend the bux: Is there a way to control compressions in CloneDVD 2? In Shrink, I can control the compression quality of the main movie somewhat by "custom" compressing the Menu and Extras down to 40-50%, which I don't think are nearly as important. This frees up more DVD-5 disc room for the Main Movie. But I don't seem to find any way of individually compressing separate titles in CloneDVD2. Am I wrong? Thanx!
No. What Clonedvd2 can do is retain menus over split discs while Shrink can't. You can also rip with Clonedvd2 and import the rip into Shrink if you want (but I'm not positive about all the new Sony releases). Anydvd/Clonedvd2 will back up all the recent Sony stuff. I prefer not to compress at all and use this method: http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=327
I like some of the extras! My Problem is that I like some of the extras, especially the menu, the director's commentary, and the closed captioning (you catch so much more with it!). The previews, warnings and interviews with flaky actors I could d without. Since CloneDVD 2 allows selective title deletion (at least, I assume it does, since it allows checking little boxes), I suppose this is one way to improve the compression. I hope in the future the software writers will upgrade the program to allow for CUSTOM COMPRESSION SETTINGS! Since DVD Shrink has had this for years, one would assume Elby could do it too. Anyone listening? :disagree:
I can't speak for Elby or Slysoft but the price of DL media is falling and it's not that expensive to just delete what you want and then burn the result to a DVD DL in the event the source data is too large for a DVD-5 w/o compression. This isn't the answer you were looking for, I know, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
There are, I believe, some inherent difficulties involved if you allow a program to retain menus over split discs and also offer "custom compression settings".