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Using Nero 9 and AnyDVD?

Wow!!! Thanks for all the replies to this topic. Yes, I'm easily confused by all the technical jargon about different software/freeware etc. I'm a newbie at this and just want to start out simple. I'll use Nero to burn and DVD shrink to compress. If you were in my shoes and starting out as a newbie, what would be your best options? Nero 9 suite has an abundance of stuff on it, but mostly I'm interested in the burning, copying stuff.

So, do you see me needing anydvd at this time? I probably should just get it. Are there advantages of having both anydvd and clonedvd? I'm assuming clonedvd is what my Nero would do, is that right? I don't need to use Nero if you think that the recode has bugs/fleas/maggots, etc. Like I said, I'm very new at this stuff and it does get me confused. This is what I know I need:

Decryption software-anydvd?
burning software-nero or clonedvd??
compression-dvd shrink??

Anything else? Thanks for all the help....I'll need it.

Joe
 
You ABSOLUTELY need AnyDVD for decryption. (we all made that clear)
Your basic Nero will BURN - you already bought it.
DVDShrink is the easiest to use, good, FREE, compression software for newbies.
Nero Recode is DVDShrink in a Nero wrapper - with a bug added that shows up in about 1/1000 titles.

DvdRebuilder is amongst the best compression software out there - but IMHO not for newbies - and not entirely free.

-W
 
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I easily agree that DVDRebuilder is the better shrinker.... but this guy hasn't used ANYTHING at all yet.

So much the better then to start with useful software, including Clonedvd and Rebuilder instead of software that I now seriously consider next to useless, including Shrink and Recode.

So at least if he starts with Shrink or Recode... he can get his feet wet. And both of those hook to Nero for burning - making it easy for this guy.

No. Shrink cannot hook into Nero 9.

With DVD Rebuilder you need to download yet another 3rd party burning tool to burn the output.

Imgburn is freeware and also would be wise to learn.

But Yes Dvd Rebulder into ImgBurn is probably the "best" way to go - I just don't think it's for a Newbie that already bought Nero.

All this focus on calling the OP a "newbie", when Clonedvd is, in fact, much easier to use than either Shrink or Recode, and Dvd Rebuilder is not significantly more difficult to learn than Shrink or Recode . . .

But there is a reason that DVDShrink 3.2 is the #1 most used copy program out there.

I'm skeptical that it still is, and if even if that is true, it's only because people are uneducated. Doesn't really impress me.
Lowest common denominator

It's still very good, easy, free, and hooks to Nero to burn.

No. Shrink can't hook into the latest versions of Nero.

DvdRebuilder's output is far better, and with most computers built within the last two years, the amount of time spent compressing with Rebuilder is not significantly worse than compressing with Shrink (Rebuilder will take longer, but the time difference is not as huge as it use to be, especially with quad core cpus or better).

Yes, yes, on one out of 10 disks you need ot use the AnyDVD ripper first... big deal.

And I have yet to encounter a disc that required me to rip first before using Dvd Rebuilder or Clonedvd.
 
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Are there advantages of having both anydvd and clonedvd?

Yes, you can remove unwanted material first before ripping if you own Clonedvd. And then you could use the freeware version of Dvd Rebuilder to compress if you want to use another program to compress.


Decryption software-anydvd?

yes

burning software-nero or clonedvd??

Sure. Doesn't matter. You can also use imgburn (freeware)

compression-dvd shrink??

No. The majority of the English moderators use Dvd Rebuilder for compression for a reason. If the output bar in Clonedvd is showing 85% or more, then Clonedvd is fine for most people.

Only people with very slow systems or those that don't know any better (or refuse to learn anything new) use Shrink. Most people that are serious about picture quality use encoders--not transcoders (which includes Shrink and Recode)--to compress.
 
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I'd never used DVD rebuilder before, but what I like about it is I can get it to use Carbon coder mastering quality to give me the highest quality re-encode of the video footage (takes a while, but I was only using it to test)
 
I tend to do 9-pass CCE re-encodes when I use DVD Rebuilder these days. Having a new & faster system helps tremendously. :D

Great movies get the 9-pass treatment. So-so movies get the 3-pass treatment.

HC has gotten better with time and it is definitely amazing for a freeware encoder but since I happen to have CCE I don't use HC much.

Frankly, these days, you couldn't pay me to use DVD Shrink or Nero Recode. I totally yanked Nero from my system and wiped every last file and registry entry. Even running the Cleaner Tool from Nero leaves an insane amount of garbage, then you need to run CCleaner about 3 times to get what it detects as being left behind, and even after that you still need to manually remove stuff. It's pathetic. Nero is a bloated piece of garbage at this point and there are alternatives for every feature in its suite of tools. Almost every alternative is freeware.

DVD Rebuilder blows away Nero Recode
ImgBurn is as good if not better than Nero Burning ROM and it's not nearly as bloated and spreading garbage throughout your system that the uninstaller does not remove.

When all is said and done decisions are subjective but anyone who is making a DVD-5 (SL DVD) backup of a DVD and plans on watching it on a TV that is of any decent size (ie 30", 40", etc) is simply silly to use Recode or DVD Shrink. They both may be better than other transcoders but they don't even come close to DVD Rebuilder.

The one simple and indisputable fact is that AnyDVD is required to accomplish any of this.
 
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DLAD, is all the goodness available in the free V0.98.2 or does it come with the Pro version only? I found a lot of links to rebuilder, the HP seems to have dobbs in the URL is that the true HP? I ask because these things get put up all over the place and it can sometimes be tricky to know for sure.

I was a holdout on Shrink for a long time because I liked the output. If I can get that back and better I am all in. Never did any checking around as I had owned CloneDVD for years so I just moved to it. Not that it is a bad product, it's not but I will go for harder to use but better output anytime.
 
DLAD, is all the goodness available in the free V0.98.2 or does it come with the Pro version only? I found a lot of links to rebuilder, the HP seems to have dobbs in the URL is that the true HP? I ask because these things get put up all over the place and it can sometimes be tricky to know for sure.

I was a holdout on Shrink for a long time because I liked the output. If I can get that back and better I am all in. Never did any checking around as I had owned CloneDVD for years so I just moved to it. Not that it is a bad product, it's not but I will go for harder to use but better output anytime.

Refer to the website, damnskippy. I don't remember the differences offhand but there are some limitations to the free version, yes. One of the differences I do seem to remember is that you can't make use of all cores on a multi-core system with the freeware version.

Even when I do use DVD Rebuider I still always rip the disc to my HDD with CloneDVD first.
 
DLAD, is all the goodness available in the free V0.98.2 or does it come with the Pro version only? I found a lot of links to rebuilder, the HP seems to have dobbs in the URL is that the true HP? I ask because these things get put up all over the place and it can sometimes be tricky to know for sure.

I was a holdout on Shrink for a long time because I liked the output. If I can get that back and better I am all in. Never did any checking around as I had owned CloneDVD for years so I just moved to it. Not that it is a bad product, it's not but I will go for harder to use but better output anytime.

The version of CCE Drink has costs a lot of money. And when you start comparing 3 passes with CCE to 3 passes with HC encoder, the results are debatable. Some prefer HC encoder output with anime for example than with CCE. But CCE is a bit faster. 9 passes of CCE is only offered in the very expensive CCE version.

You can remove what you want in Clonedvd first (rip). Then use the freeware dvd rebuilder with hc encoder to compress.

Or you can use DVD Rebuilder Pro.
 
Even when I do use DVD Rebuider I still always rip the disc to my HDD with CloneDVD first.

That's good to be 100% safe.

I think, practically speaking though, Dvd Rebuilder Pro processes files to the hard drive first anyway. But I could be mistaken (it's been awhile since I've used it).
 
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That's good to be 100% safe.

I think, practically speaking though, Dvd Rebuilder processes files to the hard drive first anyway. But I could be mistaken (it's been awhile since I've used it).

I think you are right but I'm not sure. Regardless, I always remove what I don't want with CloneDVD as I rip to my HDD. Once I have my cleaner material then I go ahead and re-encode with DVD Rebuilder.
 
No. The majority of the English moderators use Dvd Rebuilder for compression for a reason. If the output bar in Clonedvd is showing 85% or more, then Clonedvd is fine for most people.

Only people with very slow systems or those that don't know any better (or refuse to learn anything new) use Shrink. Most people that are serious about picture quality use encoders--not transcoders (which includes Shrink and Recode)--to compress.

Let's take the last sentence first. You left CloneDVD out of the sentence but made sure you included Shrink and Recode - when all three use transcoders and CloneDVD has the worst of the three, as we all know. It's not that you ever say anything untrue, you don't.... it's the ever-present spin doctoring with creative choices of phrasing and wordplay that slips by 90% of the people 90% of the time - you're good. :) And when you couch the choice as between CloneDVD and DVDRebuilder, leaving out the guy in the middle that most real people use, it's also brilliant.

Now lets take the first sentence. I believe you 100% that the English moderators use Dvd Rebuilder for compressing. Let's remember that by definition, you moderators are the most knowledgable and "into it" type of "DVD geeks" available here. (I say that in a good way.) I'm of the opinion that DVDRebuilder, though better, is still more in the realm of the "high end geeks" world. Yes, the "average uncurious Joe" will settle for CloneDVD because it's easiest - and he knows of nothing better. The guy that wants to do a little better than the sheep will take the minimum effort to learn to use DVD Shrink. Many of us are so happy with it's output (properly used) we seek nothing better. But you "professional geeks" with high speed machines who want the very best would indeed use DVD Rebuilder.

I'd still bet that the majority of the people are using DVDShrink. Perhaps not on this board (here on the home turf of CloneDVD) anymore... (though the last poll here did show that Shrink was the dominant program by a wide margin). I know that everyone that I know personally still uses it. The people I know using Shrink aren't "hold-outs". They are smart enough to know a really good free product when they see it - but perhaps not smart enough (or too lazy) to use DVDRebuilder or any of the latest "next great thing" to come along.

But I know that for poor old CloneDVD, the product that competes with it the hardest in the real world free marketplace is still Shrink - which is why it's under the most attack here, while other products get a freer ride.

What we all agree on, is that CloneDVD is not a good choice for compressing in any cases except where very little compression is needed.

Yes, Clone has some utility as a pre-process ripper, particularly if you already own it, but the AnyDVD ripper is quite sufficiant as well. You can import that rip into DVD Rebuilder or DVDShrink and still have your way with it. I just don't see CloneDVD as being a good value at all - and if they go subscription with it it'll be a horrific value. I honestly don't even seeing as a player in the real world market were it not riding along with a true superstar like AnyDVD - not with free products that do its job so much better.

-W
 
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Let's take the last sentence first. You left CloneDVD out of the sentence but made sure you included Shrink and Recode - when all three use transcoders and CloneDVD has the worst of the three, as we all know. It's not that you ever say anything untrue, you don't.... it's the ever-present spin doctoring with creative choices of phrasing and wordplay that slips by 90% of the people 90% of the time - you're good. :) And when you couch the choice as between CloneDVD and DVDRebuilder, leaving out the guy in the middle that most real people use, it's also brilliant.

I just wanted to point out that I don't do any spin doctoring. Webslinger doesn't IMO either but he is capable of defending himself. I don't use transcoders, period. The results are not up to par with an encoder like HC or CCE when I use DVD Rebuilder.

I use CloneDVD for ripping. I use it for the ease and power in removing garbage. That you cannot do with the AnyDVD ripper. I could also selectively rip and compress if I wanted to with each and every DVD. You can't say that about DVD Shrink and we know why.

The simple fact is regardless of transcoder quality I'm always going to recommend CloneDVD as a ripper for many reasons every single time and it isn't just because I'm a Moderator here and I have to follow the party line. I've used the software since it came into existence which was years before I ever read or posted in any Elaborate Bytes or Slysoft product discussion forums.

Just to clarify things, even if I have a disc that is 95% quality if I ripped it to a DVD5 with CloneDVD, I don't. I rip it as a DVD9 and use DVD Rebuilder to re-encode. I don't deal with transcoders anymore and haven't for almost a year or more. I only screw around with them when I'm experimenting.

These days with the computers most people have and options like DVD Rebuilder and HC there is less reason to use DVD Shrink. Sure people can use it but it isn't the best in quality and it has issues when dealing with discs with structural protections. These are facts. I'm not going to say CloneDVD is the best transcoder either. That claim has never been made. Far from it.

What matters, in the end, is that people are happy with the output when they watch their backups. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Edit: This post isn't meant to sound annoyed or angry. I'm not. I'm just posting my thoughts. :)
 
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it's the ever-present spin doctoring with creative choices of phrasing and wordplay that slips by 90% of the people 90% of the time - you're good.

I've made it very apparent on these boards that Shrink's compressed output
is superior to Clonedvd's. I've posted links showing direct comparisons. Suggesting that I'm trying to sell or "spin" Clonedvd to people is nonsense. In the Anydvd forum, in particular, I tend to troubleshoot problems without forcing compression programs on anyone. Do you see me frequently trying to shove Clonedvd onto 1-Click and Shrink users in the Anydvd forum?

I do feel Clonedvd is a useful program, especially if you already own Anydvd. That's my honest opinion.

And when you couch the choice as between CloneDVD and DVDRebuilder

No. This is what I'm saying:

Given that
1) Clonedvd ensures compatibility with Anydvd,
2) Clonedvd is useful as a pre-processor to eliminate unwanted material (which also reduces ripping time), and
3) Clonedvd rips faster than Anydvd ripper


Then

4) If I'm going to rip to dvd files for whatever reason, I'm going to use Clonedvd with Anydvd running in the background

Are Shrink and Recode useful here as a pre-processor with Anydvd? No

Given that

5) Recode and Shrink are not as good as HC encoder with respect to PQ, and

6) DVD Rebuilder provides a nice easy interface for people who want to use encoders

then

7) Using DVD Rebuilder is the better choice if your primary concern is picture quality


So, I don't think you're going to convince me that I'd need to use Shrink or Recode. The only reason I have both programs on my system is to help people on these forums. Otherwise, I would have uninstalled them by now.

Ironically, I *suspect* (I could be wrong, but I suspect) that James is a bigger fan of DvdShrink than I am (despite the fact that I supported the idea of Anydvd supporting Shrink after Saw III came out).

leaving out the guy in the middle that most real people use, it's also brilliant

Popularity does not necessarily imply quality. Popularity often defines the lowest common denominator.



You can import that rip into DVD Rebuilder

I don't have to rip anything (that I'm aware of yet) before using Rebuilder Pro. That's another point you're missing.

Now are you going to explain to me why I'd ever want to use Shrink or Recode instead of a Clonedvd/DvdRebuilder Pro combo for a single dvd-5 backups (not that I make many)? In fact, I'd be more inclined to split a backup over two single layer discs before I consider compression.
 
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I just wanted to point out that I don't do any spin doctoring. Webslinger doesn't IMO either but he is capable of defending himself.

He does it on instinct, not with malice. I'd be surprised if he were not on his school's debate team and a master of the "20 point spread". There's a reason, I recognize talent when I see it.

I don't use transcoders, period. The results are not up to par with an encoder like HC or CCE when I use DVD Rebuilder.

Agreed. But CloneDVD is transcoder based. So an apples to apples comparisons in the newbie world would be the same. The rest is Red Herring material.

I use CloneDVD for ripping. I use it for the ease and power in removing garbage. That you cannot do with the AnyDVD ripper. I could also selectively rip and compress if I wanted to with each and every DVD. You can't say that about DVD Shrink and we know why.

Actually in FULL DISK mode - Shrink can manually compress Menus and Extras to less than "normal" to leave room for the Main Movie - can CloneDVD do that now?

The simple fact is regardless of transcoder quality I'm always going to recommend CloneDVD as a ripper for many reasons every single time and it isn't just because I'm a Moderator here and I have to follow the party line. I've used the software since it came into existence which was years before I ever read or posted in any Elaborate Bytes or Slysoft product discussion forums.

That's nice... but do you really think that the "pay to play" CloneDVD would have a life of it's own (vs Shrink) if it wasn't married to AnyDVD ??

Just to clarify things, even if I have a disc that is 95% quality if I ripped it to a DVD5 with CloneDVD, I don't. I rip it as a DVD9 and use DVD Rebuilder to re-encode. I don't deal with transcoders anymore and haven't for almost a year or more. I only screw around with them when I'm experimenting.

I don't dispute that. Now start a fair poll on the AnyDVD forum to see who does what and who even knows the difference.

These days with the computers most people have and options like DVD Rebuilder and HC there is less reason to use DVD Shrink. Sure people can use it but it isn't the best in quality and it has issues when dealing with discs with structural protections. These are facts. I'm not going to say CloneDVD is the best transcoder either. That claim has never been made. Far from it.

Woa!!! DVDShrink does not "have issues" dealing "structural protections". Remember that the whole premise of AnyDVD is that prgrams should not have to deal with any copy protections at all. That's the core of the spin issue working it's way on you.
AnyDVD lost it's ability to deal with "strange" structural protections "on the fly" when SAW III came out. From then on the AnyDVD ripper was created to deal with them in real time. (fair enough) The premise of that day 2 years ago was that copy programs should not have to deal with structural copy protections - that was the whole job of AnyDVD.
Were you not here then??

[i This post isn't meant to sound annoyed or angry. I'm not. I'm just posting my thoughts. :)

It doesn't sound angry.... :)

-W
 
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Woa!!! DVDShrink does not "have issues" dealing "structural protections".

Yes, it does. That's the entire reason "rip video dvd to harddisk" was introduced in Anydvd. Dvd Shrink doesn't have issues dealing with discs that conform to a dvd-video standard. While I would agree that it's not Shrink's responsibility to deal with discs that don't conform to a dvd-video standard, Shrink can't handle discs containing structural protections. That's a fact.

Recode one-up's Shrink by not liking dvds with lots of titles even though those discs do conform to a dvd-video standard.
 
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Yes, it does. That's the entire reason "rip video dvd to harddisk" was introduced in Anydvd. Dvd Shrink doesn't have issues dealing with discs that conform to a dvd-video standard. While I would agree that it's not Shrink's responsibility to deal with discs that don't conform to a dvd-video standard, Shrink can't handle discs containing structural protections. That's a fact.

OK... I stand corrected in my statement.... In that Shrink (or anything else) should not have to deal with any copy protection - structural or otherwise. That's what we pay AnyDVd for, and that's what was agreed on long ago in the SAW III nightmare.

-W
 
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He does it on instinct

:rolleyes:

Inferring that I'm a mindless/programmed Clonedvd shill is pretty annoying. Maybe if I rip using Clonedvd, I'm doing so because (I honestly believe) that makes sense and that I am making an intelligent, informed decision.
 
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The answers to all the questions or points you made are in these forums already, Clams Canino. I honestly don't have the time, energy, or inclination to write them all up and summarize them in a posting when they are already located in this thread and elsewhere.
 
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:rolleyes:

Inferring that I'm a mindless/programmed Clonedvd shill is pretty annoying. Maybe if I rip using Clonedvd, I'm doing so because (I honestly believe) that makes sense and that I am making an intelligent, informed decision.

That was not what I meant to infer. I meant to infer that your skilled use of inclusion and omission when arguing a point is both insticntive and well honed.

But you already *own* CloneDVD for whatever reason, and since its transcoder is poor you can only use it as a ripper that's a bit more convienient than the AnyDVD ripper. CloneDVD has needed a transcoder and feature update for a long time now to bring it up to the same quality level as AnyDVD. (not to mention it's closest freeware competitor) You've known me long enough to know that I don't reward underachievement with money gifts. Sure, if CloneDVD was a free utility thrown in with AnyDVD - I'd use it to rip just to speed things up a little.

-W
 
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