3 January 2007

k9copy

I was searching for a software to convert a DVD9 to a DVD5 just like DVDShrink does. It didn't take long before I saw k9copy which does exactly what I wanted.

The idea was to backup my original DVDs which are usually DVD9 to DVD+R discs which are replaceable. I tried one of the DVD9 and the process took around half an hour or so. However, the result wasn't as fabulous as one would get with DVDShrink. The picture was all pixelated even though the camera wasn't moving during a shot. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to change some settings before I start using it?

I hope k9copy gets better at this so as to at least give as good a quality as DVDShrink does.

3 comments:

Pete Forsyth said...

Very surprised to hear this, the quality of K9Copy-produced disks has been far better than that of DVDshrink in my (limited) experience. Even shrinking full-length DVDs to 700MB video CDs. Have you tried multiple DVDs? Maybe it's some peculiarity of the DVD you tested with?

KDS said...

Thanks for the comment Pete. I had tried only one DVD at that time and the output by k9copy was of a much lower quality than DVDShrink. I was surprised also as DVDShrink is not developed anymore and the latest version is around 2 years old if not more.

Your comment has rekindled my curiosity to use an OSS DVD shrinking tool. I will try it again and put my results up here again.

Anonymous said...

In my experience the results from k9copy vary with different original DVD's. Most often the results range from good (with just detectable blockiness in dimly lit scenes) to excellent. However a few DVD's come out unusably 'blocky'. It may depend on how much data is on the original DVD - obviously if it's crammed with a full 9GB of data and you try to compress it all, then something's got to give. But many dual-layer DVD's aren't that full, or you can elect to copy the main feature only - thus reducing the amount of compression needed.

I suggest just try it and see how it goes.