Hi all, Up front I only use DVDShrink for backing up my DVDs in case of damaging the original. I just have two questions for users of DVDShrink and those of you who backup their full DVDs onto DVD-Rs. Please note up front that I don't want to re-author or lose anything from my backups. 1. Why does DVDShrink sometimes, with certain DVDs, e.g. usually DVDs with a LOT of extra features such as Terminator 2, fail to compress the DVD down to the required 4472MB? Instead you get the error message saying, "The Current DVD size is too big! If you continue, you may not be able to burn the resulting files. Please ensure that video is set to 'Automatic' compresion, or try disabling some audio streams." Up front I always have it set to Automatic, and the only way I can find around this is to shrink the files to the hard drive and then open them again, and shrink them A SECOND TIME to fit on a DVD. Surely this shouldn't be necessary - why does it happen? And is there any easier way of just shrinking to the DVD-R once? 2. My second question is just this: Exactly HOW MUCH DATA CAN A DVD-R HOLD? I was using DVDShrink the other day and got the above message, because instead of compressing down to 4472 it could only compress down to 4480. However this still fit on the DVD-R when I burned with Nero. Exactly HOW MANY MB can a DVD-R hold before it tells me there is not enough room on a disc? Can I go up to 4485 or 4490 or 4500 or beyond? Thanks for your attention, and I'd appreciate any response to my concerns! All the best, Mark

First of all you should never perform a full backup with compression set to automatic as it will look blocky and pixleate like hell. If a film won't fit on without reautohring then buy dual layerd discs and have no compression. Remember a dvd is compressed already when the info is put onto it during production adding more is bad. Secondly a regular DVD- or+ R disc has a size of 4.7 GIG. when in actual fact it holds roughly 4400ish (forget the exact numbers). With regards to compressing T2 to a 4.7 why the hjell would you do that without splitting the film up as it is way to big to fit on a single layered disc. If you want perfect backups never leave autocompression on and leave the image on your hard drive then when you get dual layered discs burn it. Or keep the image on the hard drive forever.

"Up front I only use DVDShrink for backing up my DVDs in case of damaging the original." Yeah, right, and you use the screen name Pirate_LeChuck23! Anyway, as Lupin3rd stated your backups are going to look terrible if you are compressing the entire contents of a dual-layer disc to fit onto a single layer disc. Either re-author or get dual-layer writable discs. Michael J

The answer to #1 is, DVD's have a certain compression ratio they need to follow to be compliant with standard DVD specifications. If you compressed it beyond those specs, it won't play in most DVD players.

In the Preferences of DVDshrink you can set the Target size of your project. In DVDshrink, go to Edit then select Preferences, under target size, select Custom and set it to 4416 manually and hit OK. Thats it, your project will now fit on a 4.7 DVD blank. Like Lupin3rd said, this will compress all items pretty small. Which will degrade the picture quality. I usually remove the extra features and their audio, I also remove other languages (french, spanish) Hope this helps Rich Gu P4 3.2 / 1 GB PC3200 Intel MOBO self built

MichaelJ, Pirate LeChuck is a integral part of the Lucas Arts 'Monkey Isle' games. Sorry, I do not check for private messages