Backing up DVDs

[cincibuck]

My old reliable DVD shrink just ain't gettin' it done on newer DVDs. I keep getting an error message, "not enough room in file selected." Anyone know how to make a file bigger, or got a better product to save my DVDs?

[sandgk]

cincibuck - this _may_ be due to the pre-processing before you get into DVDShrink. That tool is nothing more than a compressor. I would look at the newer versions of tools like this to get the video files ready for backup.

Then, as for "shrinking to fit" there are some other options - but in my experience the most important step is getting good set of files with which to work. If you have authoring software this also typically includes the ability to "fit to disc" these days.

[cincibuck]

Hmmmmmm, I downloaded the program (DVDfab) and it ripped the first DVD pretty fast, but now it just sits there and won't write the film onto a black DVD.

[sandgk]

Hope you don't mind my reposting what I sent you - or at least a summary of it.

Symptoms - cincibuck has about 3/4 of an 80GB HD free - but keeps getting "out of space" messages when trying to shrink to fit a larger Video_TS folder.
Here is what I replied earlier today - Am I missing something else?

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The "out of space" messages you are getting don't on their own make a whole lot of sense. That is if you have ripped the video_ts folder, and you have 60GB to spare on the hard drive, then shrinking to fit shouldn't be too onerous. You should have seen HD capacity go down by 8.7 GB when you made your rip.
You will be making temporary files - are these going to a second smaller drive, or a partition on the 80GB drive? Is it perhaps filled to the gills? Otherwise you should have seen the overall capacity go down by as much as 5 GB while temp files were written. These would then flush once you tried to shrink the Video_TS folder.
Maybe I'm missing something else.
I'd suggest reposting the thread in the Computer Forum where hardware whizzes like Hodge can give you a different point of view.
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EDIT:
There are a couple of other options that come to mind -
the first (as you call DVDShrink old and reliable) I think is unlikely.
First - are the output files from DVDShrink set to be 1GB chunks? If not do that.
Second - and somewhat more troublesome ... some DVDs reportedly have a "trick" file which is intended to loop continuously. Being seen as effectively of infinite size, or maybe because it creates a file of effectively uncapped size, DVDShrink chokes on the task.
Of course, this should not be a problem if you do the following (note, this will effectively re-author the DVD):

First - look a the disc contents in DVDShrink - make a note of the Video files you really will need. Write it down.
Next use the likes of DVDFab to make the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder amenable to simple copying. Which - by all accounts you've already done - thus you have the full VIDEO_TS folder on HD.

Next make a new folder in which you will place only those .VOB and .IFO files you need as noted in DVDShrink.

Put these Video files through the shrinker - and without the pesky "trick" file, whichever one that was, you get a functioning set of indexed Video files that are down to size for you archive copy.

Dependent on your situation you may want to PM me or others with details.