Shrink DVDs down to size with Amok DVD Shrinker

[Osiris]

Description: Amok DVD Shrinker is a free program that can compress decrypted DVDs to smaller, user-defined disk sizes without any noticeable reduction in quality. It is designed to enable the copying of commercial DVDs stored on nonstandard media in order to fit them on a standard 4.7 gig writable DVD.
Imagine the following scenario: you've just successfully decrypted a DVD and copied it to your hard disk, but when you try to burn it to a DVD you realize that the decrypted data exceeds the 4.7 capacity of your burnable media and will not fit.

If this has happened to you then Amok DVD Shrinker is what you need. Not only will this program quickly and easily compress the DVD on your hard drive into any size that you want with no apparent loss in quality, but it will also preserve all the elements of the original including menus and extra features (or, otherwise, if you specify that you are only interested in the main title it can do that as well).
More info on this program:

• The User interface: is simple and straightforward, with only a limited number of decisions that the user is asked to make (see below).
• Performance: in my test, Amok DVD Shrinker successfully compressed a 6+ gig DVD into 4.7 gigs in 20 minutes (with the quality/speed slider pushed past the mid-point to favor quality over speed, and the preview window enabled). The Amok site states that Amok DVD Shrinker is faster than the well known DVD Shrink, and although I did not scientifically compare these two under the same conditions I remember that DVD Shrink, hitherto the freeware standard bearer for this kind of task, typically took hours to process anything, not minutes.
• User input: the user is only required to make 4 decisions, as follows; (1) the desired output size (e.g. 4.7 gigs for a normal DVD), (2) whether you want the only main movie or the whole DVD with menus and features, (3) whether you want all the different language tracks included or select a singe audio track from the dropdown, and (4) the user's preference for speed of processing vs. performance on a 5 point scale.
• Encryption: please note that this program is not designed to remove encryption from commercial DVDs, but rather processes the DVD data once it has been decrypted. If you need a freeware DVD decryption program try RipIt4Me/DVD Decrypter, DVD FAB HD Decrypter, or DVD43 (which decrypts in real time without needing to save to the hard disk first).
• Creates ISO: at the end of the shrinking process. If you need a free program that can burn your ISO file to DVD use IMGburn.
• Portable: two versions available, a setup version that installs normally and a zipped version that you can unpack and use without installing.
• The preview window: gives you a glimpse of what the program is processing at that particular moment (the aspect ratio in the preview is incorrect but don't worry the DVD is processing correctly). Switch this off for faster processing.

The verdict: this is simply a great program that finally brings another free alternative for doing this sort of task aside from DVD Shrink. What I like about it is that it is simple, straightforward, and narrows down the decisions that a user has to contend with to the bare minimum. It's also probably the fastest freeware program that does what it does.

Shrink DVDs down to size with Amok DVD Shrinker Review & Download Link | freewaregenius.com