DVD Shrink runs fast in Parallels

DVD Shrink performs fast while running in Parallels.*

* MacBook Pro
2.2GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 128MB Geforce 8600 graphics card
* Using a Windows XP VM (virtual machine) with 512MB of RAM and up to 15GB allocated to the VM.

A backup of a DVD movie took only 10 minutes in Parallels (using a pre-ripped DVD Video folder). This is faster than any compression I've done on a PC. Usually it would take around 15 minutes to compress a DVD on my old Dell Latpop (1.86GHz centrino processor, 2GB of RAM). DVD Shrink is performing faster in a virtual machine than it was on my midrange laptop from 2005.

* Note: Copying the ISO file created by DVD Shrink into a Parallels shared folder took about five minutes, so this actually evens out the amount of time for the compression.

Bottom Line: If you're a PC user that misses DVD Shrink, definitely consider running it in Parallels, unless of course you are already running Bootcamp. Mac users: DVD Shrink is probably the best DVD Compression program available on PCs or Macs, and it's also free!!

Be aware that DVD Shrink has not been updated in the last three years, so it cannot remove the latest copy protections. Use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD Video files to your hard drive, and then compress them with DVD Shrink.

If you know of any DVD Shrink equivalent (free) programs for the mac, post a comment. DVD2OneX is the closest thing I've found for Mac, but it only allows the main movie to be extracted, and it costs around $40. I want to keep the menus and the chapters when backing up my DVDs.


Coming Soon:

Burn and Backup your DVD movies on a Mac