DVD Shrink

DVD Shrink is a DVD backup tool that analyzes the structure of a DVD disc, compresses the video content to fit onto a single-layer DVD-5 (4.7 GB), and saves the result as an ISO image or a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive.

What it does

You insert a DVD and click Open Disc. The program reads the entire disc structure and shows a breakdown of every title, audio track, subtitle stream and extra feature with their individual sizes. A quality bar at the bottom indicates how much compression each element will receive. You can keep the full disc as is, or switch to Re-author mode where you drag only the titles you want into a custom compilation, dropping trailers and bonus content to give the main film more space and better video quality.

Unwanted audio tracks and subtitle streams can be deselected individually. Removing a commentary track or foreign language audio frees up hundreds of megabytes that the program redistributes to video quality. The output goes to an ISO file for burning later or to a VIDEO_TS folder that DVD burning software can write directly to a blank disc. The program has not been updated since 2004, but it still works on modern Windows for unencrypted discs.

Who it is for

I still keep DVD Shrink around for archiving my personal DVD collection to ISO files on a hard drive. If you have a shelf of old DVDs and want digital backups without buying new software, this does the job for unprotected discs. I also find the Re-author mode useful when I only care about the main film and want to skip all the extras. For protected commercial DVDs you will need additional decryption software first, and for Blu-ray discs you will need an entirely different tool like MakeMKV.