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Guides and articles
Guides and articles
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Introducing MenuShrink
 Download MenuShrink from AfterDawn. Open the download with WinRAR and extract the file (drag it out of the archive) into any folder you want. There is no installation, just simply extract and run. MenuShrink is a small but incredibly powerful tool.
MenuShrink converts Motion DVD Menu's to still picture menu's with or without the background audio and keeps full menu functionality. In some cases, you could drop 500MB easily in overall DVD size. MenuShrink allows you to select the still image from the I frames in a Motion DVD menu to have on the output. It is important to mention that you can easily restore the original menu later on if you are not happy with results.
Close DVD Shrink now as you will be working on the DVD files. We will re-open DVD Shrink when MenuShrink has completed it's task.
Open DVD folder in MenuShrink
 There is an Open button on the MenuShrink interface, click it. A file browser will now open. Navigate to the DVD folder on your hard drive and locate the VIDEO_TS.IFO file. Select it and click Open.
DVD Size info and background audio
 A little bit more information is available now in the MenuShrink window than before. Firstly, look at the title bar. In my case it says "6 VTS found - Total 451.28MB". That is the total size of the Menu's on my disc, and considering I want to make a backup with good quality, that's too much.
We will only focus on what we have to focus on here. There is only 1 real option for us in this section, and that's whether or not you want to keep the Background Audio of your menu's. Personally, I never do keep it. I find it pointless to have a still picture and background audio playing, it's a waste of precious DVD space most of the time. However, if you want the audio, then select Keep Audio. Now click Advanced Options.
MenuShrink Advanced Options
 Now we have some more important Options we need to configure with MenuShrink. The first thing you notice here is ability to remove any of the menus on the disc from the process, if you would prefer to keep it as a motion menu. Only do this if you know what menu you are selecting.
Now look under Frame Select. The slider is there if you want MenuShrink to automatically select a still image for you. If you leave it around 85% it will pick a still image at around 85% of the way through each motion menu UNLESS you select Preview Select. If you select Preview Select, then you will be able to change the frame that you select for each menu background during the process. This allows you to choose the best look for your Menu. If you keep it unticked, then MenuShrink will select any background, based on the slider.
Remove "stop" in subpics should stay selected. Inf. still times (no audio) means that if you are not using background audio, the still frames will be set to display infinitely. You also have the option to skip intro/outro clips, which I find a good option and think you should leave it selected. Preview all Cells when selected will let you choose options for cells that would otherwise be automatically handled by MenuShrink (e.g. transitions between menus can be "killed"). When you are done with options, close Advanced Options.
MenuShrink Process without Preview Select
 Click Process! to begin the shrinking. The process will be different depending on your Options. If you decided not to select Preview Select then the process will literally only take a few seconds, but your results will vary. You can easily restore the original menu if the results aren't what you expected. I do recommend that you choose Preview Select under Advanced Options as it will allow you to choose different frames as your background and shouldn't take too long (unless of course you have a MASSIVE number of menus).
Check out the result you got. In my case, My menu size is now 2.45MB, which is 448.83MB less than what it used to be.
MenuShrink Process with Preview Select
 If you did select Preview Select, then when you begin the process a window will pop up. Here you can use the slider to move left or right until you find a background image to keep on the Menu. Several of these windows will pop up depending on the size of your menu's. It won't take too long.
When you click Kill (if available), then you will cut out a video from the Menu, like an intro video to the Menu. Kill will only be available if there is no buttons on the Menu for example. If you click Shrink with the background you want selected, then that image will be kept as the still image. If you click Abort, then the entire process will be aborted immediately. If you click Auto, it will set your current frame selection but will automatically pick frames for other menus in the same VTS. Keep will keep that particular menu page as a motion menu.
Check out the result you got. In my case, My menu size is now 2.45MB, which is 448.83MB less than what it used to be.
Restoring Original Menus
 Preview your results with a software DVD player like WinDVD or PowerDVD (drag the VIDEO_TS.IFO file onto one of the players). When MenuShrink processes a Menu, it creates a new folder called MenuShrinkBackup in your DVD folder. All you old menus are in here. If you want to restore them simply click the Restore Menu button on MenuShrink. If you are happy with your new light weight Menu, you can delete this folder.
Back to DVD Shrink
Now, with MenuShrink out of the way, open your DVD files in DVD Shrink again and let's get ready to sort out our compression settings.
Please go to the Next Page
On the next page, we return to DVD Shrink and choose what audio, subtitles and other data to keep on the output disc. The more that is removed the better the quality will be for the video (if compressing to a DVD-R).
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Created: 10 July 2006 Last updated: 22 March 2008
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