Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Does compressing a DVD compress the audio track ?

Short version of the question. Feel free to skip my long background story included so people know this isn't a piracy promoting, type board..

When you compress a DVD using DVD Shrink or other software, does it also process and compress the audio tracks? At this point in my TV life I don't mind a little video loss but I'd like to keep the 5.1 track as detailed as possible.

Long story...
Someone earlier was posting about ripping DVDs with DVD Shrink. I saw the answer there but have heard conflicting accounts.

Why do I want to know? I have used it to make copies of our Jeep Clubs various annual compilations of video taken on the trails and special events. The fellow who creates them does a really pro job but has a duel layer burner so I had to 'shrink' the annual ones just a bit to copy them to singles for some promo events around town. (figured I'd never get the original back...and I didn't'.

Last night I scratched up disk #2 of Eric Clapton's Guitar Festival, one of my favorite concert DVDs. This spanked me out of procrastination mode about making backup copies of my DVDs, especially the concert ones.

It got scratched pretty good. My dog like to be helpful and pick up things I drop. Of course, he couldn't grab it with his mouth because it was too flat so he proceeded to paw at it, hoping to flip it up I assume.

What could I do, I couldn't get mad. He is a great dog and was just doing his best to impress me.

Oh well, My PC is still in pieces. May be a good time to buy a dual layer burner.

Personally, I like making my backups (mainly of the kids movies since they get so terribly scratched) on to dual layer discs. That keeps everything at 100%. Dual layer drives are pretty cheap in my mind, and the media isn't too bad in price.

If you want to go single layer, the audio shouldn't be compressed. One way to look at it is this. Open up DVD Shrink. Select the "Main Movie" and look to the right. See the file size of the audio? At the top on the right is tells you the compression % to get everything to fit on to a single layer disc. If you change that to "No Compression" you will see the video file size go up, but the audio will stay the same... That is how I figured out that it wasn't compressed.

Good luck either way.

I commend your reaction to your pup's enthusiastic attempts at assistance.

Thanks for the answer and kind words.
Your test makes sense and is so simple I smacked myself on the head. Sometime chatting on technical boards makes you lazy.