DVD Shrink Audio and Subpicture Questions

[Nicole Adams]

I have a WD TV media player that I would like to use to play my DVDs in ISO format. I plan to rip only the main movie. I am not sure if I should rip in 5.1 or 2.0 audio. I don't plan to ever upgrade to 5.1, but eventually I am going to buy a 3.1 soundbar system. I think 5.1 would still be the way to go, but wouldn't a 2.0/3.1 audio setup cause a 5.1 mix to sound off? My second question is: If I disable all subpicture, including English, would that cause all subtitles to be lost? For example, text giving the location of an area and text translating spoken dialog that is in a different language than the main movie. I of course do not want this to happen, but I do not want subtitles to be in the entire movie, just the ones that are in the movie by default. Google sort of answered my audio question, but I would like to be sure on this. I hope you can help!

[jmr]

Depends on the movie/dvd. Some (few) will have the foreign dialog hard-coded into the film, but most have them as a subpicture stream that's enabled by default. I haven't used DVD shrink in a while, so I don't know if there's any easy way to tell these subtitles from the 'English for the hearing impaired' subtitles. Chances are, though, the subtitles are small enough that leaving them in won't affect the file size too much...

With regards to your audio question: from what I recall, Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes typically contain channel mixing metadata used solely when downmixing to stereo, so if filesize is not a concern, go for the 5.1. Chances are you won't notice any significant difference between the downmixed 5.1 and standard 2.0 mixes (although, this'll vary from movie to movie).

[Nicole Adams]

Cool, thanks.