DVD Shrink 3.2.0.15

For a tool this small (just over 1 MB) it stays remarkably easy to use.

Beginners can open a disc, pick "Full Disc" or "Re-author", and have a working backup with almost no configuration, while the preview pane lets you watch quality during compression and decide whether to keep or drop extra audio tracks and subtitles.

A classic from 2004 - and what that means

There is no point pretending otherwise. Version 3.2.0.15 is the final release, published in 2004, and the project has not been updated since.

It still launches on Windows 11 and Windows 10 today because it is a tiny native application with no modern dependencies, but its built-in CSS decryption only understands the protection used on discs from around 2004 and earlier.

That single fact decides whether DVD Shrink is the right tool for you.

When DVD Shrink still works perfectly

DVD Shrink remains a clean, fast choice in these cases:

• Unprotected discs: home movies, camcorder DVDs, personal projects, and discs you authored yourself with a tool like DVD Flick or ConvertXtoDVD.
• Older commercial DVDs that only use basic CSS, which DVD Shrink handles natively.
• A disc you have already decrypted with a separate background tool, so DVD Shrink only has to do the part it is good at - shrinking a DVD-9 to fit a DVD-5.

In all of these situations its compression engine is still effective and barely touches system resources, exactly as it did 20 years ago.

When DVD Shrink will fail

Most retail DVDs pressed after roughly 2005 use ARccOS, RipGuard, or region protection that DVD Shrink simply cannot read - it will throw a cyclic redundancy or "navigation pack" error and stop.

The classic workaround was to run a separate on-the-fly decryption layer first.

That still works: tools such as DVD43, DVDFab Passkey, Xreveal, or AnyDVD & AnyDVD HD sit in the background and present the disc to DVD Shrink as if it were unprotected.

If you go this route, the DVDFab HD Decrypter free mode is the most commonly used companion today.

Recommended modern alternatives

If you would rather not stack a 2004 application on top of a separate decrypter, the maintained tools below cover the same job and are actively developed.

For digital backups (the modern default)

MakeMKV extracts a DVD or Blu-ray to a lossless MKV file with no quality loss and no separate decryption step for most discs. It is the closest thing to a true successor for "I just want my movie on my hard drive", and our how to use MakeMKV for free guide explains the perpetual beta key.

If you then want smaller files, HandBrake re-encodes that MKV to a compact H.264 or H.265 MP4 that plays on any phone, TV, or browser, and it is the tool most users should reach for first today.

For burning back to a physical disc

If your goal is still a playable DVD, compress or convert the video first, then burn the resulting VIDEO_TS folder or ISO with ImgBurn, which remains the standard free disc-writing tool. CloneDVD is a paid alternative that combines compression and burning in one interface for users who want a single application.

For editing the disc structure

Power users who only need to strip an audio stream or fix a title set, rather than recompress anything, can do that directly with IFOEdit.

Older format-to-DVD converters like DivXToDVD and Avi2Dvd are also still listed if your source is loose video files rather than a disc.

Playing your backup

Whatever you produce - an MKV, an MP4, or a burned disc - VLC Media Player plays it with no extra setup, and installing the K-Lite Codec Pack gives Windows system-wide support so the file opens correctly in any player.

DVD Shrink is a piece of software history that still does one narrow job well: shrinking an unprotected DVD. Treat it as a specialist tool, not a general DVD copier.

For anything involving a modern commercial disc, start with MakeMKV and HandBrake, and browse the full DVD authoring and multimedia tools sections for more maintained options.

DOWNLOAD DVD Shrink 3.2.0.15