Best Practices on How to Rip DVDs to ALL Formats

[JMI]

Forgive my for asking the obvious. In this section, I see a lot smart people having all kinds of problems. While of course no software is perfect, many of you have spend countless hours "tinkering" and have found solutions that work well. Why in the world can we not share all these excellent "discoveries" in a section called something like "Best Results" or "Best Practices". The section could be arranged by output format (MKV, MP4, AVI, etc) and each format could have the best default settings found for "Low Res" , "Med Res" and "High Res". These could be updated as the program evolves.

For example, if I want to rip a DVD to "High Res" (highest quality) MKV there is no doubt the "perfect" combination of settings which will give me the best results - no fishing, no screwing around and no hours wasted experimenting.

Is it me - or is this just to simple??


P.S. By the way, in my opinion DVDFab should have these type of "quick - no hassle" settings right out of the box in a "Simple Screen" and have the all the bells and whistles in a "Advanced User Screen".

[JMI]

Optimum Settings for Best Quality MKV

What are the optimum settings for best quality MKV rips? Good quality - but not a monster file.

[GregiBoy]

This is too subjective a question for any reasonable answer because of the number of variables involved, such as target screen size & res, playing device, etc, etc, etc.

And even than there are widely ranging views.

Only way, try it for yourself.

What are the optimum settings for best quality MKV rips? Good quality - but not a monster file.

[Complication]

First off, the file format has little to do with the video quality. The same exact video stream can be put in most of the formats you mention.

Second, the reason there is no universal settings is because video quality is subjective and varies greatly depending on the output device, distance from said device, and how sensitive the viewer is to certain types of compression. There is also a problem that different source material requires different amount of bitrate to achieve a similar result (cartoon = low bitrate, Blair Witch = very high bitrate due to constant movement of the background). Case in point, GregiBoy and I have very different ideas on what a "High Quality" bitrate would look like.

The default values that DVDFab Ripper uses are reasonable for a lot of people. Usually, the only value you would change is to up the bitrate.

[Complication]

Threads merged.

[JMI]

What Most People Want

I would argue that this "subjective" approach, that everything is "relative" and that nothing can get nailed down, is what puts people off DVDFab. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx
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The simple fact is that having a basic matrix giving people some clear direction will go a long way to reducing the chatter in this forum, not to mention the frustration and even more importantly time lost screwing around with different settings and waiting an hour or two to see the results for every attempt.

The even simpler fact is that "most" people want the same thing. For example, when someone rips a DVD to MKV you can be pretty sure that the odds are they are NOT doing so to play it on an iPhone. So the mathematics are simple.

1) "High Res" = Most people (probably 95%) who rip to MKV want top quality (that means as close as possible to the original for those who would like to fudge the issue). They are not too concerned with file size. These are people with big TV's and want the best quality possible .

2) "Med Res" = Most people (probably 90%) who rip to something like AVI and want good quality but are concerned with file size. These will be playing them on various smaller devices.

3) "Low Res" = Most people (probably 90%) who rip to MP4 and will be watching on iPhone or similar handheld.

I am no expert but I see these folks as the bulk of users. So for a change lets try to simplify things not make them more complicated.

[Complication]

... time lost screwing around with different settings and waiting an hour or two to see the results for every attempt.

I don't understand what settings you are talking about. DVDFab doesn't give you many options unless you edit the XML files. What settings do you think should be removed and/or dumbed down for you?