noob question about DVD to avi best quality

[Greg]

Hi all,

I've been a big fan of DVDFab since the days of dvdidle, but until recently only used it to backup DVD's to blank DVD's. I would like to start to put my DVD's on my hardrive and would like to know if anyone has a tutorial to do this. I own a fully registerd version of DVDfab including DVD to Mobile and File to Mobile.

I don't really care about file size as long as the quality is excelent. I also want to keep the original screen size and resolution (no cropping).

Thanks in advance,
G

[signals]

If file size is no object (and it shouldn't be) and you want the best quality, don't use an AVI file. Try either just copying the DVD to your HDD using the Target folder button--this will preserve the entire DVD structure (original video, audio, subtitles, menus). For keeping just the main movie without menus or subtitles but with original video and audio, use the VOB Passthrough option in DVD to Mobile. The best approach will depend on the player software you plan to use to watch the movies and the size of your display.

[Karloff]

If file size matters a little, and even if it doesn't you should read the by GregiBoy.

[Greg]

I will be watching these using windows media center (Windows 7). the pc is attached to a sony plasma. I thought an avi file would be best simplest. The file size isn't that important, but would like to keep them to around 2gig or less. Would I loose too much quality that way??

Cheers.

[Karloff]

I use generic.avi.divx.audiocopy at a fixed bitrate of 1400. I think this has great results. If you use lower bitrates and you have an action film you will see the difference. The file size will depend on the length of the movie with the fixed bitrate.

A bitrate of 1400 will usually be 2 gig or less (most are aroung 1.4 gig) . If you use vob passthrough you will usually be 3.5 - 5.5 gig +/-

Not sure of your screen size but one of the moderators (Gregiboy) likes the h264 profile and he has a 52" Sammy I believe (see his best practice I pointed to in last post for an example doing just what you want to do at the end of that post)

[maineman]

For what it's worth, I'll toss in my $.02.
Under the excellent tutelage of GregiBoy (all hail GregiBoy...), I've been experimenting a bit and one of his profiles in particular, I've found to be outstanding.

It's an .avi.h264.audiocopy profile with a fixed bitrate of 1100, 2-pass.
This results in file sizes of about 1.4-1.5 GB.
Images are crisp and clean, even with the action flicks and no a/v sinc issues.
I've done recent flicks like Star Trek and Terminator Salvation...no problems at all.

[kelson]

I will be watching these using windows media center (Windows 7). the pc is attached to a sony plasma. I thought an avi file would be best simplest. The file size isn't that important, but would like to keep them to around 2gig or less. Would I loose too much quality that way??

Cheers.

Here is the simple workflow I use for my DVD's. I use Fab to rip the main movie (with the desired audio & subtitle tracks) to a folder on my HDD. What you get is a .VOB set of the movie split up into 1GB .VOB files. I then use the simple utility VOB2MPG (v2.5) which does only one thing and that is to concatenate the .VOB files into a single .MPG file which is playable with just about any PC player (i.e. VLC or Win Media Player) as long as you have the codecs installed.

In my case I title the .MPG file and move it to my multi-terabyte disk farm on a dedicated PC. This PC runs TiVo server software and is linked to my TiVo HD. I use the TiVo to stream the movies from the disk farm to my 50" Panasonic 1080p plasma. I don't compress anything because I want full quality. With my display, if I compress more than 10% I notice it, so I don't bother anymore.

PS - Sony doesn't make a plasma.

[Greg]

Thanks everyone for the great advice. I have read GregiBoy's post and tried some of the other settings suggested. I think I may just have to keep testing to get one I like, as the quality still seems to be poor. Two other questions though. For some reason I can't use the second pass feature. |It just hangs (11 hours). When I cancel it I'm left with a complete movie but as I said quite poor quality.

The second question is in regards to screen size resolution. Is there a setting to use same as source so that I don't have to adjust it. my movies are coming out a little stretched.

Thanks again,


PS Sony LCD sory.