DVD Ripper To Rip or Not to Rip that is the Question

[edbrackin]

I am backing up my extensive home "DVD" not BD to Hard drive. I only want the Main Movie which is 3.5 to 5.5 GB in size.

I play from my HTC (Home Theater Computer) using VLC to play directly to the large screen TV.

My question is should I just use DVD Copy and save the 3.5 to 5.5gb files and play from them or should I use MP4 or MKV and compress them down.

With a 2TB external drive space is really not an issue, but why take up space if no benefit.

Quality is what I need. With a large screen I can see the difference between BD and DVD.

Is there a visible difference on large screens using DVD with these new high tech compression algorithms of MP4 and MKV??????

If somone knows of websites or charts showing the difference that would be nice.

[glenns]

I think you should leave them as they are using main movie then look into a free trial of power dvd or other program that has a built in up-converter that up converts regular dvds to 1080p and adds software that really makes the unconverted picture look just like full hi def.

This built in the player software lets you split the screen in 2 and see what the picture looks like with and without the software applied.It's like night and day on dvds.So this will make a more of a difference than any thing you can convert to and from.

[edbrackin]

I had not even thought of that Glenn

I know that MP4 and H264 are vastly better at the compression game than MPEG2 (DVD) but i was not sure if there would be a visible difference.

But Glenn you suggest going a completely different rout for what I am doing with my home DVD's. I will admit I had not even thought of your suggestion because my past experience with up-Converters was they sucked.

But you say that is no longer true and they make a huge difference when going to a Large TV. I will for sure look into your suggestion.

Thanks.