Best possible image quality DVD->AVI, how?

[desertpilot]

Hi,

I'm a license holder of "DVD to DVD" and now evaluate "DVD to Mobile". Rather green in this matter, so please bear with me.

My goal is to have AVIs that are of about the same picture quality as the original DVD. The size of the AVIs doesn't matter so much. Right now what I get are 1GB AVIs that don't look as good as the original. They come close, but it's still an obvious degradation. I understand I'm converting from one lossy format into another, so it's going to degrade some. I just want to understand which settings will keep that to a minimum.

I read the "Best Practice" instructions. Here is what I'm doing:

* Using "DVD to DVD" copy the DVD to hard disk (DVD9)
* Check the copy on HD...looks perfect
* In "DVD to Mobile" I use these settings:
- generic.avi.h264.audiocopy
- leave fixed bitrate default (i.e. 768)
- Select 16:9
- Pick highest resolution from the list (i.e. 848x346)
- Crop: automatic
- 2-pass encoding
- frame rate, audio settings: same as source
- sub picture: extract to idx/sub fileq

The difference in picture quality between original and copy are mostly compression artifacts, I think. I'll try to increase the framerate, but that's not going to help much, is it?

Thanks!

[KmR]

Leave the frame rate and increase the bitrate... Another member uses h264 or divx regularly and uses 1500 if I'm not mistaken...

I use WMV (for the xbox 360 profile) and use 2500. Apples and oranges as far as the codecs are concerned, but I never have any quality issues... This basically gets 1 Gig of output file size per 1 hour of movie... If you don't care about size, bump up the bitrate higher...

[Complication]

Changing the resolution is not helping. You will want to keep it nearest the DVD resolution as possible (720x???, or 704x???).

[GeekMan]

Increasing the bitrate will provide the best results. I suggest reading through the thread I started last month here, or if you just want the end result of the "best" .avi compression format I found for hi quality playback through the XBox360 you can go here. Download the xml file and place it into the Profiles folder located in the DVDFab program folder wherever you installed DVDFab on your hard drive (most likely C\program files\dvdfab6\profiles). When you re-open DVDFab, the profile should be listed under the "generic" list of DVD-Mobile profiles.

[desertpilot]

Thanks, guys, the bitrate was the magical knob to turn. I'm now getting AVIs that I can't tell the difference to the original. Going to order "DVD to Mobile" now. Geekman, thanks for the profile xml, too.

[AzDragonLord]

Exactly what I needed too....thanx GeekMan!

[GeekMan]

You're welcome, glad I could help.