DVD Ripper Best resolution for dvd to h.264 (anamorphic?)

[firefly11]

OK, so I'm slowly getting my head around bit and frame rates, aspect ratios, and resolutions.

I have ton of standard NTSC dvd's (720x480) w/anamorphic widescreen (16:9) that I'd like to convert to h.264 mp4 files, so I can stream them from my server to my widescreen laptop and my widescreen TV (480/1080i).

I was thinking about a 2-pass encode w/1500k bitrate, but my question is, what resolution do I use, and do I need to crop? The DVDs I'm trying to encode right now are TV, and are 1.77:1.

I'd like them to look as good as possible on both the TV and laptop, so what resolution do I use? Will WMP, VLC etc. use the 16:9 to scale up? Also, do I need the resolution to divide evenly by 16?

Thx!

[gamecaptor]

I would actually up it to about 2000k. For my eye, that is the sweet spot where the quality is as good as you are going to get without getting a ginormous file size. And I would let the auto crop do its thing; it’s just fine at what it does.

And use h.264 with Audio Copy so you can keep your AC-3 intact.

[firefly11]

Thx - I tried a 2-pass MKV/h.264 at 2000K bitrate, and an aspect ratio of 848x476. The weird thing is 1. it didn't seem to using CUDA, as my cpu usage was at 95%, and my cpu temp didn't change, and 2. the video was incredibly jittery.

The first rip I did (1 pass, lower bitrate, mp4/h.264, smaller resolution) used CUDA, and had no jittering.

[gamecaptor]

I want to add to firefly11’s question.

I’ve recently switched from converting my DVDs from AVI-XviD to MKV-h264. My settings are (now) generic.mkv.h264.audiocopy with 2-pass, 2000kbps and crop set to automatic. My question comes to the Frame Resolution. I did three tests with two different movies. As far as my eye can tell, I can’t really see the difference, which I realize at the end of the day is all that really matters, but my question is what SHOULD I be seeing? In some cases I think I see a difference, but then I think I’m just physic-ing myself out. Below are the tests I ran, of the tests, can anyone tell me what I am doing to the quality one way or the other?

HOW_TO_TRAIN_YOUR_DRAGON: Title(9), Play Time(01:37:45)
Original Frame Resolution (854 x 480)
Original Aspect Ratio (1.78:1)
Test 1 – 720x310 = This is the default setting for DVDFab
Test 2 – 848x366 = This is the highest resolution available for DVDFab
Test 3 – 854x480 = This is the same resolution as the DVD

KICK_ASS: Title(1), Play Time(01:57:42)
Original Frame Resolution (854 x 480)
Original Aspect Ratio (1.78:1)
Test 1 – 720x304 = This is the default setting for DVDFab.
Test 2 – 848x360 = This is the highest resolution available for DVDFab
Test 3 – 854x480 = This is the same resolution as the DVD

[sunny]

Hi all,

Our devs are checking the "2-pass without CUDA enabled" problem, please allow for a few business days. Thanks in advance for your patience.

[joecurly02]

I want to add to firefly11’s question.

I’ve recently switched from converting my DVDs from AVI-XviD to MKV-h264. My settings are (now) generic.mkv.h264.audiocopy with 2-pass, 2000kbps and crop set to automatic. My question comes to the Frame Resolution. I did three tests with two different movies. As far as my eye can tell, I can’t really see the difference, which I realize at the end of the day is all that really matters, but my question is what SHOULD I be seeing? In some cases I think I see a difference, but then I think I’m just physic-ing myself out. Below are the tests I ran, of the tests, can anyone tell me what I am doing to the quality one way or the other?

HOW_TO_TRAIN_YOUR_DRAGON: Title(9), Play Time(01:37:45)
Original Frame Resolution (854 x 480)
Original Aspect Ratio (1.78:1)
Test 1 – 720x310 = This is the default setting for DVDFab
Test 2 – 848x366 = This is the highest resolution available for DVDFab
Test 3 – 854x480 = This is the same resolution as the DVD

KICK_ASS: Title(1), Play Time(01:57:42)
Original Frame Resolution (854 x 480)
Original Aspect Ratio (1.78:1)
Test 1 – 720x304 = This is the default setting for DVDFab.
Test 2 – 848x360 = This is the highest resolution available for DVDFab
Test 3 – 854x480 = This is the same resolution as the DVD

Did you ever get a reply to this post? if so what were you told?

[AGJ]

Did you ever get a reply to this post? if so what were you told?

Post # 5 was the reply