Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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Ok Advice please folks...I have finally transferd all my videos onto DVd.

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Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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Originally posted by hello_hello:

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Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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Ok Advice please folks...I have finally transferd all my videos onto DVd.

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What format were they in to begin with? MakeMKV will turn a DVD into a single MKV file without re-encoding. It won't reduce the total file size much but it'll do it as fast as your drives can read and write.

Assuming they're home-made DVDs they won't use copy protection, so you can probably open the disc directly with any conversion software and set it to output the encoded file to your hard drive. It'll save having to copy/rip each DVD first. If you have more than one DVD drive and a fast CPU you can probably encode more than one at a time.
For encoding to Xvid/AVI I still recommend AutoGK. For encoding using the x264 encoder and an MP4 or MKV container I use MeGUI. Personally I think Xvid/AVI has had it's day and x264 is the better choice, but it depends on what your player will play. These days most Bluray players will play MKV/MP4 via a USB drive (my Sony S480 happily reads an external USB NTFS hard drive) and many current TVs have built in-media players which play AVI/MP4/MKV. My Samsung Plasma TV also happily reads an external USB NTFS hard drive.

Whether you re-mux the video using an MKV container or re-encode it, there's also the issue of pixel shape to consider. DVDs don't use square pixels but any player will play a DVD with the correct aspect ratio. Once the video is in a different container though (such as MKV) some players will assume the video uses square pixels and may not display it correctly. It's really a whole other subject but something you should check before committing to re-muxing or re-encoding a huge number of DVDs. For AVI it's not an issue. Most conversion software encodes AVIs using square pixels.

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Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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Up to now I have been converting my dvds to Avi files - the other problem I can see is, when veiwing on a large screen lcd, it is quite poor.
I wonder is ther anything out ther what I want...

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Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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To compress my DVDs so I can have quite a number on them on a large external had drive, which when vewed on a large screen Tv, the quality is good. Is ther anything out there what can do it..or am I going to have to wait for a few more years till something is available?

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Originally posted by hello_hello:

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Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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Up to now I have been converting my dvds to Avi files - the other problem I can see is, when veiwing on a large screen lcd, it is quite poor.
I wonder is ther anything out ther what I want...

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Firstly, and assuming you're playing the encodes with a player which can play them, don't convert your DVDs to AVI, but convert using the x264 encoder instead.
The AVIs may be of poor quality for a number of reasons. Which program are you using for the job? One reason may be you're using too low a bitrate or too small a file size. I use AutoGK for converting to AVI as it runs a compression test and tells you what the quality will be. 70% to 75% (it's actually the compression percentage even though AutoGK describes it as quality) is the optimum quality/file size ratio for Xvid. I generally pick a resolution and take a guess at the file size, then let AutoGK run a compression test. If the result isn't around 75% I change the file size accordingly and start again. Unfortunately it can sometimes take a few goes to get it right, but one of the main reasons for poor quality AVIs is sticking to too small a file size. For example using the above method my AVI movie encodes range from around 500MB to 2GB or more (1GB is probably average), but while the file sizes are all different the quality relative to the original is always about the same.

Originally posted by a.l.a.n.:

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To compress my DVDs so I can have quite a number on them on a large external had drive, which when vewed on a large screen Tv, the quality is good. Is ther anything out there what can do it..or am I going to have to wait for a few more years till something is available?

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A quick explanation (sorry if I'm explaining what you already know).
DVDs don't use square pixels. An NTSC DVD has a resolution of 720x480 pixels but displays as 16:9, which when converted to square pixels is roughly 854x480 (call it resizing up). Or.... instead of stretching it out to display correctly you can reduce the height, which gives you something like 720x400 (call it resizing down). Obviously the latter loses 80 lines of resolution.
For PAL it's even worse as PAL has a higher resolution than NTSC. A PAL 16:9 DVD is 720x576, so if you "resize up" to square pixels it's roughly 1024x576, but if you "resize down" it's still only 720x400, so you lose 176 lines of resolution.

Normally when encoding to AVI the video is converted to square pixels while resizing down, as standard definition players usually have a width limit of 720 pixels, so you lose a bit of resolution, then encode using Xvid which loses a bit more detail too. You can convert to AVI while resizing up but the AVIs won't play on a standard DVD player (a Bluray player or PC etc will play them fine), but obviously the file size will also increase. Resizing down when encoding to AVI was fine for years while we all used CRT TVs and you couldn't see the quality loss (even the DVD itself is resized down when displaying it on a standard definition CRT), but now we all have HD TVs.

When encoding using the x264 encoder you can still convert to square pixels but the x264 encoder is better at retaining detail than Xvid. If you convert to square pixels you can either resize up or down.

An alternative method is to use anamorphic encoding. This basically encodes the DVD using the same resolution or number of pixels (720x480) as the original DVD, and just as when playing the original DVD, the video is stretched to the correct aspect ratio on playback. Well at least it should be, but unfortunately not all players display anamorphic MP4s/MKVs correctly. The Sony Bluray in this house does, the Samsung player doesn't. Of course a PC will. Using anamorphic encoding there's no resizing when encoding. You're basically encoding "pixel for pixel".

These days I encode all my DVDs using anamorphic encoding and the x264 encoder (in other words I convert them to MKV). I use MeGUI for the job. I don't re-encode the audio, I just copy the original AC3 instead. I can't see any major difference between the encodes and the original DVDs on my 51" Plasma. The average file size is probably around 1.5GB to 2GB.
If you have a decent CPU, x264 encoding can also be faster than Xvid because you only need to run a single pass encode and don't need to run a compression test. x264 has a quality setting called a CRF value. You just pick the quality and the file size will be whatever it needs to be. The lower the CRF value, the higher the quality and the larger the file size. CRF18 is supposed to be around where the x264 encoder is "transparent" but higher values will still give very good results. I generally encode everything using a CRF value of 19.

Well this turned into a bit more of an essay than I'd planned, but hopefully I explained it all well enough.
Basically for putting the DVDs on a hard drive with no quality loss you'd probably just copy them, or use something like MakeMKV, which will extract the video and audio from the disc and stick it in an MKV file. Naturally, it won't reduce the file size much and you'd probably still want to check your player displays it correctly.
The other option is to use anamorphic encoding and the x264 encoder. It should reduce the file size quite a bit without any significant quality loss (at least none you should be able to see), but of course because you're re-encoding it'll take longer than just copying the video.
If you want to re-encode, it might pay to give MeGUI a whirl. There's a little more of a learning curve than some other encoder GUIs but you also have more control over the encoding process. I'm sure you'll find plenty of people willing to help you get to know MeGUI if you need it.

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