What video format should I use?

Livingthedream

Yes, If all that you want from the DVD is the main movie then yes divx will reduce it down to approx 750mb

avi and divx are both encoding formats used by different companies, avi's can use a multitude of of different CODECS (compresss/decompressor software) where as divx uses the divx CODEC to convert the file

As for wmv, never had any problems with it quality or size but taken this off wilki, hope it helps; Microsoft claims that WMV 9 provides a compression ratio that is two times better than MPEG-4 , and three times better than MPEG-2; Microsoft also claims that WMV 9 is 15-50% better than WMV 8 in terms of compression efficiency.

Editing by software like Nero recode with mpeg,mpeg2,divx,xvid or mpeg4 files is very easy its just about getting use to using the software, which can be the trick part

ss4

so it doesn't really matter wheather i choose avi or wmv.

could you recommend any free ripping software which will rip to avi's or wmv, what software is needed to edit these files

Livingthedream

I use Clonedvd to rip the DVD to avi, Divx converter if I want to make it in to an divx file and Nero Recode to edit the files or rebuild a DVD, all these have have trail versions so you can test them out.

I can bet as soon as I've posted this, somebody will repost with their preference to the above software and what they use or one's that are free and good

Or try the software that Sjames posted above and see what it's like

vyseyboy

I feel obliged to butt in, be a pedant, and highlight some previous inaccuracies:

.AVI is a container format, of which divx, xvid, indeo video, huffYUV are all subsets. The avi extension doesn't tell you very much about a video file at all, and you really need to use a program that will analyse the file to find out which codec it was encoded/compressed with - GSpot is a good video analyser.. "raw" (i.e. uncompressed) AVI video is HUGE, taking up tens of gigabytes per hour for standard definition video.

The video content of DVD's is interpreted as .VOB files by computers. These are MPEG2 streams, and CAN be ripped to .MPG files losslessly (or indeed .AVI files, given that the .AVI extension can be a container format for an MPEG2 encoded video stream.)

If you want to rip a DVD or parts of a DVD, a good choice is DVD decrypter (google is your friend,) which can be used in IFO mode to rip the main feature of a DVD or individual episodes. The result will be exact DVD quality MPG or AVI file (I forget which, and it's irrelevant,)

This is fairly large in size, but an OK choice if you need to perform simple editing, (for example using windows movie maker or virtualdub,) - Once you've edited, or if you're happy with how the video is, you can compress to Xvid or DivX format for example to save space, producing an xvid encoded video stream in an AVI container file. AutoGordianKnot is a good choice for encoding to Xvid and DivX, and is very simple, allowing the changing of only a few basic parameteres (e.g the target file size.)

malc_b

ss4 wrote: »

Ok, then I don't think that I should use mpeg2 because 3-4gb per dvd is quite big, I want about 750 mb to 1 gb per dvd, is this possible?

Why? A DVD holds 4.38GB AFAIR. If you burn 1G on it is 25% full but that is all you are putting on it then you still use 1 disk. For the pence a DVD costs my preference is to have multiple DVDs with separate films on them. Do you really want 4-6hrs of home movies on a 50p DVD-R? Seems like a good way to lose friends :-).

ss4

vyseyboy wrote: »

If you want to rip a DVD or parts of a DVD, a good choice is DVD decrypter (google is your friend,) which can be used in IFO mode to rip the main feature of a DVD or individual episodes. The result will be exact DVD quality MPG or AVI file (I forget which, and it's irrelevant,)

What format does dvd decrypter rip to?

vyseyboy wrote: »

This is fairly large in size, but an OK choice if you need to perform simple editing, (for example using windows movie maker or virtualdub,) - Once you've edited, or if you're happy with how the video is, you can compress to Xvid or DivX format for example to save space, producing an xvid encoded video stream in an AVI container file. AutoGordianKnot is a good choice for encoding to Xvid and DivX, and is very simple, allowing the changing of only a few basic parameteres (e.g the target file size.)

If I use windows movie maker to edit, how can I save the video to an avi file? All options create a wmv file. Also will windows movie maker or virualdub edit the file that has been ripped by dvd decrypter?

malc_b

For best quality, movie maker or virtual dub is not the way to go as they will unencode the entire file and recompress it. If you have Nero then that has Nero Vision Express which will edit mpeg2 and with smart enabled will just recompress the frames around a cut. There are some other programs out there that are similar (Womble I think, VideoRedo ?). You need to look for smart encoding of mpegs or words to that effect.

Similar most camera editing software is designed for uncompressed DV avi files. It works with mpegs but only by uncompressing and recompressing.