How to compress 5 homemade DVD's into a single MPEG 2 file ?

[contactadam2002]

Due to the fact that I was recording from a 6hr home made video tape (with the calculated compressibility factor for both MP2/MP4 being very poor), I've had to use XP recording mode ( recording in 8Mbps) on my Samsung DVD-R149 (this took up 5 DVD's in order to preserve the already limited quality). Now I need to convert them into one single MPEG2 file without changeing the quality that the Samsung DVD-R149 recorded them in (bear in mind the DVD recorder used MPEG 2 to record them in, but I don't know if it's at a CBR, VBR or ABR. After I've done tape no.1, the same process will be used for 30 more of similar length tapes (all containing old stuff that's not available today).

Which software, or two pieces of software can I use to accomplish this and how do I make sure there is no quality loss ??? (I would rather not have to select the bit rate because the DVD recorder already did a fine job of this)

[neuron2]

Just binary concatenate the VOB files and then rename the extension of the resulting file to .mpg.

Use DOS copy /b to binary concatenate.

[contactadam2002]

Since I've never heard of that before, can you give an example as to how that would be done, step by step perhaps, because I wouldn't know where to start.

[neuron2]

Rip the VOBs. Open a DOS window (Start/Run, type "cmd"). Then cd to the directory where the VOBs are and type this (this example assumes 3 VOBs):

copy /b file1.vob+file2.vob+file3.vob joined.vob

The resulting file joined.vob can then be renamed as joined.mpg.