DVD to H.264 Software

[mkstretch]

I want to put my DVD's on my PC to play on my 46" LCD with SageTV(Great product!) I have DVDFab that can do it but is there better software out there that does it for TV playback. Or is there another format Besides H.264(MKV maybe?) that I can convert to that will still keep the quality of the DVD. I want to keep DVD quality but lowere the file size. Thanks guys.

[Inspector.Gadget]

The whole "MPEG-4 Encoder GUIs" forum is exactly what you're looking for.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

1. The first step must be to rip the DVD (VOB files) to your HDD using something like DVDFab or AnyDVD+DVDDecrypter. At least for the newer DVD releases.

2. If you want to "lowere the file size" then I highly recommend to use x264 (http://x264.nl/). This will give you the maximum quality per filesize. Or in other words: The smallest file to retain a certain level of quality.

3. There are many x264 GUI's out there that can do the job. MeGUI, StaxRip, Ripbot264 and so on. Also Avidemux (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=126164) is definitely worth a look.

4. The container format doesn't matter at all - quality wise. But Matroska (MKV) seems to be the most popular one. Software players should support any container format anyway.

Note: For hardware players you will need to choose whatever container is supported by the individual player (MKV, MP4, M2TS, etc).

[roozhou]

1. The first step must be to rip the DVD (VOB files) to your HDD using something like DVDFab or AnyDVD+DVDDecrypter. At least for the newer DVD releases.


This step can be skipped if you don't need multi-pass encoding. You can directly encode from DVD using mencoder.

[Groucho2004]

This step can be skipped if you don't need multi-pass encoding. You can directly encode from DVD using mencoder.

It's always advisable to rip the files to HDD first. When encoding directly from the DVD, the drive get's stressed for several hours, spinning up and down many times whereas ripping the content to HDD first only takes about 5-15 minutes (and the drive doesn't have to spin up/down all the time).

[LoRd_MuldeR]

This step can be skipped if you don't need multi-pass encoding. You can directly encode from DVD using mencoder.

No, you can't. MEncoder can't circumvent the "copy protection" (authoring errors) on modern DVD releases. A tool like DVDFab or AnyDVD is needed :rolleyes:

(Maybe it would work with AnyDVD working in the background, yes)

[neuron2]

Closing cross-post thread. OP struck as he had been warned. This is now the third thread on this topic.