Recommended Codec for HD Upscaling

[FPG]

I've decided to start out and rip my DVD collection to my Media Center. I've decrypted and ripped the video_ts folder and merged the .vob files into the full length movie. Now I need to encode the .vob and place it in a different file container so that I can put that file and the .srt subtitles I ripped into MKVToolnix to create a .mkv file with the movie and subtitles options.

I was just wondering what your recommendations were as far as codecs and file containers go. I'm trying to retain all the quality and don't mind retaining the 3 GB footprint of the .vob file if it means I can retain the 5.1 Sound and High Picture Quality.

I have virtual dub mod and have been looking into Mpeg-4 codecs, particularly H264. Is this the route to go? Will this give me good upscaling on HD TV's? Thanks for any help, I'm really new to this.

[akupenguin]

If you don't need to save space, then you don't need to re-encode.
You can store mpeg2 in mkv along with all the normal goodies. mkvmerge can takes vobs as input.

[arfster]

Will this give me good upscaling on HD TV's?


The codec doesn't do the upscaling, your graphics card does. For this, the best currently available are any Nvidia 8xxx or any ATI 2xxx card.

As the other guy said, if you don't care about space, you can retain the quality perfectly by not re-encoding at all, just keep the original video/audio. It's also a heck of a lot less hassle, not to mention less time-consuming.

[R3Z]

If it aint broken :)

[FPG]

ahh ok I didn't realize the hardware took care of the upscaling.

Thanks, I'll check out mkvmerge.

mkvmerge will not allow me to use .vob files as an input source. Any other ideas? As some background info, I'm using the windows GUI.

[akupenguin]

What does mkvmerge output you when you try?

~> mkvmerge higurashi.vob -o higurashi.mkv
mkvmerge v2.0.2 ('You're My Flame') built on Mar 29 2007 11:38:25
'higurashi.vob': Using the MPEG PS demultiplexer.
'higurashi.vob' track 0: Using the MPEG-1/2 video output module.
'higurashi.vob' track 1: Using the AC3 output module.
The file 'higurashi.mkv' has been opened for writing.
progress: 100%
The cue entries (the index) are being written...
Muxing took 15 seconds.

[FPG]

Restarting the application again somehow allowed me to use .vob as input.. though it still won't show up without me selecting all media files. Let's see if I can get them to mux. Thanks for your help!

[FPG]

The audio/video are out of sync, it was actually telling me that parts of the AC3 data were being skipped during the muxing. Any ideas on why this is happening?

Also the subtitles don't work. They're in .srt format. Is there some special way you have to put them in?