Good file type option for lossless encoding

[Vermiform]

long time lurker for years, wanna say thanks for the wealth of information this community has given me.

I've been backing up my DVDs to my HTPC. I've just been ripping them straight over to the 1TB HD using DVD Fab. To view them I have been using VLC. This works great but I want to start using a catalog system and to simplify, I want to get the TS files down to one single file.

I want the files to be as close to lossless as possible, audio and video, file size really isn't an issue to me with the going rate of terabyte hard drives.

I've been all over the forums, but can't seem to find the info I'm looking for. What file type would you encode to and is there a one step software solution i could purchase to do it?

[manono]

If lossless is what you want, then don't reencode at all. Reencoding to true lossless will balloon the size many times. Otherwise any reencode entails some quality degradation, maybe noticeable, maybe not. Since you said filesize isn't a problem, then I don't understand why you're not willing to keep them as DVDs. Maybe you want something like VOB2MPG which just repackages the multiple VOB files into a single MPG and avoids reencoding. No subs that way, though, or menus:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOB2MPG

Also, around here we don't ask what's best. You might ask for alternatives or something like that:

http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm

[Vermiform]

If lossless is what you want, then don't reencode at all. Reencoding to true lossless will balloon the size many times. Otherwise any reencode entails some quality degradation, maybe noticeable, maybe not. Since you said filesize isn't a problem, then I don't understand why you're not willing to keep them as DVDs. Maybe you want something like VOB2MPG which just repackages the multiple VOB files into a single MPG and avoids reencoding. No subs that way, though, or menus:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOB2MPG

Also, around here we don't ask what's best. You might ask for alternatives or something like that:

http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm

sorry for the breach of rules. I worried about using "best" in my description, but I didn't know how to word it without getting my point across. I understand why the rule is there though and will be more careful in the future.

Thanks for the response. VOB2MPG would be perfect for me, except for the subs. any way to retain the subs or add them back in?

[Sharktooth]

Uhm... what about MakeMKV?

[manono]

any way to retain the subs or add them back in?
You can extract them as VobSubs from the VOBs (open the original IFO in VobSub Configure and extract the VobSubs), rename everything the same (Movie.mpg, movie.idx, movie.sub) and then play them using VLC. I haven't done this before and am not 100% sure, but I think it'll work OK. Perhaps someone that's done similar knows for sure.

[Inspector.Gadget]

In fact, manono, that naming convention should work with MPC, MPC-HC, and other derivatives as well.

Edit: One must enable "Auto-load subtitles", of course.

[ggtop]

Why don't you you rip to .iso? VLC can play .iso files. So you have the full DVD in one file.

ggtop

[Adub]

Uhm... what about MakeMKV?

Sharktooth had a good point here. MakeMKV will allow you to keep all of the video, audio, and subtitle streams that you like, along with any chapters, in one convenient MKV file that can be played by pretty much any software player.

The one thing you don't get is a menu, but I assume that you don't really care about that anyways.

[Vermiform]

Thanks for all the great responses. I'm going to give MakeMKV a try. I think it's just what I'm looking for. Any tips?

[Adub]

None really. It simple as heck, and you should be able to get it down on the first try. Just pick what you want to keep and run with it.