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  1. I have a bunch of home VHS videos that have been converted to DVD Video. I understand that DVD is MPEG2 which is already lossy, but these DVDs are the best I can do right now because I have no analog recording equipment. I wish to convert the DVD-Video to some lossless format that can be played readily, something like avi or mp4 or mkv, and can be easily transcoded losslessly later. Open source format would be ideal.

    What video and audio codecs and file container should I use? And which application would be good?
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  2. If it's already been converted to DVD-Video , just rip the disc. The MPEG2 is lossless with respect to the DVD-Video (a 1:1 rip) - you can't get better than that, unless you recapture with better equipment and setup other than DVD. If you convert with some lossless codec, the filesize will become 5-10x larger but the quality will be the same as the MPEG2 (ie. zero benefit)
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  3. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Jul 2007
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    I can not believe you have written this.

    Where have you been since 2002 ?

    To answer your question tho. You will waste your time converting compressed mpeg2 to lossless formats such as huffyv or lagarith. You will get the bitrate for lossless but not the visual quality.

    You can check the software section on the site for suitable tools to convert to avi, mp4 etc. autogk, avidemux, makemkv, handbrake come immediately to mind. There are others.
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  4. If you plan to convert to make them smaller DB83 named handbrake. Not my favorite but it's fast.
    MakeMKV will copy lossless, so you wont save much space. If you want to keep the quality, keep them in mpg format.
    Simply join the VOBs and save as mpg using VOB2MPG or VOBMerge. Most players (not all) play mpg, some even in VOB format.
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