Best video format irregardless of size.

[laithmeister]

Hi there,
I am new to posting to the forum but I have always used it for quick info. Here is my question. I have a huge DVD collection and I am want to rip them all and put them on external HD or my computer and connect it to a HD media player via my home wired network to play on my 55 inch LCD TV. My dilemma is I am not sure what file format will give me near perfect picture irregardless of file size. I have been messing around with Wondershare DVD ripper and I have ripped few DVD using the mkv file format at the highest resolution (1290*1080), and also ripped some DVD as lossless .vod file format. In your expert opinion which one is better or if you can recommend a better video format which will give me the best picture quality to enjoy on my 55inch HD LCD? I understand that I will need and HD media player that will be able to play whatever file format you guys recommend. I was looking at the WD live TV device and the brite-view The Cinema Tube. Thx in advance.

[fritzi93]

As a general rule, the less you monkey with the video, the better. Re-encoding means quality loss, it's inescapable. If your HDTV has halfway decent upscaling, you're better off just ripping your DVDs to ISO image. I have an HTPC, so I'm not clear what formats/containers are supported by media players such as the WDTV, but the above advice stands.

If you post the model number, edDV or one of the other experts can tell you how good the electronics and scaling are on your HDTV.
Good luck.

[EDIT] Saw jagabo's post. Yeah, MKV is convenient and works on the WDTV, that much I know, and would retain chapters and subs. And I probably hedged too much above. Let's just say that the chances of being able to "improve" picture quality by re-encoding are vanishingly small, even on an HDTV with crummy upscaling. :P

[jagabo]

For DVD: ISO image, VIDEO_TS folder, remux into MKV. These are essentially exact copies of the compressed video data.

Converting DVD to an MKV with a frame size of 1920x1080 will lose quality because you are upscaling and re-encoding (unless you're saving losslessly compressed or uncompressed -- in which case your files will run roughly 100 to 400 GB/hr).

[laithmeister]

Thx guys for quick reply. ISO it is.

[jagabo]

Thx guys for quick reply. ISO it is.

Make sure your player plays ISO images correctly. Some, like the WDTV Live, don't fully support ISO images. (The WDTV will play the longest title which is usually the main movie. But with TV series DVDs you may only see one episode.)

[Bix]

The Asus O Play does play DVD ISOs properly, for what it's worth.

[laithmeister]

Thx again

[lordsmurf]

English Nazi says "irregardless" isn't a word. "Regardless" is.