How to improve quality of dvd

[Radioactiveape]

I am ripping dvd with smartripper then frameserving with dvd2avi and encoding with tmpgenc. When I play the mpeg I get some distortion, it's just not crisp looking. Are there better programs, different settings, does the videocard make the difference? Thanks Ritchie

[Tommyknocker]

Have you tried DVD DEcryptor or DVD Shrink?

[Radioactiveape]

No. I have not tried dvddecrypter or dvdshrink. Is there a difference in quality? I will give them both try. Thanks Ritchie

[flaninacupboard]

Well, what format are you outputting to?

If it's DVD-R then the best quality method is using CCE on multipass, if it's VCD then TMPGenc should be the best, you perhaps need to do some tweaking, if it's Divx or Xvid, then you need to stop making Divx or Xvid files

[spectroelectro]

There's no issue of quality when ripping a DVD, since you are merely copying digital information from one place (DVD) to another (your hard drive). Therefore the video distortion problem almsot certianly arises in your frameserving app.
No video filter (viz., temporal smoother in VDub or Pixie Dust in AviSynth) is perfect. THis means that if you are doing any kind of video filtering, perhaps to remove video noise or improve the contrast, you W*I*L*L get some video distortion. That's just life. Video filtering via frameserving introduces distortion unelss you use the null transform in VDub (and that's equivalent to doing no filtering at all).
CHoosing the settings and type of video filter you use when frameserving involves choosing tradeoffs twixt the types of video distortion you want to introduces as opposed to the video artifacts you want to remove.
For example: several of my cable channels have video noise, so after capturing to AVi I typically use the Temporal Smoother in VirtualDub with asetting of 3 to eliminate the noise. This does introduce some minor visual distortions -- slightly blotchiness on edges and a slight soft-focus dulling ont he background. I judge these video artifacts far less obtrusive than the original noise in my cable line, so I live with the tradeoff.
Try doing short test encodes with critical mateiral and play around with the filter settings you're using in your frameserving app (which is almost certainly either VirtualDub or AviSynth.) Chances are you will narrow in on a combo of settings which produces the best visual quality out for the amount of artifacts it reduces.
Remember that ALL digital videos will introduce some distortion into the picture. It's inevitable.