DVD to some other foramt I can play on a PC

[fuzzy02cls]

Hello,

I browsed the help section & searched & found some software & instructions to convert a DVD to AVI, or a format I can play on a PC.

I'm really lost. This is all very complex & time consuming. The software I have tried took hours & hours to convert & then the quailty was horrible.

I'm trying to get DVD's of church services converted so I can store & play them on the church PC.

Isn't there a way I can just pop a DVD in & have software convert it to a nice quality video format my PC can play?

It will take me weeks to do it the ways I have found.

Thanks for the help

[guns1inger]

If the disc is a commercial disc, rip it to your HDD with DVDFab HD decrypter. if it is a home made disc, simply copy the Video_TS folder to your HDD.

Use AutoGK to convert the disc to Xvid or Divx compressed AVI. On my quad core I can convert 8 x 40 minutes episodes to AVI files in under 4 hours. if you want to keep the quality pretty good without eating too much space, use a 640 x nnn resolution at around 100MB per 10 minutes of running time.

Of course, you can simply play a DVD on your PC, if you want.

[jman98]

HThe software I have tried took hours & hours to convert & then the quailty was horrible.

And you thought it would be helpful to NOT tell us what you used because ...?

Since most of us don't read minds, you do understand that not giving us helpful info may mean that you just get told to use what you tried already, don't you?

Welcome to the forums, but in the future keep in mind that the less you tell us about what you did, the less likely we are to be able to help you.

You could follow guns1inger's advice, which is quite good, but since PCs can play almost anything, there are other options. We don't know what your concerns are. Is quality very important to you? Or do you care more about small file sizes and are willing to trade quality to save space? You could just rip the DVDs to your hard drive as that will require no conversion work, be quick, and meet your apparent need of just being able to play the videos.

[fuzzy02cls]

These are DVD's made on a Tascam pro recorder. No copy protection.
I tried DVD decrypter & Videora iPod Converter as per that how to.
(since I have itunes on the PC)
The quailty wasn't good & it took 3 hours
I tried DVD decrypter & autoGK, & again that took forever & the quailty suffered. That had a bunch of video options though I have no idea what would produce the best quailty.
I would like the quailty to be as the DVD. I don't care about space I have plenty of external HD space on our NAS

The point of this is to get the 100's of DVD my church has & condense then to the PC for quick playback & archiving.
I'll have to try the video_TS folder. That may work for what I need. Then if I needed to make a DVD copy I could burn that file.

[rumplestiltskin]

Try MPEG Streamclip and convert to MP4 with a high bitrate. It will still be small enough where it won't bloat your HD.

[jagabo]

If you don't need to further compress them rip as ISO images and use a player that can play DVD ISO images (VLC, MPC, KMPlayer).

[redwudz]

You may get many software programs suggested to you and, of course, I'll add another. Try the freeware FairUse Wizard. Very easy for beginners. You can convert to Xvid and reduce the DVD size to about 700MB with fair quality. The best quality will be to just copy the DVD to your hard drive. But with most computers, hard drive space is at a premium.

FUW is easy to use. It will take a while for the conversion. The slower the computer, the longer it will take. One advantage of FUW or AutoGK is you can also burn the files to CD disc most times, and give them to someone with a home Divx compatible player, or a computer, and they can view them at home.

But if you literally have hundreds of DVDs, and don't want to spend the time doing conversions, look into adding hard drives. You can get a add on hard drive at fair prices at present. A one terabyte hard drive can hold about 230 average DVDs, and with a USB 2.0 interface, may be the fastest and easiest way to make your files easily available. No need for any programs, just put the DVD into your computer, then drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder into the new hard drive.

VLC media player or other software players will make them easy to display or play back. And, if you need or want copies, ImgBurn can burn the VIDEO_TS folders to a new DVD in a short time. You have the cost of the new hard drive, but you will save a lot a time and have no loss of quality.

And welcome to our forums.

[FulciLives]

I think one of the main problem you will have is that camcorder footage is interlaced video yet all of the common compression formats ... like DivX and XviD etc. all call for making the video progressive which means interlaced video footage is de-interlaced and with camcorder footage this "destroys" the quality.

My suggestion?

Buy something like this: Sony DVP-CX995V

The Sony DVP-CX995V is a "jukebox" style DVD player. It is a single unit capable of holding 400 DVD Video or CD audio discs. While it is not "small" it is not overly "large" either. It is approximately 17" wide x 8" high x 22" deep so really it is only the height that makes it look substantially bigger than most A/V equipment yet should comfortably fit into an A/V rack system (it does weigh almost 19 lbs. empty but again this isn't THAT heavy considering it's 400 disc capability). Like any modern day DVD player it has most of the features you would expect like composite out, S-Video out, component out, HDMI out plus analog and digital audio outputs.

What you say? ... Have more than 400 DVD Video discs? Just buy more than one and use an A/V switch to connect them to a single input on the TV. As I am sure you know an A/V switch is a selector box with multiple inputs and a single output allowing you to connect many devices to a single TV input.

Granted the MSRP is like $400 US Dollars but using PRICEGRABBER.COM I was able to find it on the internet for a "low" price of $310 + shipping and that was actually at one of the better internet mail order websites ... a place called B&H Photo & Video

This solution is not only a massive time saver but you are ensured not to ruin your interlaced video with computer de-interlacing. Plus no computer is involved which means that almost anyone can use it ... even comes with a remote control. Just make sure you keep a list of what disc number in the unit is what video and it is easy to find what you need with the remote control.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redwudz]

I have two Sony DVP-CX995V units.

[guns1inger]

I also question the time it is taking. I have a quad core and it never takes 3 hours to convert a movie to any format. I use AutoGK and Videora, and can convert 6 hours of video to good quality MP4 (limited by iPod specifications, of course) in under 90 minutes. AutoGK is similarly fast and the quality is even better because it is unconstrained. I do not use any of Videora's supplied profiles - I have created my own high quality profiles.

So if your system is a quad core (as your profile says) then it has serious issues. Even allowing for the complexities of interlaced source, the encoding times you are citing mean you have system problems, or yur system is not what you have in your profile.

[fuzzy02cls]

Maybe I don't have the settings right in those programs? The PC is a beast. And it's setup right & there's nothing wrong with it. I don't know why it's taking so long. Dell Optiplex GX755

The DVD changer is a good idea, but would rather not spend more $.
As I said HD space isn't a concern. However I will think about this one.

But I tried to copy the Video_TS folder to the HD & that seemed to work good. Most of the DVD's are 2-3GB so that's not that bad like an 8GB movie.
I also tried ripping to an ISO file & playing that using VLC & that worked fine as well. Seems those are my best 2 options so far.

Thanks again for the help.