Confusion Among Formats & Codecs (Converting DVD for HDD/PMP Use)

[sirryan]

I have been reading on this site, Wikipedia, and countless other sites for weeks on converting DVDs to other formats, particularly for my PMP and my HDD. I seem to have the PMP method down (using DVD Decryptor and Videora to convert to MPEG-4). However, I have become confused when it comes to ripping to my hard drive.

From what I've read, AVI (using either the Xvid or DivX codec) or MPEG-4 are the two most common ways of approaching this. I would prefer quality over file size, but only to an extent (i.e., I wouldn't want to keep the DVD as a .vob even though it's great quality... mostly because I can't give 7GB for a great quality movie). CPU processing power doesn't matter because if I'm ripping or playing a movie, that's all I'm doing.

From what I hear, I should use DVD Decryptor to rip the DVD into an .IFO format, then use Auto GK to convert the movie to an .AVI (does Auto GK use DivX or Xvid?).

So, my question is, what are the differences between Xvid, DivX, and MPEG-4? I've searched around a lot for this, but can only find information on each format. Also, I've seen X.264 and H.264 a little... is that something I should consider?

My ultimate hope is to get an HTPC with ALL my movies (i.e., DVDs, home videos, etc.) in one place, and therefore would like the video to look good on a fairly large LCD (maybe 40-50").

I have a Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz processor with a 500 GB HDD.

[Baldrick]

Just MPEG-4 can be many different things like from a video container to different video codecs(divx,xvid and h264 are different mpeg-4 video codecs).

DivX and Xvid are both the same mpeg-4 standard so they are pretty similiar while H264 is a new MPEG-4 standard.

You can get similiar quality using divx,xvid or h264 if you use high enough bitrate/file size(around 2GB/movie). If you want smaller file size it's better to use H264 but it is much much slower to convert to h264 video.

x264 is a H264 video converter that makes H264 video.

I would probably choose xvid and convert the dvds using Autogk or FairUse Wizard. You can try convert to H264 using FairUse Wizard or Xvid4PSP and compare.

[sirryan]

Thank you for the reply, Baldrick... very helpful.

To clarify, converting the DVDs using AutoGK would convert them to an AVI using the Xvid codec? What bitrate should I choose in AutoGK? I've read to choose around 1500kbps, correct? This would produce ~2GB per movie as I understand it.

I will also try converting the DVD to H264 with FairUse Wizard to compare... speed of conversion is the last concern of mine as I usually just let them convert overnight and I don't have that many DVDs.

[Baldrick]

Yep, an AVI with XVID Codec using AutoGK or a MP4(or MKV) with H264 using FairUse WIzard. I would choose around 1200-1500 kbits for Xvid and try a bit lower using H264.

And I would probably leave the audio as AC3, bigger file size but you can keep the 5.1 audio easily.