DVD to AVI ideal settings

[jbaruch76]

ok, i've been doing research, and there just seems to be a lot of different info on what is best. in the past i had been using xilisoft dvd ripper for all my ripping needs, but i somehow lost the license i had for it. i went on to magic dvd, and the quality just seems really bad, it ripped a 20 min video to about 250 mb and the 175 mb version of the same episode i downloaded through torrents looks much better. so, it seems that dvd decrypter along with autogk is the best bet, at least from what i am reading. i am trying to keep the quality as similar as possible to the original dvd. i'd also like to keep file size somewhere between 175 and 300 mb. i am just wondering what type of settings i should use in autogk to get my files looking good. or maybe there is another program i should be using that would give me high quality divx or xvid rips of my dvds.

[jbaruch76]

i have been tryign to use autogk and i get the error
"COM Surrogate has stopped working" and the files don't seem to be converting correctly. any help? i am using vista.

[daz1976]

Hi

I've found that the odd version of the ffdshow pack causes this error in Vista and changing to another release solved the problem for me.

Hope that helps

Daz

[guns1inger]

There are basically two ways of encoding with AutoGK. You can encode to a filesize, or you can encode to a quality level. If you encode to a filesize then you have to accept the quality that you get. If you encode to a quality level, you have to accept the filesize that you get.

The reason you have found so many differing opinions on what is the method to encode is because there is no absolute answer. Everything is a compromise, and everything varies from footage to footage and need to need. Mostly the right answer is "whatever works for you". Take the advice you have found or been given, then experiment and find a solution that gives you the best compromise between size and quality for your footage.

As an example, I recently encoded two television series from SD mpeg-2 streams taken from the digital broadcast. I used videoredo to prep the files, and autoGK to encode them. One series had to fit a given size, as this was to be used for on-line delivery. The second was for my own personal collection. For this second series I used quality based encoding, and did a series of test encodes in 5% increments from 60 - 90%. What I found, in thei particular case, was that after 70% the file size grew very rapidly, but the quality did not keep pace. Over 80% and the filesize started to creep over the size of the original files, so I not only got slightly lower quality than the originals, but I needed more space for them. Ultimately I found that 65% gave me a good middle ground. I could fit the whole series on two discs (12 episodes) and get close enough to the source quality to be watchable on my HDTV.

I know, however, that for the next series I will have to do this again to find what works best for it.

Ain't it fun ?

[jbaruch76]

thanks for the help, it seems like autogk gives the best results, but i can't seem to get through one file, first file it hung at 80% on the second pass, and then the next two would hang once it got to the section before the first pass and after analyzing streams, i don't remember what it was called, very annoying. is this probably from my ffdshow pack?

[jbaruch76]

ok, i am getting frustrated, i am looking for the quality of most tv or dvdrips. they are generally 175 mb for a half hour show and 350 for an hour show. in autogk i set my output file to be 250 for a half hour show and the quality came out horrid. however, in one of the temp avi files that ended in "comptest" had the exact quality that i was looking for, it looked excellent, but the file was sped up and had no audio, and it was 160 mb. what is it that people like axxo do to get their quality?

[jbaruch76]

ok, chekced the output file again and it turns out it ripped the entire dvd instead of just one episode. i will try again and see what happens.
edit: i am choosing the ifo file as my input file, it gives a pop-up box sayign there are multiple pgcs, i choose the one that i want, but it still seems to be processing all the vob files. should i be selecting the vob file i want as the input?

[guns1inger]

I use DVDFab Decrypter for ripping, and just choose the title I want if that is all I need. Otherwise I rip the entire disc and use DVD Shrink to re-author it down to individual parts.

[jbaruch76]

ok, so there is no way to choose which sections you want in autogk?

[guns1inger]

No.

[jbaruch76]

ok, finally got it working, dvd shrink wouldn't read the ifo that i got from dvd decrypter, but it worked fine when i went straight from the dvd itself. is there any problem doing it that way? the one i tried worked well and gave me the quality i was looking for and no sync issues. i am very happy with it.

[guns1inger]

DVD Shrink won't rip all discs (neither will DVD Decrypter, for that matter), so try DVDFab Decrypter when you hit the wall.