Best DVD to XVID Converter?

[Tchail]

A couple of months ago, I bought a Blu-Ray player that will play Xvid and Mp4 movies.

Since I have a rather large DVD collection, my brother suggested that I purchase a 1TB hard drive and convert these DVDs to Xvid.

I had been using FlaskMPEG, but for some reason it has quit working after I installed AutoGK.

But given that the version of FlaskMPEG that I have is ten-years old, I thought it was time to start using something new.

Can anyone recommend a tool that is relatively easy to use and yet produces a good quality Xvid movie?

Thanks in advance,

-Tchail

[Kerry56]

Is AutoGK not working either? Take a look at WinFF.

If your player can playback mp4 files, you'd probably be better off going to H264 video in an mp4 file. Handbrake or Ripbot264 can do this for you.

[jagabo]

I agree. If your player can play MP4 with h.264 video and AAC (or AC3) audio, use that instead -- if you have a fast CPU or can afford the extra processing time. Even better, use MKV if your player supports it. I rip my DVDs to MKV with x264 and the original AC3 audio track (I used to use Xvid and AC3 in AVI but all my players support MKV now). I do it pretty much manually though: DVD Fab to rip, DgIndex to build an index, AviSynth and Mpeg2Source() to open the video and perform any filtering, x264 cli to encode, mmg to mux the resulting video and audio. But Handbrake is a good choice for more automated conversions.

[hello_hello]

I don't know anything about FlaskMPEG, but AutoGK may have replaced the version of Xvid FlaskMPEG installs, and that's what's stopped it working.

I'd also vote for converting to x264/MP4 or MKV rather than Xvid/AVI if your player supports it. The quality should be better. What's the make/model of your Blu-Ray player?

There's two ways to do it but the "better" way relies on your player supporting aspect ratios in MP4 or MKV files correctly so you don't need to resize the video (anamorphic encoding). If it doesn't you need to resize the DVD to square pixel dimensions (as is traditionally done when converting to AVI using programs such as AutoGK).

Either way, MeGUI is my personal preference for encoding video, although it may involve a bit more of a learning curve than when using some other programs.

[yoda313]

f your player can play MP4 with h.264 video and AAC (or AC3) audio, use that instead

I would also agree with that.

However as long as space isn't too much of an issue I'd stick with ac3 for digital amp compatiblity. If its just stereo aac should play back with any amp if your player can play it. The problem comes with multichannel aac. I don't know if there are any digital surround sound amps that can playback surround sound aac files. There may be but if you have an older digital amp it probably won't work.

If your dvds have digital surround (most do unless they are older tv shows or old movies that weren't remixed) you should use ac3 or the original dts so you can playback the digital surround. Though of course don't use a dts only track if you are playing it on a tv that doesn't have a surround amp that can play dts. Keep the ac3

[jagabo]

f your player can play MP4 with h.264 video and AAC (or AC3) audio, use that instead

I would also agree with that.

However as long as space isn't too much of an issue I'd stick with ac3 for digital amp compatiblity.

The problem is that many players still don't support AC3 in MP4. Even though it was officially added to the MP4 spec a few years ago.

[yoda313]

The problem is that many players still don't support AC3 in MP4. Even though it was officially added to the MP4 spec a few years ago.

Then I guess if you can do mkv do h264 and ac3 in an mkv container.

Is it going to be the same issue if you do h264 and ac3 in an avi container? I know avi has been around forever so I think it might have issues with h264 on certain players - will that be a concern?

Probably best bet then would be h264 and ac3 in mkv if your player can play mkv.

[neomaine]

If it's a rather large collection, and you have the space (go to 2TB if you have to, the extra $50 is worth it), then I'd recommend forgoing all the conversions and use MakeMKV on all of them. It'll take mere minutes per DVD, will not lose any quality due to reencoding and won't use up that much more space. I'd be very suprised if your BluRay player doesn't support them.