I found the BEST DvD2AVI Software

[jamesbond1960]

Ok finally a software package that does it all when it comes to Dvd ripping and converting to avi (either with Xvid or DivX codec) and it supports ac3 audio files with no audio sync problems no bitrate calculating
and no fussing with interlaced or progressive. Put simply it will appeal to those who don't know what they are doing and just want it done. It can make 2 pass quality or just one pass. It can split the file to fit on one cdr or 2 or three or whatever you want. Listen I've been doing a lot of dvd vcd stuff mostly going from avi files to Dvd and Vcd but I also have an awesome collection of DVDs which I have been collecting for 3 years now. A collection of over 600 titles. Well lets just say that you need a lot of shelf space to house those suckers so I needed a solution and I looked into backing them up to avi files. I work for a huge computer hardware company in Korea so buying hard drives was not the problem. Imagine 120gig hard drive (7200 rmp 8meg buffer for $50.00) So Off I went in search of a program to do this conversion. After several weeks of searching I was about to give up. All I could find was software to rip used with software to crop used with software to encode. To make a long story short it was far too complicated and I was about to give up I tried many progams nothing worked well. everything was complicated. Finally a jwel in the rough. Well my hat goes off FairUse 0.40 is a wonder. It takes just seconds to install. When you launch it its wizard takes you on the ride of your life. It reads your dvd drive rips the dvd and presto your ready to encode. Results are excellent. Encoding takes anywhere from 2-5 hours depending on number of passes speed of CPU length of movie etc. Very little input is required as everything else is done to standard. I have encoded 4 titles thus far with excelent results. I was going to write a guide but their website is awesome. And to boot its free....Yes free but hey make a donations or something. People who put out quality stuff like this deserve our support.... If you need help with this baby don't hesitate to contact me but I can't see where you'll need help. This program is just to easy to use.......

Archie.........Extremely Satisfied and Very Pleased.....

[jamesbond1960]

By the way you can find this software on this site in the tools section just do a search for FairUse 0.40.....


Guys I promise you you will not be disappointed.....


Archie

Oh and by the way it installs all the codecs you'll need too......
It will even ask you if it could .........

[DVWannaB]

Thank you James. I see you are still on the Queen's business sniffing out the good from the bad

I will certainly give it a go.

[jamesbond1960]

Please do give it a try and then let meand everyone else know what you thought of it......



Archie

[GbMedusa]

I have tried it for a couple of titles. I think it is very good for someone who wants to get their feet wet with DiVX encoding.

My two main gripes with it:
1) It will not work from previously ripped files. It only reads from your drive.
2) So far, it does not "clean up" after itself. You have to wipe up its intermediate files.

I say give it a try. It's free. It's configurable (but you can use defaults). And it gives very good results.

Oh yeah, and it's free (did I say that already?)

[XDelusion]

Thankx, I've been looking for the lazy man's tool for this task, I'll give it a go as soon as my new mobo comes in!

[RabidDog]

Oh god, you have to put the dvd in the drive yourself and then launch the program? thats too much work!

[Gritz]

It does work well in backing up to cdrom. I did find though, that with long titles you're going to get some pixelation in putting it all on one disk. The only cavet is that you're going to need a Divx Player if you want to watch it on your TV screen ... like the LiteOn LVD-2002, as I remember. But the program seems to be fool proof .... which I like.

[reboot]

I'm going to give it a shot, although I'm a bit jaded, because I have been using DVDx, with excellent results so far.

[Poppa_Meth]

It had decent quality when I tried it but it always tended to estimate file size wrong by quite a bit. I had some CDs come out as much as 70MB over the 700MB limit, despite aiming for a target size of 680MB just to be safe. It also has update way to frequently for my taste. I think GK or Auto GK is still one of the better ways to go. FU isn't too bad though. And I haven't used it in a while so updates since then may have fixed some of these complaints.

[dav88]

You should try their latest version. They have fixed the target filesize. It`s been right on size for me. Great little application!

[XDelusion]

I ran this last night on my parent's computer, came back today and could not find any output files, so either someone shut off the program before it finished, or the files are written to some random directory.

Should the DIVX file end up in the project folder or what? It never gave me a change to name the file or say where I wanted it.

[XDelusion]

Got it.

[joeyjoejnr]

how long should it take to rip a dvd to divx on a 2.8 ghz pentium celeron machine?

[RabidDog]

jjjnr - coupla hours really. whats pentium/celeron? either/or!
XDelusion: output file is entered on the main screen, you have to browse for the output file directory. Plus its in the log file anyway.

[genpcb]

I've been using AutoGK and making (at least) what I think are pretty good quality xvid avi's. Anyone know between AutoGK and FairUse, which yields better performance and video quality?

[jamesbond1960]

Ok I'm back. Now I have had the opportuntity to really test this piece of software out FairUse and at the same time I tested AutoGk. Side by side no holds barred AutoGk wins hands down. I'll explain.....

1st off Fairuse required a tiny bit of user intervention mostly clicking next step AutoGk has no next step everything is there on one screen page.

AutoGk needs you to rip the Dvd 1st to your hard drive. FairUse needs you to load the Dvd.

Ok If I can be serious now. Both are very good programs but I did find something with FairUseand I think its just a bug. I'd set it up to work overnight and let it go. It would work throughout the night but in he morning there would be no completed files even though it had completed all of its tasks. The final step of actually writing the avi would not get done
I'd sometimes find an avi that was 20Kb. I'm not too sure what caused this problem and I'm not the kind of person who worries about things like that I assume if I use the program 8 times and 4 times it works perfectly and four times it doesn't then the software is faulty.

AutoGk never failed it was 8 for 8......AutoGk took longer to process the files AutoGk always runs two pass there is no option for one pass.

both programs leave junk behind AutoGk leaves less. FairUse's rip is useless except to the FairUse program. AutoGk doesn't rip so the rip you make you can then use again if say you want to make a backup copy of your dvd Again....

Earlier in this post I gave a ranting review of Fairuse I still think its a great program but I didn't like the hit miss thing If the developer fixed this bug it may then rank better than AutoGk because its is faster and it rips the dvd itself. For now AutoGk rules.
Get Dvdshrink and AutoGk. Used in tandem these two make converting
Dvd2avi a snap. I will indeed write a guide someday soon on how to using these two pieces of software but I'm afraid it would be a very short guide. It really is that easy to use...... My hat now goes off to the people who created AutoGk.............(AutoGk and Dvdshrink are also free)

Archie....self proclaimed master of sniffing out great programs.....

[sniffles]

Am I the only one that actually had a problem with Auto GK? For some reason Gordian Knot works better for me than Auto GK does.