.VOB to uncompressed AVI help?

[deftonzman00]

I apologize if this question has been asked a lot, but I can't seem to find a simple answer anywhere.

First I'll give a quick background on what I am trying to do. I recently put together a Windows Media Center 2005 PC, with a Linksys extender box in my bedroom. Unfortunately, the extender does not let you play DVD image files which are saved on my computer in the other room. It only lets you play mpeg 1 and 2, and .wmv files. So what I want to do is backup maybe 10 or 15 dvd's on my hard drive, using dvd decrypter, and encode them using Windows Media Encoder 9, which I am guessing is the best alternative? Since I have over a terrabyte of hard drive space on my home network, i am not overly concerned with the size of the files, I would prefer better quality. Anyhow, the guide I managed to find for using Windows Encoder 9 said you need an AVI file as an input. I realize encoding to a divx first, and then reencoding to .wmv would not be the best option as you are basically compressing an already compressed file.

Again, I apologize if this is a fairly commen question, but while working full time and going to school, I don't have tons of time to be searching everywhere for an answer. I would prefer obviously a quick couple of simpler steps, as opposed to installing umpteen different freeware programs with all kinds of crazy settings and stuff - if you get my drift. I'm fairly adept with computers, but some of these words like demultiplexing and stuff means nothing to me. So any suggestions on what would be my easiest, yet still good quality output, would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[canadateck]

Why not leave them as MPG2 if you dont care about how much space they take up? This way the quality will stay the same.

[garrisonkw]

DVD video is MPEG-2. Maybe you just want to change the VOB files back into MPG files. There are a number of ways of doing this. Here's a link showing what I mean...

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=224833

You'll have zero quality loss as there's no reencoding going on. Also, MPEG-2 files are quite a bit smaller than truly uncompressed AVI files.

Hope this helps.

[winifreid]

You say it will play mpeg 2. If this is the case, you can just rip the dvd in file mode to your HD. This will create a list of vob files. If your player will play in sequence, you can just change the file extension to mpg (or just leave it if your player will recognize vob) and load them in sequence into your player. I use Power DVD and I can create a list of media files and it will play one after the other in order.

[deftonzman00]

Thanks for your responses guys. After reading some more into your responses, I figured out I can simply change the vob files to .mpg, and it then works just fine. It doesn't look perfect on the TV however, but it is due to the limitation of streaming the video to the extender, I'm pretty sure. Because to be honest, live TV 'streamed' from my media center pc in the office, to the extender which is hooked to the tv in my bedroom does not look great on it either - it has moments where it is very digitized looking - particularly in fast moving objects. I am thinking I may just return the extender, and use the money on a small form factor pc to just hook up to my actual entertainment center in the bedroom. Although I really like the idea of these media center extenders, I can say I am not 100% happy with it quite yet at this stage. I'm sure in a year or two they will have some of these bugs worked out.

Thanks again!