Convert a 2 hour and half DVD down to 700mb AVI

[xylona]

Should I do this or should i convert it to 1.4gb

[guns1inger]

For what purpose ?

1.4GB would probably allow you to keep the AC3 audio as well as improve the video quality.

Personally, I believe mpeg 4 requires at least half the bitrate of mpeg 2 to maintain the same quality.

[xylona]

But whats the difference between 128kbps and ac3.

[xylona]

I just want watchable video. Video that is as good as VCR Quality is good enough.

[guns1inger]

Then 700mb is more than enough, with 128kbps or lower mp3.

As to what is the difference between 128kbps mp3 and AC3 audio = about the same as the difference between dragging your fingernails across a blackboard, and Mozart.

[giannid]

I'd definitely put it onto 2 CD's. 700 MB is too little for 150 minutes of video because it's pretty close to the length of two films.

[celtic_druid]

VCD or better quality should be easily doable. For decent quality, 700MB's probably won't be enough.

Something like -V 5 --vbr-new for the audio, then encode the video at 352x??? with the PAR set so that it resizes correctly on playback.