Idea for New Stickys

[Elmerr]

Need a sticky that is kept updated to the latest technology, in the DVD Ripping field. A constant request these days is from noobs who are converting their dvd collections onto hard disk drives, for ease of access for viewing on large flat panel displays. Many of us with experience also could use up to date info also.

The standard needs are for a high quality viewing experience with negligible loss of original quality.
The flat panel displays will generally upscale DVD format video to fit their 1920 x 1080 screen resolutions. The eternal questions are:

What is the optimum conversion settings to achieve the quality for an acceptable file size?
That is - best bang for buck of file size - for display on a 50 inch screen?

1. codec /decoder - what is considered best tech solution today, as these continue to evolve.

2. converter settings for NTSC and PAL source DVDs, ie screen resolution, frame rates, data rates and compression settings where these are available, audio settings or if original audio can be kept etc. These setting may be conversion software dependent also.

3. Conversion software that actually achieves the above aims without glitches.

People moving to HDD storage of their video libraries dont want to have to do it again later, so will rip DVD losslessly to vob files using decrypter etc. Then compress to the working format desired. They will then typically delete the vob files to save on space and get the max movies onto the hard drive.

To avoid repeating this time consuming process, the conversion needs to be optimal.
This would make a good thread for a permanent sticky - noting that these questions have been answered 100s of times in the past, but most answers are probably out of date by now.

Also - could we have added a list of good reference books covering the topic of DVD conversion and technology.

Obviously this thread could have included the same answers for blue ray, but I think DVD is a long way from a dead format.

cheers,

Elmerr

[MOVIEGEEK]

I'm not a mod but all of these questions have been answered in the forums if people use the search feature, there are also guides. It doesn't matter though because people will still ask questions regardless if there are sticky's.

[yoda313]

It doesn't matter though because people will still ask questions regardless if there are sticky's.

Unfortunately that is quite true.

Most don't even know about the guides and glossary and tools links on the left of the screen. Whenever I point it out its like - oh didn't see that there.

But a sticky probably wouldn't hurt. At least it might save one more noob post about how do I rip a dvd. Probably wouldn't but you never know.

[bendixG15]

Elmerr .....

1 - We got enough stickys.
2 - If its that important to you, then you can do it.

[Elmerr]

"Most don't even know about the guides and glossary and tools links on the left of the screen"

yeah, but try finding a guide to convert DVD to an optimum format configuration, I am having a hard time searching guides for the subject of optimization of conversions, any discussions of conversion quality, comparisons of different technologies for conversion, the league table of conversion formats based on compression v quality etc.

For the simple task I describe - DVD to high quality but space efficient format - discussion of tradeoffs, even short clips as samples of the output of different conversions to be able to visually compare the output results - if not here, where on the web is a nice repository of video samples of a test clip encoded with various technologies? Something like this would seem to be easy to compile - ie agree on a suitable 30 second test clip and then compare the results of real conversions by playback on your intended display device.

[johns0]

There would be too many stickies plus the same requests in posts since a lot of people don't use the guides to the left and don't read stickies to begin with.