Anything else I oughta know?

[clothesburner626]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

Going from DVD to Mpeg is the highest quality... because that's what's on the DVD, Mpeg.

Next is ripping to VOB which, for the most part, is data.

Third is the AVI created from a VOB to AVI conversion. This is where we get
into the argument of which codec is better. What are my choices?

Then finally we start getting down into some of the portable formats: wmv, mpeg4, etc.

Do I have this right? Is there anything else I oughta know?

Thanks!!!

[daamon]

Going from DVD to Mpeg is the highest quality... because that's what's on the DVD, Mpeg.

You'd have to rip the VOB files from the DVD to PC to then be able to "unwravel" the MPGs from within the VOBs. But yes, in essence, you got that right.

Next is ripping to VOB which, for the most part, is data.

Think of the VOB files as containers: they holg the MPGs, the audio, the subtitles etc. So this one is no different to the one above.

Third is the AVI created from a VOB to AVI conversion. This is where we get into the argument of which codec is better. What are my choices?

Depends what your needs are. If you want the DVD into a small(ish) file, then Divx or Xvid. If you want a better quality then DV AVI or uncompressed, though I'd suggest DV AVI as it's excellent quality and much smaller than uncompressed.

Then finally we start getting down into some of the portable formats: wmv, mpeg4, etc.

Don't know too much on these, I'll leave it for others to comment.

Is there anything else I oughta know?

Dunno - Depends what you're wanting to do... Specifically.

[redwudz]

And if you are asking about the quality of different formats or codecs, you need to take in to account the bitrate used to convert them.

You could use the Xvid codec, for example, with a very high bitrate and get good quality or lower the bitrate enough to make it almost unwatchable. This would also have a major bearing on file size.

There may be other settings involved, but bitrate would seem the main one related to the quality of the file.

[clothesburner626]

And if you are asking about the quality of different formats or codecs, you need to take in to account the bitrate used to convert them.

You could use the Xvid codec, for example, with a very high bitrate and get good quality or lower the bitrate enough to make it almost unwatchable. This would also have a major bearing on file size.

There may be other settings involved, but bitrate would seem the main one related to the quality of the file.

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't even thought about that.

What are some avi codecs I should be aware of. Which produce the best quality / are the most popular?

[jagabo]

Xvid isn't necessarily lower quality than DV. You could for example use a target quantizer of 1 and all I frames. That would end up with better picture quality than DV (especially from an MPEG source since it would use the same colorspace subsampling), be just as editable as DV (depending you the software used), and might even produce larger files than DV.

[redwudz]

jagabo makes a good point about I frames (Keyframes). DV is nice to edit as every frame is a I frame. So you can edit or cut on any frame.

As mentioned, you can also set the I frame rate when you make a Xvid. Generally the Xvids you see from the net may only have a I frame every 300 frames or so. This makes them about impossible for frame accurate editing.