Best program and format for converting DVD for YouTube and Myspace

[cesarewr]

Hi.. I've tried a variety of DVD ripping and conversion programs, and experienced a range of quality results. Some produce better initial quality, only to degrade significantly when uploaded to Myspace or YouTube. Others hold up better on upload, but do not produce as consistant color reproduction. File size also seems to vary from program to program.

I would appreciate any suggestions as to the best overall solution.
1) What is the best program for capturing video from DVD? (Including functionality to select In and Out points for capture)
2) What is the ideal capture format for ultimately uploading to Myspace and YouTube(mp4, avi, mov, etc.)?
3) Which encoders provide the best intermediary between quality and file size?

Thanks,
Cesare

[Scorpion King]

Most of the u-tube stuff I've seen is 320x240 flv and <300Kbps. I doubt if they do 2pass and I also doubt they even consider any filtering, etc. Just a mass produced quick encode using their won invention of a preset. You can do the same thing with your files before you upload them that should give you an idea how they will look once on their site. Just reencode your projects using their specs and procedures. This can be pretty well figured out by examining their collections.

Anyway, since they resize everything to 320x240 then I would send them that framesize. And since they except only files under 100MB then I would also consider sending them that too.

Just remember... garbage in - garbage out. Send them a low quality noisy file then you should expect a very low quality online reencode version of it. The cleaner proper sized video you upload then expect to get the best quality possible from them. lol

Know the output then test. Thats all I can suggest that would help. Anything else would be nothing but guessing.

Course, they may mess that up too.

Good luck.

[hech54]

There is a guy that made a guide on Youtube and he swears by WMV files. I just do my resizing and editing in Virtualdub then convert to FLV with Riva FLV Encoder. My old footage is not DVD quality to begin with...just rare.