Getting Started - MPEGII (VOB) to ?

[GregK]

Too much information... I've searched and browsed for hours and although I know more terms, etc. I'm no closer to knowing where to begin.

I'm interested in storing some of my DVD's on my MythTV box and would like to compress (covert) them along the way. I require surround sound (5.1) and would like to lose as little video quality as possible. That leads to two sets of questions.

1) What tools / format should I be considering. I don't mind buying products but prefer freeware/open source. I just get really tired of the endless purchased product upgrade cycles. I own 2 video editing programs (Sony and Pinnacle).

I'm assuming, with today's technology that H.264 is preferred. Other choices would be Divx or Xvid but X.264 seems to be the current preferred solution. I'm confused on audio. Will AAC support 5.1 audio? What containers are my choices if I need 5.1 audio? I know AC3 supports 5.1 but AAC seems to be the currently supported standard.

I've tried "SUPER" (Couldn't get it to support 5.1 audio when using H.264) and "StaxRIP" which both use "AVISynth" as the converter. Are there any other "guided" processes or procedures I should consider? Again, my goals, optimum video quality and 5.1 audio. I'm hoping I can compress files to at least a quarter of a fifth of a standard DVD.

2) "Bitrate". In JPG's 100% (largest file size) yields very little compression and sort of defeats the purpose, yet say 50% begins to show artifacts and pixelation. I tend to go for 80-85% which yields reasonable compression and minimum degradation. Is there a similar "sweet spot" with bitrate? Some programs allow forcing the output to about 800MB so that it fits on a CD. It would seem to me this could force video degradation by forcing too much bit rate loss. Is that correct? I'm just tring to understand best practices for bitrate. For that matter, I'm assuming the audio rate should be about 128KB, with a sampling rate of 48000 (needed for 5.1, I think).

Thanks for any advice.

[Baldrick]

1. I would try AutoMKV.
2. Do you need any exact size like for example so it fits on a cd or several dvds on one dvd?

[GregK]

Thank you.

I'll try AutoMKV.

No, there are no specific file size restrictions. The files will be on my MythTV box on a large hard drive. So, I want to compress to manage the size of the library, but there are no specific file size constraints.