confused with avi settings:

[modern saviour]

Am new to converting dvd to avi and I need help. I have settled on Winavi, avi.net and pgc.net after trying many programmes I think these are the best. However am confused about screen size and convert size especially in avi.net, I know 700mb will fit on a cd, so if I up the size say to 1120mb does this mean the picture quality improves. I want to view the files on a 4.3 television and also on a 16.9 television and avi.net has 640 width which I presume is 4.3, but will I be ok using 720 width. Is 720 width again better quality or just screen size also when I change the width it changes frame dimensions, why do I get 720 x 416, I thought this should be 720 x 480 for pal tv 720 x 576 nstc. Sorry for all the questions but it drives me a bit potty aswell as confused LOL:

[marioval]

If you haven't tried AutoGK yet then I recommend that. Just load in the ifo of the DVD main movie then set the outfile file name then choose the output settings. You can either do a single pass encode based on quality percentage or you can do a 2-pass encode based on file size. I recommend the 2-pass size based encode. The bitrate and resolution will be set for you with the optimal settings as long as you have the resolution set to "auto". Its a great app and easy to use once you have done it a few times.

[redwudz]

Depends on the codec used and the length of the video, but assuming Xvid or Divx, 1100 - 1500MB will give you a lot better quality most times with a DVD>Xvid/Divx conversion.

640, 720 is just the horizontal resolution, framesize. Larger framesizes may give you slightly better quality, but will need more bitrate to do that. With codecs like Xvid/Divx, framesize isn't a big issue like with MPEG/DVD playback compatibility. Mainly you want framesizes divisible by 16 or 2. Depends on the codec used. Odd numbers will cause problems. I'd just go with the program defaults.

If you change one of the framesize dimension, the program corrects to the aspect ratio, 4:3, 16:9, etc., and that will change the other dimension. Someone else can probably explain all that better.

[modern saviour]

Thanks for the advice chaps, I did try AutoGK but thought it was painfully slow, I do like avi.net in conjunction with pgc.net but avi.net always defaults to the same setting when I open it up perhaps these are the recommended settings could not find anything on there website for what the default setting are. Might give AutoGK a another try but I have read that avi.net is better in what it does, thats why am leaning a bit more to it.