Which Video File Format to Use as Output for Conversion

[AA Smith]

I don't know a lot about video files/formats, so I'd appreciate suggestions.

When converting a DVD to another video format, several options are
available. I wonder which would prove to be the most compact and which
would be the easiest to manage, edit and if possible resize.

The options available include .AVI, .MPEG2, WMV, .RM (real player,) .MOV,
..3GP, and MP4.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

DV-AVI will be the biggest but keep the best resolution. MPEG2 is probably
the second best option.

 

[bxf]

I don't know a lot about video files/formats, so I'd appreciate suggestions.

When converting a DVD to another video format, several options are
available. I wonder which would prove to be the most compact and which
would be the easiest to manage, edit and if possible resize.

The options available include .AVI, .MPEG2, WMV, .RM (real player,) .MOV,
.3GP, and MP4.

It may be useful to know why you want to convert. For example,
commercial DVDs are encoded in MPEG2, so if your intention is merely to
copy the DVD (watch out for copyright) to your HDD, then why not keep
it as it is and avoid losses caused by recompression? On the other had,
if your intent is to copy and make a significantly smaller file, then
you can consider any MPEG4 (e.g. DivX) avi with an appropriately low
bitrate.

 

[AA Smith]

Thanks for your feedback, bxf!

I'm concerned with converting a DVD to a non-DVD video format. I just want
a video without the menus; preferably one that will play on WMP 10.

And, when running the conversion I'm more than a bit confused as to which
files I need to identify as input to the conversion software. Do I need to
highlight (select for conversion) the VIDEO_TS.BUP file and the VIDEO_TS.IFO
file and the VTS_01_0.IFO file in addition to all the .VOB files or not?
Obviously, I don't know exactly what the VIDEO_TS.BUP file and the
VIDEO_TS.IFO file, and the VTS_01_0.IFO are.

 

[AA Smith]

Thanks, Cari! I appreciate your feedback.

 

[bxf]

I haven't done this myself, so I can't speak from experience. However,
the VOB files are your MPEG2 files containing multiplexed video and
audio. I don't know which product you are using for the conversion, but
It may be possible to "simply" concatenate all the VOBs to produce a
single MPEG2 file that wil play properly (probably without subtitles -
not sure).

 

[AA Smith]

I'm using a trial version of AVS Video Converter. It seems to be incredibly
slow. I selected for conversion all of the files in VIDEO_TS that I
mentioned before not including a .pls file that I did not mention before.
Now, it's been running for more than 5 hours and shows 37 Hours and 18
minutes to go, and the time to go keep getting longer. Go figure. Any
suggestions on really good conversion utilities?

 

[bxf]

I certainly wouldn't have the patience for this sort of stuff.

I've done some file conversion, including MPEG2 to AVI, but not from a
DVD. I usually use Virtualdub-MPEG2 (a variation of the great free
program Virtualdub) for this. Unfortunately, although it can be used to
append files together, it will not do this for non-AVI files. I suppose
you could individually convert each VOB file to an AVI, and then append
them all into a single file, without recompressing during this last
process. That way you'd be recompressing only once. If you want more
options and are willing to pay for them, there's Canopus Procoder2 and
EO Video, both of which, if I rememebr correctly, will handle MPEG2
files and will enable you to stick individuall files into a single one.
The time it would take to process teh files very much depends on the
compression options you select, including, if we're talking about
MPEG4, the number of passes. Still, I cannot imagine anything as long
as the times you give in your post.

 

[Hanson Woo]

H264 > MPEG4 codec> H263(RM,3GP)>MPEG2

H264 format is the best video codec that better than MPEG4.

You can use total video converter convert
(http://www.effectmatrix.com)the DVD to H264 MPEG4 which can be played
with quicktime player and VLC.

 

[Guest]

I'm new to video editting but like Windows Movie Maker. I'd like to save
them off in the smallest possible files size to facilitated downloading. I'd
also like to download them to a video iPod device.

What is best? There don't seem to be many MP4 converters out there. Are
there any free ones so smother the process from Movie Maker to MP4.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

I've heard nothing but good reviews about:
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/