OK I've ripped a couple of my DVD's using DVDshrink so that I can watch them from any computer in my house (including the one hooked up to my living room TV). The problem is the files are the original size, anywhere from 4-8GB, and are seriously eating into my hard drive space (no compression was used while ripping the DVDs to preserve best possible picture and sound).

What is a good program to compress these files to MPEG-4 or other "commonly used" standard? I don't mind paying a little for the software if it's good, but free is always better. I'm not interested in getting trapped into a single proprietary format either, I'd like the movies to still be playable using commonly available media players.

I Generally convert them to xVid avi's using Gordian Knot rippack 0.35.0, which you can get from www.doom9.org. It's a little complicated to setup at first, but there are plenty of good guides there to help. I can generally get very good quality (indestinguishable from the DVD when viewed on my computer) with a file size of less than 1Gb per movie. Standard sizes are about 700 Mb, so would even fit on a CD.

Doom9 has a gaggle of tools and utilities that will do what you want, and is a must-visit site for anything like this.

Edit: Another option is to actually decrease the quality that to rip them with in DVDShrink, though you said you did not want to do that. I have knocked 8Gb DVD's down to fit on a single DVD without any visible loss of quality, even when viewed on a 32" screen. Remember you can decrease the quality of menu's etc to the min value (or replace with stills) and it will not affect your movie. Ditching the 'extras' can usually save you a heap of space too.

SP

Edited January 17, 200620 yr by seapagan

i suggest to use XMPEG you can find that at http://www.xmpeg.net/website/

and as news..a new version (5.2) will be out in a few weeks

i suggest to use XMPEG you can find that at http://www.xmpeg.net/website/

and as news..a new version (5.2) will be out in a few weeks

Thanks for the heads-up on the new version. Not used XMpeg for years, it was very unstable last time I tried (but that was in version 1.x or something a way back then), I may give it another try. Am I correct that this was originally based on the FlaskMPG code? I seem to remember something like that.

SP

You could try ratDVD

I haven't tried it yet but it sounds interesting.

i suggest to use XMPEG you can find that at http://www.xmpeg.net/website/

and as news..a new version (5.2) will be out in a few weeks

Thanks for the heads-up on the new version. Not used XMpeg for years, it was very unstable last time I tried (but that was in version 1.x or something a way back then), I may give it another try. Am I correct that this was originally based on the FlaskMPG code? I seem to remember something like that.

SP

yes. it's based on flaskmpeg. but it's more stable than ever.

i've written to the author to know which are the improvements on the new version but at the moment i've received no reply..i'm pretty sure it will have the same GUI but codec setup options will be more user-friendly..so stay tuned on that site and bookmark!