DVD to AVI

[Barney]

I'm currently in the process of converting my DVD collection to AVI format for storage on a media centre pc I'm working on.

I've had a look round, done a bit of googling and the best (and by far easiest) method i've found is a program called Auto Gordian Knot, basically you just tell the program where the source files are, tell it what filename and format you want the output, and press start, it even works straight from the DVD to an AVI file.

The downside is that it takes forever i.e. 8 hours per DVD

Anyone else doing this and can point me in the right direction??

[Dingo]

Auto GK is about the best I've found so far too.

Time is very dependent on ya Processor and Ram ya running. I currently have an Athlon (which causes problems in itself with video editing im discovering ) FX 64 dual core, runnings 2x 2.4ghz processors on 2gig of DDR400 ram and its pretty quick. However on my old single athlon 1.2ghz with 1gig SD133 ram it would take aggesss.

That might be the problem your striking?

[Barfridge]

Yup, encoding is all about raw CPU power.

I've been doing dvd->divx rips for about 6 or 7 years now, if you think it's bad now, I used to do it on a Duron 600MHz with 256 meg of RAM.

The software I've been using for ages is smartripper to get the VOB files onto the hard drive, then Xmpeg to encode to divx/xvid/whatever.

But auto GK sounds fine for most things, depends on how much you like customising things

[Barney]

Thanks guys.

Looks like I need more horsepower.

I'll try it on the laptop although I'm not too keen to leave it on long term, having said that once they're encoded as AVI job is done.

[D'Artagnan]

I also use StaxRip and DVD Shrink. Use shrink to copy unencrypt the main move to HDD and then use StaxRip to convert. StaxRIP is a front end to BeSweet, VDub and other free apps and is free too. Works a treat.

D'Art

[Tjsurfa]

Just found a new program called Super. i have been stuffing around with these things for years and this is the fastest, free, converter program i have seen. I downloaded gilmore girls for the missus and converted them to wide screen, for the playstation 3 with a couple of clicks. brilliant , pm if you want a copy or the link ..
SUPER © IS UNIVERSAL as it supports a wide variety of input/source file format to play
or encode (to & from) without any additional third party software.
Supported input source file formats are:
- Video format: 3gp/3g2(Nokia,Siemens,Sony,Ericsson) asf, avi (DivX,H263,H263+,H264,XviD,MPEG4,MSmpeg4 etc..), dat,
fli, flc, flv (used in Flash), mkv, mpg (Mpeg I,Mpeg II), mov(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4 etc..), mp4(H263,H263+,H264,MPEG4), ogg,
qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), swf (Flash), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, wmv
- Audio format: aac, ac3, amr, mmf, mp2, mp3, mp4, mpc, ogg, ra, wav, wma
- AviSynth Script Files: avs. Let you specify advanced encoding commands using AviSynth scripts!
SUPER © supports the conversion (encoding both ways, to & from ) of ALL the listed formats.

[R1 Yammie]

This is the one i have been using of late, does everything and very quick
MOVAVI VideoSuite - Convert Video, Rip DVD, Save videos and DVDs to iPod

No doubt there are other ways of getting it but i'm not the ilegal thinker