I've done a lot of reading on this, but most of the posts were over a year old and not Vista specific.  I am currently using DVDFab to rip my DVD's to my hard drive as VOB's, but I am looking to move to something compressed that keeps high quality because I am watching most of them projected on to a 96" screen.  What software/methods do people recommend?  Where can I get the software?  Obviously picture quality needs to stay pretty high and keeping 5.1 is also preferred.  Also, I have a lot of TV shows do people have a recommendation for those?

I use DVD Shrink after DVDFab

Actually, I just started experimenting with something that appears to be working quite well for the first few attempts.  I am running AnyDVD on my machine, I slap the DVD in there, launch Windows Movie Maker included with Vista, and import the main movie's .vob files into Movie Maker.  Then add the .vob's in order on the bottom in both, the audio and video slots and create the movie that way.  I've been messing around with the wmv 720p setting compared to the 480p setting and want to look into different audio possibilities within it, but for the most part, it's been a pretty cool way to rip into .wmv format, making the movies accessible to my extenders.

If you have Vista, mess around with it and see if you like it.  I plan on blogging it within the next week or so, depending upon how well it works.

 

nice idea, must give that a go! If it could be automated it would be pretty handy to shrink down a large dvd collection.

Vengence_Irl:

nice idea, must give that a go! If it could be automated it would be pretty handy to shrink down a large dvd collection.

 

Actually, I just got a very pleasant surprise with this method.  I don;t remember doing anything special with the audio, I just dragged the main movie .vobs into the panel at the bottom for Raiders of the Lost Ark and was just blown away with the surround in the beginning scene.  I don't think it was mt receiver's Dolby emulation either, cause it continually said Digital, and never switched to Pro Logic.  I think that using the DVD widescreen 720p profile within Windows Movie Maker maintains a great 5.1 sound environment!!!

I'd appreciate if anyone else can confirm this, but for right now, I'm a very happy guy with this!

 

I've been using the method on this page to convert DVDs to WMV.  It keeps the DD5.1 audio track, adn the picture (it uses Windows Media Encoder 9) is quite nice.

I've also tweaked the batch file a bit for my purposes - I dropped the bitrates a bit (default bitrates gave me a WMV in the neighborhood of 6GB.  Ouch.)  Also, I do the rip on my PC w/ DVDDecrypter, and upload the VOB file to a machine (Core2Duo E6400) in my basement.  It codes the movie a LOT faster than my XP 2700+ desktop.

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just when I want to try it the blasted PSU in my computer has stopped working, it might have taken my audigy2 with it. stuck till at least the weekend now.

I use "my movies" a good bit w/ anydvd as the decrypter... Works well for autoripping dvds and then autodownloading the  thumbnails and info. Pretty cool to also show my dvd collection on-line. Check www.mymovies.name  (use 2.30 pr9)

On the rare occasion I get a disk that won't copy, I switch over to clonedvd

grabbed myself a shiney new fortron PSU & I'm back in business. Tried it with a DVD with episodic content on it, seems to work well. Going to try it with a feature film later to judge file size. If its less than 4.7 GB I'll be happy.

@ghostlobster: have you tried this with subtitles? films such as the bourne identity have subtitles for the villians when they're talking forwegian.

edited to add:
some of the vobs from the ripped dvds are being reported as being over 26 hours long. V odd. It wont let me complete the project.

Ya know, the 26 hour thing, I've seen that on a few DVDs as well.  These aren't ripped or copied DVDs either, it happens with the physical purchased media.  I have not seen it on all of them, but I ran into it last night with The Godfather, and again with The Fellowship of the Ring.

More research required!  I was able to rip that .vob file from within the Media Encoder, and then slap that resulting .wmv file into the Windows Movie Maker project along side the .vob files, but man, you talk about a hackjob!

 

there are 2 more things I want to try to get around the 26 hour thing.
I guess I was unlucky when I pulled a disc @ random out of my collection!

CLONE DVD w/ anydvd will fix that, then run dvd shrink afterwards to remove anything you don't want

@rlith can you outline the procedure you used?

Vengence_Irl:

@rlith can you outline the procedure you used?

Well, with anydvd as the decryptor, use clone dvd to copy the dvd to an iso (or vob) Once done, run dvd shrink over it and remove what you don't want (typically I do not compress the movie at all, the run STILL PICTURE for extras and compress menus