Change quality (size) in DVD2MPG

[gdselzer]

I used DVD2MPG to turn a couple of my daughters DVDs into MPGs so that she can watch them through the MVP using XRecord. It seemed to work great and is a nice, easy, handy tool to have.

My question has to do with the size of the resulting files. I understand they are just ripped DVDs, so they are the same quality as a DVD. When recording TV, I use the Medium setting and the quality is just fine given my TV. Is there an easy way to reduce the quality and size of the mpgs that come out of DVD2MPG to the same level as Medium recordings? The DVD mpgs seem are about 4Gig/hr, while TV recordings are 2Gig/hr.

[pBS]

re-encode,re-encode,re-encode....
i'm pretty sure dvd2mpg can't....it just rips as is while removing encryption..

there's a few encoders out there that will rip and encode,but if you want an integrated GBPVR solution,look into Xdvd plugin for gbpvr...it's for playing dvd's on MVP but works fine on pc too...can even do subtitles...
it will rip the dvd to a single mpg file,and recompress it if you'd like...
you can re-burn the mpg file to a dvd later if you wish with your fav dvd creation software..[without having to re-compress ]
you may have to adjust the batch files a bit but it gives great quality and you can set the amount of compression you want in the batch file...
[you'll have to play with the settings to find one that gives you the file size/quality you seek..]
by default it copies the video and only transcodes the audio but there's a line in the batch to use for re-compressing both..[or if you select subtitles,it always has to re-compress the video] and it's decently fast too..close to realtime on a p4...[i get 45fps encoding speed on a p4-1800]

or, i could also just give you a batch file that does same thing...with mencoder

[gdselzer]

Thanks for pointing out XDvd. I'm a little confused by some of this stuff (not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you know what I mean). Can you help me with a couple questions?

1. Which .bat file do I want edit in order to create compressed mpg files from my DVDs, Playmvpdvd.bat or Playmvpdvdfiles.bat?

2. How do I change the default directories and file names?

[pBS]

ok,first off you should edit playmvpdvd.bat and make sure the path to your VLC.exe is correct..[assuming you've d/l'd it already]
[vlc is Video Lan Client if you haven't found that part yet..it is the transcoder..] d/l it and install first..
then in that batch file you'll see a line that has 'rem' in front of it..
[all is should be explained in the batch file...]
basically you want to disable the line that it's currently using, in the :nosub section...then copy the line after the :end that looks like this:

start /low C:\Progra~1\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe --sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,interlace,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ps,url="%2"}} dvdsimple://%1%3 :dvdnav-caching=7000 --sout-ffmpeg-keyint 16 -I dummy --dummy-quiet --one-instance VLC:quit

and paste it just after the one in :nosub but before 'goto end'

actually,i have one already made...just replace the one you have with this one...

[gdselzer]

My Playmvpdvd.bat doesn't have :nosub, :end, or goto end. Did I pull down the wrong XDvd?

Also, how do change the directory and filename it saves to?

Thanks for all the help.

[gdselzer]

So I tried something else. I took the mpg created by Dvd2Mpg and tried reencoding it using ffmpeg. The file came out the right size, and quality seems about right, but I am unable to skip forward. When I hit the skip button it just starts over at the beginning. I suspect I didn't use ffmpeg correctly, but not sure. I used the following command:

ffmpeg.exe -i d:\original.mpg -b 4000 -r 29.97 d:\compressed.mpg

Can someone help me understand if I should be passing more info to ffmpeg or if there is a better way to be doing this?