Converting Video's to other formats are definately a challenge. Over the last week or so I have been working on adding some of the videos I have previously committed to DVD to my media server.
Space on my media server drive is definately a consideration. A lot of these videos were created by capturing TV programs and editing out the commercials and then burning the DVD. The size of these files typically consume up to 4.3GB of disk space. Many of my other movies under 800mb. So you see I need to compress the video or risk running out of space to store them too soon.
My initial trials were to edit out the menu's if any and export directly to mp4. This got the file size down to 1gb-1.5gb so I was moving in the right direction. Playback became another issue. Movies would look great until you get about haf way through then the audio and picture would get jumpy. So this wasn't going to work.
Next I hooked up my other DVD player to my video capture card and tried playing with the capture settings. I have been playing with various recording format settings including one I custom created. For several years I had been capturing to DVD compatible formats. This typically creates rather large capture files but can be varied by dvd standard play or extra long play etc.
Currently I'm playing with capturing in VCD formats. VCD allows entire movies to be played on a singe cd as opposed to a DVD disc. My test video, Godzilla 2000 recorded at 1gb instead of over 4gb. Again I edited out a couple things and exported to .AVI using XVid codec. The result was 350mb! Sofar it is looking good on the TV.
But time will tell if this solution is good. Nothing is ever simple