I blogged a bit ago about setting up a Windows Media Center DVD Library - where to store, how to handle metadata, etc. What I didn't cover was how to choose a format to rip your movies into.
When I created my DVD Library, I had three primary goals:
- No loss of quality.
- Menus, etc. intact.
- Backup of movie that can be re-ripped to DVD if the original gets damaged.
I ended up selecting VIDEO_TS format for my movies. Based on your requirements, you may choose a different format. The following table outlines some common format choices and their relative pros/cons.
All of these can be re-ripped, in some form or another, to a DVD that will play in a standard player, but you can obviously only burn back to disc the data you have. For example, if you rip your movie to WMV, you've lost the menus and quality - you aren't going to get those back by burning the WMV back to a video disc.
File size was omitted because for the lossy formats, you can adjust the amount of size the movie takes on disk by compromising quality. The ISO and VIDEO_TS formats will take between 4GB and 8GB per disc, regardless of movie length, because they're basically the whole kit-and-kaboodle. I've found some discs only use 3GB, but most are between 4 and 8.
The quick recommendations:
- VIDEO_TS: If you want a backup with menus, no lost quality, and don't mind watching your movies through a Windows Media Center (or Front Row, for you Mac people), then VIDEO_TS is the way to go. It's the easiest of the two full-rip formats to set up and is most compatible with media center style software.
- MPEG-2: If you want just the main movie, don't mind losing a little quality, and/or have lots of different devices (PS3, Xbox360, etc.) that you want to watch on, go with MPEG-2. It's a pretty common format that almost everything will play.