I showed you how to rip a DVD with DVD Decrypter earlier so now I’m going to show you how to convert those VOB to AVI.
Download and install AutoGK. This free VOB to AVI program will take all those weird looking VOB files and turn it into a single AVI file which we all know and love.
Open AutoGK, at the “Input File” section click on the small folder icon at the end to locate the VOB files.
1. Select the very first VOB file of the video they are usually in order, it should look some like “VTS_1_1.VOB”. Click “Open”. By default the Output File name will be the same as the Input file name but you can change it to something else if you want.
2. The Audio stream has already been selected for me because there was only one but you could change it if there was multiple Audio Streams.
3. Now we need to decide how big our video file is going to be. Under “Predefined Size” select the file size preference. Many people like to be able to put a movie on a single CD disc so 700Mb is perfect or if you don’t mind the larger file size go with the 1400MB which offers a bit more quality in video.
4. Advanced Settings – this is where you can select the Output resolution which I usually leave to “Auto width”. Under “Codec” you have a choice between “Xvid” or “DivX”. Next is the “Output audio type”, I prefer the “VBR MP3, kbps” at 128 and that’s what I usually change in the Advanced Settings. Click “OK” when finished.
So now we have all our settings in place all we have to do is click on “Add Job” then click “Start”.
You can see the details and progress in the Log Window. This will take some time so be patient my friend and grab a cup of tea while we wait. You will know it’s finished converting the VOB to AVI when the Log Window shows “Job finished” with the total amount of time it took to do the converting.
When it’s finished converting the Vob files to AVI you should see a single .avi file ready for playback.
If you want even more details on how to convert VOB files to AVI or how to use some other features check out AutoGK’s guide.
I would like to tweak the size a little more in this situation. I’m wondering if using this combination of tools and settings, what should I be looking at for MB/minute of movie ot TV series? I’m trying to back up all of my DVDs to a media server for ease of use, and would like to use my available space as efficiently as possible. Having a 23 minute TV show take up the same 1400MB as a 2 hour movie just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Any guidance you are willing to provide would be greatly appriciated.
In step number 3 you can select the size you want, for a tv show you can get away with decent quality under 200MB depending on the quality you want you may want to go a bit higher around 200 to 400. Most people who convert tv shows usually put then in less then 200MB. This will save you a lot of hard drive space.