How do I convert a DVD

to wmv, quicktime or real format?

[halfandhalf]

Hi there,
I don't know anything about video conversion -- can anyone recommend a good how to site? We want to post a DVD to the web and don't quite know how to go about it.

Any nudge in the right direction would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[smokeyb]

If you really want to stream a long piece of video, then .wmv would be the best compression. However, you must take into account your own bandwidth as the filesize is going to be big by web terms, whatever it ends up as, so everytime someone watches it your paying for it. You haven't said how long the DVD is, so I can't offer suggestions on resolution and optimal filesize. Can you elaborate on what you want to do.
Smokey

[halfandhalf]

Thanks for your msg.
It's an 8 or 9 minute DVD... is there software that I can use to convert it somehow?

[smokeyb]

Yes, search for "dvd rippers" I use one called Bingo to quickly grab small resolution copies. BTW 8 or 9 minutes you could probably get down to 3mb, so ignore my last post as I thought you were talking half an hour or so.
HTH

[mistah]

The video files on the DVD are in MPEG2 format(although the file extension will be VOB). Copy these files to your hard drive. If you have an MPEG2 Codec installed you should be able to view these files in Media Player (although you may heve to rename them to have an .mpg file extension.)

If you want to put the files on your website you could use .mov or .wmv formats.

If you want to use .mov just upgrade your copy of Qucktime to Quicktome Pro (I forget how much, but it's not expensive). You can then load up the MPEG2 file, apply lots of compression to it and end up with a much smaller MOV file suitable for streaming. You will probably have to lose a lot of quality e.g. reduce frame rate, size of screen, colour depth, sound quality etc... I normally start with a target file size in mind, based on people's likely connection speed and mess around with these options until I find the best compromise. This takes ages as you have to wait for each attempt to compress before viewing the results.

I've not tried compressing to wmv format, but I would expect that similar software is available for this purpose.

[Macro]

>>upgrade your copy of Qucktime to Quicktome Pro

Or go to Adobe's site. They have free one month trials for even their most expensive video editing software. If you want to pay to play Canopus Procoder is supposed to be one of the best.