Hey,

Long time since I've been on here so hello to all and I hope you're all happy! I always pop on here though for advice as it's a great community to get help.

I have a bunch of home vids on DVD and want to transfer them to a HDD/USB. Does anyone have some software that they've used and can recommend? I'm not looking to rip anything illegal, it's purely home videos. Also, I don't mind paying if necessary.

Also, what's the best format to save them in to? I was thinking mp4 or avi?

Thanks and happy gaming all. PD

Handbrake is an open source freeware for that.

https://handbrake.fr/

The main container format in ripping is mkv, you can add chapter, subtitles, multi audio. MP4 is lighter for old PC and hardware while avi is out of fashion cause of limited capabilities. If you wanted to encode, check before your tv usb compabilities cause different tv support different codecs. H264 video with aac audio is supported by almost all tv built in player.

That's awesome! Thank you and I hope you're referring to A Tribe Called Quest!

I don't know about him, but I left my wallet in El Segundo.

:) It was from a song featuring QTip actually, one of the best videos of the 90s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezoDN_ewLqk

I'm not a fan of hip-hop in general, but I always enjoy and appreciate ATCQ works.

This is where I heard it from https://youtu.be/Ucym-fVrez0?t=1m25s

Re the handbrake software, I now have it ripping a DVD which is about 2 hours long. I left the default settings on. The process is estimated at 4 hours. The laptop running it has an i3 processor and 4 GB RAM. Is that about right or does it sound too long.

The find a away is a self reference. It is a great line so QTip couldn't help himself.

Cause your source is dvd, you could tinker the quality settings, 18-22 the lower the better quality for dvd is good enough. Or try the fast 480p (or 576p, as your source). But an i3 laptop is not the fastest for encoding job

https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/latest/technical/official-presets.html

That's really helpful. Thanks so much for guiding me through this - it's genuinely appreciated.