Just a quick update on my "TV SERVE" status (that's the name of the new hard drive - see a couple days back for more information). After researching on the doom9.org forums and investigating a few different programs, it seems the best way to get consistent quality at a fast speed without much work is a combination of DVD Decrypter and Auto Gordian Knot. DVD Decrypter takes the DVD and rips the PGC's to the drive bit for bit so you have an uncompressed copy of each episode (PGC) that then needs to be compressed - which is where AutoGK comes in. AutoGK compresses the file into a stand-alone AVI using the XviD compressor at a specified file size. After A LOT of experimenting over the weekend with Viva La Bam: Season 1, I finally settled on using the 85% target quality options and I got acceptable file sizes.

The 8 episodes from Season 1 of Viva La Bam are now compressed from 7.5 gigs (total size (including extras) of the original DVD) down to 3.55 gigs. I like this size because they're still big files with great quality, but it's about half the size and in that 3-4 gig target range I specified earlier (though I'll probably need to get another 250 gig drive when they go on sale again). I just finished encoding the first 5 (6 if you count the pilot twice - original and revised) episodes of Seinfeld and they come out to about 1.4 gigs. That's the full first season and now I have to work on the second season which weighs in at 13 episodes. Here's my quick cheat sheet for encoding I typed up so I could remember the settings:

DVD DECRYPTER
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IFO Mode
Rip PGC's for each episode
No Stream Processing
Settings > IFO Mode
>>No File Splitting
>>Copy IFO File
>>Remove RC, RCE & PUO's
>>Patch M2V Timecode
>>Stream Information (Add'l Files)
Settings > General
>>Remove Macrovision
>>Check for Structure Protection
>>Other > All Checked

AUTO GK
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DVD Input
Target Quality: 85%!!
Advanced > Auto
CTRL+F9 > Animation if applicable

URL: AutoGK Homepage - THE Tool for XviD / DivX conversion