Hi,

I found a good ripping program.(well its free and I can use it. Rip and burn dvd) I haven't found the best codec. I am backing up my dvds to a hard drive. I want the files to be smaller then mpeg2. I will be watching on non hd tv. I tried xvis and divx. My dvd files are still over one gb for a hour and 37 minute movie. Is there a way to get the file smaller and still look good? What codec do you recomend?

also I've tried 4 different media players and they show the file about 10% smaller then the dvd. What is wrong?

any suggestions or advice would be great. I am looking for a codec with a small file size and the best player.

If you want an exact copy of the DVD you have to use a lossless codec, one that i've found is called RATdvd, though i havnt really tried it very much it should get a 4gb dvd down to around 1.5 Gb. if it is too high then you will have to use a lossy codec.
the biggest problem is that as the smaller the file the lower the quality, the limit for quality is around 700mb, below that ur really pushing it (this is assuming that you use DivX or XviD).
the newest codec is X264. which allows for higher quality at a lower bitrate. i think that it is something like 30 to 40% smaller file size compared to Xvid. but you really need a beast of a machine to use it as it takes a hell of alot of resources to properly encode and even playback takes alot of cpu usage.
I use DVD shrink to rip the DVD, which also bypasses the copy protection on some (i think) and you can get the image down to around 50% without much loss in quality though i think you shrink the video to around 30% donno about the quality
then mount the image using whatever your mounting program is. finally use DVDX 2.3 or later to convert to AVI. You will have to work out the bitrates though they do have a built in calculator, i'd try a few different ones just to make sure. also you will want to encode the audio aswell. I'd advse you to use AC3 if it is 5.1 if not then MP3 at 128~192 should be fine.
but a few things that you should know first:
1
these are all quite simple programs and for that reason the quality might suffer and it might take longer then other programs
2
pretty sure that bypassing the copy protection is illeagal. though no one truly gives a crap about how hurt the MPAA is, screw the bastards
3
it takes along time and resources to encode video properly
4
if you want to rip more then the movie it is possible, though you have to use a different container, as .AVI can only handle 1 video, 1 audio stream and embedded subtitles. you can use matroska or ogg instead but i've never bothered

For the Media player, i really dont know what your talking about...the player doesnt dictate the size, the file does. anycase i use WMC, compatible with just about every file type known.
search for K-lite Mega codec pack - it will give you just about every codec you will ever need as well as players and a collection of tools that will come in useful.
more importantly go to:
www.doom9.org
http://www.videohelp.com
www.google.com

i think that you might be in the wrong room for this sort of enquiry

thanks. I will give your ideas a try. I just need to figure out how to compress the audio into something other then pcm.