Convert DVD to AVI

The Best Way to Convert DVD to AVI

<< Back to Mac DVD Ripper Site

DVDs are all very good and nice to have, until you have accumulated enough of them that you start thinking of where to store them. This is one time that you start thinking of converting them to simpler formats and storing them on your hard disk. There may be other reasons as well, for wanting to convert DVDs. You may wish to watch the DVDs on other popular devices supporting formats such as MPEG2, MPEG4, H264/AVC, Xvid and DivX, or other formats such as QuickTime MOV, Flash video and WMV.

There are several popular programs to convert DVD to AVI format. These are available on all popular OS's such as Windows, Linux and Mac. Most are very easy to use even by novices. However, their features allow for sophisticated controls as well, useful for professionals who would like to edit the video before conversion. With these conversion tools, the DVD movie can be easily converted into an AVI video format, which you can save on the hard disk of your computer and share with your friends. It is also possible to convert the DVD into a MP4 video format, which you can view on your portable MP3/MP4 player. These programs are intelligent enough to understand the different video standards such as the NTSC and PAL, while converting.

The converter program has to be downloaded and installed in your computer and made to run. The DVD is then inserted into its drive and read by the program. This will show you the video files in the DVD. If you are interested in converting the whole DVD as it is, reading the IFO file is advisable as it contains information about the entire structure of the video file, and you will be able to avoid problems of audio and video not in synch after conversion.

Since this type of conversion is fairly computing-power intensive and occupies a lot of space, it is preferable to use the hard disk for holding the output file. Output file format should also be chosen correctly to one of the AVI formats that you finally need.

The video conversion programs are fairly simple to use by beginners, who do not have any knowledge of video formats. The user interface is generally friendly and intuitive. One of the advanced features allows splitting the video file from any desired location, which is useful for editing. The program also allows you to replace the original soundtrack of the DVD with your own. You can also rip the audio from the DVD to be stored as a standalone MP3 file.