Advice on converting DVD collection

[baywatch242000]

I am hoping that I can get some advice on converting my DVD collection to a file format with several needs. I already have them ripped to two 4TB drives and am unsure of what my next steps would be, what format I should choose and "best practices" for retaining as much quality as possible.

1. I want to be able to stream my DVD collection not only to other computers within my home, but also to view remotely when I'm away from the house. I am a PC person, not an Apple person if that makes a difference.

2. I want to be able to retain all the sound streams (the DTS, the 5.1 Surround Sound, etc). I have a beautiful Yamaha high-end receiver, speakers and subwoofer and don't want to lose the glorious sound.

3. Quality is most important to me. I realize DVD's are already compressed lossy, so whatever file format I go with, my hope is to lose as little detail as possible, even if it means using a higher bitrate at the expense of storage space.

An example is the James Cameron movie "Titanic" - not only is it a dual layer DVD taking up about 8.5 gigs of space on my hard drive, but it also contains a couple sound streams...if I could even cut the storage size in half while still retaining 100% of the sound quality I would be thrilled. I use "Titanic" as an example because it is loaded to the max with data, sound streams etc and just a very large movie.

[MilesAhead]

I would try converting or extracting as the case may be, the audio to AC3 640. See if you can hear the difference. That may save some space. But DVD9 isn't the greatest source for encoding. If you had mkv rip of BluRay material then I would recommend using MkvToMP4. It's free, portable and very fast.

But with standard DVD as source I think I would try the above program to see if it will encide the video well. If not I think I would encode to xvid with AC3 audio. using AutoGK.

To get close to the same quality in less space I think .mp4 is the output format of choice. Many set top boxes will both play and upconvert it to HD. Aim for a total output size of about 2 GB for a DVD9 and see how it looks and sounds.