DVD to AVI

What exactly is the DVD format, what’s the AVI format,  why you might want to convert DVD to AVI and how to do it. Let’s look at each of these issues one by one.

DVD (Digital Video Disc) is an optical data storage device which can hold large capacities of digital data like high quality video and movies. A VOB ( DVD Video Object or Versioned Object Base ) file is a container format for DVD video files. An explanation of VOB files is beyond the scope of this article, but a study of the software part of the DVD format is essentially a study of the VOB container file format.

AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is a multimedia container format, which allows for synchronous video and audio playback. Microsoft introduced this format as part of its Video for Windows technology. The AVI file format is widely used with professional video editing tools such as VirtualDub. While more recent formats such MPEG4 are more efficient in terms of file size and compatibility with other media players, AVI is still the preferred format for transfer and storage of video files from and to personal computers.

If you look at the above two formats carefully, you might notice that you receive large amounts of video or other data in DVD format, and if you want to store specific parts of the data or transfer it to another location via a network, such as the internet, the best way to do it would be to convert the specific section of the DVD data to AVI, optimized for storage, playback and transfer.

Now comes the question of how to go about converting a DVD to AVI. This is better known as DVD ripping, and there are numerous tools available in the market. DVD rippers range from free and open-source to professional DVD ripping software, which give you the ability to rip DVD’s and convert them into AVI files with batch processing options, high speed real-time conversion, start, end point and chapter settings, sub-titles, language,  PAL/NTSC settings, audio soundtrack selection and more.

In short, the kind of DVD ripper you use to convert DVD to AVI depends on what you intend to do with the AVI files. If it’s for purely personal use, a free and open-source DVD ripper like DVD Decrypter is recommended. If the AVi files are intended for professional use, a DVD ripper like the iSofter DVD to AVI Converter, with a lot of bells and whistles,  is recommended.