Video and DVD Backup ~ What file format?

[Whiskey 7]

Hello all

I don't often visit this forum but I am in need of some advice.

I bought the missus a laptop last Christmas and now realize I can plug it into my 6 year old plasma panel.

(yes it is that old as, at the time I had some money and little sense it seems as it was the price of a new small car )

Anyway I have quite a few video files in various formats collect over the years, science stuff of the 'net mainly , and there are a few in format I can seemingly no longer play? Some are *.ram and others are quicktime.

I also have some DVDs I have purchased over the years and I figure with HDDs being so cheap it is time to convert, backup and be able to view on the plasma panel without carrying my rather heavy (now) tower case back and forward.

Now I have a number of video/DVD conversion programs I have gathered over the years, some freeware/shareware and one or two I have paid for.

My questions..

1, these days, what is the format I should the "save as" file be?
2, There are a number... AVI, MGEG4, but what should I use?

TIA

By the way, I did think storage size was not a consideration, but shrinking the file for easy transfers and yes HDD volume I suppose is warranted, and be nice

[axbaby]

i'll get the ball rolling.
not an expert on this but avi seems to be the most used .. divx avi me thinks

MPEG4 seems to be the default choice on small devices
any shrinking i assume will degrade quality although poor quality videos seem to look nicer on my HD tv for some reason.
i use the dual monitor feature on my computer to play videos on my tv

This software works great for me and converts almost all formats
http://www.any-video-converter.com/

VLC "videolan" as you probably know plays almost all video formats
http://www.videolan.org/

[^misantropia^]

GIF per frame. You know you want to.

[Whiskey 7]

GIF per frame. You know you want to.

Not quite, those are too old

Thanks axbaby I too was thinking avi but was wondering what, if any new formats were about.

Will read more about and wait for other replies.

Yes I discovered VLC sometime back and must say it does seem pretty good, and the one I use most of the time.

[obsidian]

.mkv has good quality and compression ratios. It's popular among people who want the best archival qualities, but isn't too widely supported by devices (like if you have some sort of hardware media player - computer software like VLC works with .mkv just fine).

[^Ghost]

if ur backing up dvds easiest and most efficent program to use is dvdshrink, for more newer with higher protection use dvdfab or ripit4me

[Whiskey 7]

OOPs & checking