I haven't bothered posting too much lately on the converters [but then neither has GOTD], since I guess so many fewer people are using them nowadays. Nothing new here -- just the same stuff I think. There's loads of info on-line re: video, though I recommend the consensus method -- don't accept what you read unless everything you read says the same thing, then run it through your own common sense filter, & above all test to verify. You can find the latest versions of x264, x265, & ffmpeg etc. at the videohelp.com site -- whether you can substitute the ffmpeg files for what comes with a converter depends on the converter, and of course on whether you want to bother experimenting [you'd want to try the 32 bit shared build of ffmpeg].
If you're running a lower horsepower Intel CPU, & using it for graphics hardware too, you might want to Google/Bing on Quick Sync. There aren't loads of apps that use it, and in practice it can be a bit limited, but if you do a lot of video conversions you *might* find it worthwhile. In some situations where you have both a Intel CPU with GPU & a separate graphics card, you *may* be able to use Quick Sync for video decoding, & your separate GPU for encoding. Generally backup 1st if installing [particularly video] software.
Aiseesoft Video Converter Ultimate does not use the latest ffmpeg. It adds the program's folder, a folder to the All Users Application Data or ProgramData, & a folder to the User Local Settings Application Data or AppData Local folder, which might limit portability for anyone doing that sort of thing. The registry gets a key for uninstall, one for the Trolltech caches [QT programming code], & one with a CLSID possibly related to registration/activation. It did not add nor alter any services, codecs, or Direct Show filters.
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There was a time it was hard to avoid seeing Garbage In, Garbage Out. Remember it when you're dealing with video. When you see specs like HD or 4k they're talking about the sheer number of pixels, and saying nothing at all about the quality of the picture. It's entirely possible to have 4k [UHD] video that looks worse than what's on a DVD. Unless you recorded or are recording video with high quality camera gear, or rendering animation, the video you're working with is not going to have 100% of the quality that frame size is capable of. Please bear that in mind when/if you're converting video, since any conversion will reduce quality & often emphasize any weakness in your original. What that means, real life, is that good 4k makes for good HD, & good HD makes for good DVD sized video.
DO not upscale -- after all why would you? Video encoders are not magic, & without alchemy they cannot create pixels out of thin air. Video software is not magic either. If you have n number of pixels, and you want to display 2n or 4n or 10n pixels, or any multiple >1, you can use software to interpolate [read: guess] more pixels, which takes a lot of processing, loses quality simply because you always lose quality when you re-encode, & always results in having more pixels to store in the file. Or you can let the display hardware handle it, which takes no additional processing time, no effort on your part, & most often is tailored to that specific display device. That said, there **may** be one potential benefit to re-encoding video at a larger frame size -- if you were too lazy to do your homework & bought a POS display, whether that's a tablet, or HDTV. Feel free to test it yourself -- feed your targeted display a [normally short] test clip from the original & another that you've up-sized & re-encoded.
Do not use Xvid [sometimes misleadingly listed as DivX, because it's compatible with the original DivX]. Video encoding generally works one of 2 ways -- it stores each frame for editing, or it stores just the changes between complete key frames for playback & distribution. Codecs like UT Video are great for the former, while H.265 & H.265 are great for the latter -- Xvid does neither nearly as well.
From the GOTD download comments:...
"This software can rotate or flip your video (not many software converters can)."
It's not hard, plenty of video tools & apps let you, but why would you? I have a MP3 player that I paid $10 for ~10 years ago, & it will play video, but being very primitive it only does portrait mode, so video has to be rotated 90 degrees to fill the tiny screen. That's the only circumstance where you'd want/need to rotate video that I can think of.
"...this software can rip the video from my LG video recorder VOB files from the burned DVD (not many software converters can)."
Mpg2 video is mpg2 video. DVD video recorders do the DVD part or end of things slightly differently, e.g. there are loads of chapters so you can do minimal editing using just the recorder. So you simply copy the DVD or just the audio & video, using any number of software tools, with the results in whatever format you want/need. You want a single VOB file -- DVD Shrink. You want individual .m2v & AC3 -- PgcDemux. And/or there are tools that will give you a single .mpg file.
On the topic of DVD Recorders... I transferred many hundreds of VHS tapes to DVD using a DVD Recorder -- FWIW I set up a mini workstation next to my desk where I could record/transfer 4-6 a day. On the tapes where it was worth it I demuxed the CC stream & converted it to subtitles [CCExtract &/or SCC Tools &/or General Parser] -- in all cases the mpg2 retained the CC [note: HDMI will not pass through CC]. I copied each to my HDD using PgcEdit, when needed using TMPGEnc Tools to copy .m2v into a .mpg container, sometimes using Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD to edit, other times creating a new DVD, then removing the cells [chapters] I didn't want to play from the DVD playlist using PgcEdit. When I did edit in Womble I converted the AC3 audio to stereo .wav using a very old method with Graphedit & PowerDVD 8 DS filters, edited the.wav files to match, & re-encoded them to AC3 stereo or psuedo 5.1.
"It can also do fast joins of videos."
There are two ways of joining video files or clips... One way is to just chain them together, encoding one, then the next, then moving on to the next sequence of frames & so on until you run out of video & have as output a single video file. Just about any editing app can do that, though you should always double check your audio, because audio in a video file doesn't always end with the video. The other way is to combine the files without re-encoding, which takes a specialized app tailored for the type of video files you're working with, & only works if the files are formatted identically. The 2nd is considered fast, since you're only re-writing vs. re-encoding the files -- the 1st is just normal editing.
"Cuda and AMD GPU support has long been with Aiseesoft products but I wish they would add the freely available Intel Quicksync."
There are 3 kinds of hardware video acceleration. DXVA is part of the Direct X stuff in Windows. OpenCL is a universal method, but the degree of hardware & driver support varies - wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL . Quick Sync, CUDA, & Stream were/are proprietary methods based on the hardware brand, & again capabilities & driver support varies. AMD has been focusing on OpenCL for several years rather than Stream -- Intel hasn't promoted Quick Sync the way Nvidia promoted CUDA, so apps that can use it are more rare. Note that when working with video, all but DXVA will generally lessen quality, how much depends on what operations are accelerated. Note 2: it's difficult to pass the data you're processing back & forth between the GPU & CPU, so mileage varies a LOT depending on both software & hardware -- a faster CPU will have to wait more for a slower GPU & vice versa. Note 3: video has to be decoded before it can be optionally resized & re-encoded -- ideally every step of that can be hardware accelerated. Note 4: research on what works for others with similar or identical hardware when possible, but always test it on your rig(s) before parting with any $.
"I can't evaluate the CUDA conversion but also wonder, since these aren't games, why it's important. "
The best example I can think of at the moment is using the touch screen keyboard on a cell phone... As you start entering letters it'll suggest a few common words - selecting one of those saves you from entering every letter individually. Now decoding, transforming &/or manipulating video, then re-encoding it takes very many individual steps -- if you can call one command or process in your programming that takes the place of several of those individual steps, it's faster. That's where DXVA often comes in. If you can off-load some of that work, using the same sort of shortcut commands from the CPU, moving it to a GPU that already does some kinds of computations faster, that might be faster still, and that's when all of the above might come into play.
On the downside, sticking with my cell phone example... say you normally tap the letters on your cell using both thumbs, but you hurt one of your hands, so the right thumb works great but you have trouble using your left -- that's the sort of imbalance you can run into where the CPU or GPU slows you down because it takes longer to do its thing. Another potential problem is what if the words your cell suggests doesn't match the word you wanted to use? You can tap each letter to get it exact, or you can use the suggestion anyway, even though it doesn't quite fit. That's what you often in effect wind up with using GPU acceleration -- the sort of shortcut in the code calls a process that's not exactly the same as what you'd get using just the CPU, & quality suffers.
"To convert a VOB (DVD) file simply change the extension from VOB to MPG!" -&- "Let other expert ( lancecarr in comment #6 in the URL link) do the talking here..."
Sorry but the info at the linked forum includes some BS... Mpg2 video is mpg2 video, though for video DVD it has to have some standard encoder settings in order to work with most DVD & Blu-Ray players. Mpg2 video is .m2v -- add a container with timing info etc. & you have .mpg, which also may or may not include an audio track. A .VOB file is another container type that can contain an .m2v track, several audio tracks, & multiple subtitle tracks. A video DVD commonly has .VOB files that are smaller than 2GB, so a 5.5GB video file will be split over 3 .VOB files.
Now if you want to work with the video on a video DVD, there is one real limitation -- some software will not be able to handle .m2v because of its lack of timing info [you have to put it into an .mpg container] [you run into the same thing with the .avc or .264 etc. video used for example with Blu-Ray]. Otherwise, assuming the software can handle mpg2 video, it's usually a matter of the software not being coded to accept certain file name extensions -- software may or may not try to look at a file to find out what kind of file it is. That said, you may have a separate problem because of video being split across multiple .VOB files. If your choice of software cannot handle mpg2, e.g. Virtualdub, there are methods using Avisynth & DGIndex, & maybe even VFAPI to feed that software a video stream it can work with [each is a topic on its own, so please research as needed].
Specific to the linked forum thread: Vegas is a somewhat poor choice for importing mpg2 if/when you're outputting mpg2, because it tries to minimize re-encoding, & that end of things has been partially broken for the last few versions. Later versions of Nero are a somewhat poor choice because Nero often wants to open & cache the video file. If you are Not outputting mpg2, Vegas can be a good choice because it automatically can remove pulldown from a NTSC DVD, as can methods using DGIndex.
"Many of the converters use the FFmpeg codec library which is what really determines the output quality." And "I'm not sure what iSkysoft uses but I can tell you that the audio and video output quality of iSkysoft (Wondershare?) is noticeably better at the same bit rates."
The 1st part is 1/2 the answer... There are quite a few encoder settings possible -- many effect the final quality. While the quality the encoder is capable of does matter, the settings you use matter too. Comparing converter X vs. converter Y, their code re-sizing the video for example can differ, but when it comes to using the same encoder, if results from one looks better/worse, or encoding is faster/slower, often the settings included in their presets are responsible for the difference. That doesn't necessarily mean one is better than another -- test the results & assuming both work for you, choose the one you like best, but do test, because for example a setting that makes it look better may also make it not work in some players or on another device.