using vlc to convert and compress DVD to avi
 

Hi. On my Gentoo machine, I am using VLC to stream dvd's to avi's, but the file is huge.

With k9copy you can specify the output size you want, but k9copy is very crashy and annoying.

How can I work out how to do this with vlc so I can get close to the size I want (eg. make it fit on a cd)

Take a look at dvd::rip. It does what you are asking for (does not use vlc).

I have been trying dvd:rip for a few days now and am happy with it except for the time it takes compared to k9copy (when it works).

The only trouble now is the quality of video isn't that great.

I have tried ripping several movies down to 700M avi's but they seem to come out very blocky.

I have a few downloaded movies of that size that are great quality but mine don't come out anywhere near them.

How should I set up the program for the best quality with out creating too large a file?

Avidemux probably does the best video conversions. When I have wanted to pull high quality from DVDs I pull the vobs using dvd::rip(no conversion). Dvd::rip will split multi title vobs into separate titles. I then grab those titles with avidemux and do the conversions.