Hi All

Very new to HTPC's and am thinking of building one with a nettop, using XBMC. I've got XBMC working with no problem in a VM. I'd like to know what the best format would be to rip my DVD's into to maintain the 5.1 audio tracks. I've heard ripping them into an ISO, or MKV file would be best for this.

Thanks!

if you have lots of hd space, i would do a straight rip (no transcode) to vob. best quality and simplest to do.

I would agree. I rip all my discs without transcoding. Disc space is cheap nowadays. However, I would recommend having some sort of backup. I decided to go with a RAID setup on my 1.5tb harddrive, and mirror the thing so I don't lose everything (again).

Seems to be the consenus (of 3)

Thanks guys. XBMC mounts and plays the ISO folders automagically. The quality seems to be better than transcoded files as well. To save space, I've decided to use AVI files or MP4 on the so-so movies that aren't worth it.