DVD-Rip. What size?

If it's sourced from DVD, I found that a 1:100/1:75 ratio works well. 1 being the end file size and the 100/75 being the size of the source material completely uncompressed. If you go by DVD's metrics, uncompressed 720x480 progressive scan video at 30fps (assuming 24bit color) would be 248832kbps. Divided by 100, it would be 2488.32kbps or just under 2500kbps. Anything above 3000kbps would be overkill for Mpeg-4 (especially h.264), at bitrates that high, you might as well just make DVD ISOs.

100x lossy compression ratio from source material for video is about the same as 6-8x lossy compression for CD audio, what you'd expect from a 235-176 LAME VBR mp3. This is for standard DivX/Xvid Mpeg-4 BTW, h.264 could theoretically push the compression up by 50% or even 100%.

I have found with XviD 1536kbps is a good start would quality vs filesize balance. Try fiddling with a short clip of video and see how low (or high) you're willing to go before you're satisfied. Since I'm not you and I haven't encoded to h.264, I would assume anywhere from 1000-2500kbps would look nearly indistinguishable from DVD source.

Pretty much any video card can pull 1080p or higher, my six year old GeForce 2Ti (on my old PC, my new one's better), can pull 2048x1536, which is makes 1080p look anemic. Since DVD's are 720x480, you'll need to be more liberal on file sizes. What looks perfect for a DVD transcode at 1024x768 might look mediocre at 1080p, and keep in mind a 720p or higher display can pretty easily show the flaws in DVDs, even the really nicely mastered ones.

How ya doing, buddy?