I am looking into building a file/media server to store all my dvds and television series on, but after looking around, I haven't been able to find any guides that give suggestions on formats/bitrates to use.

Everything that I have found has been targeted toward a 700MB file (for cd) or shrinking a dvd9 to a normal 4.7 GB dvd. I'm looking for any suggestions on a encoding format/bit rate that will still look pretty good on a tv/hdtv.

I know that the most common answer to this is to try different combinations until i find something that I like, but I don't have my home theater built yet, so I can't test it myself. I was hoping to get a suggestion from someone who has dealt with this before, because while i don't have my media center set up yet, I do have a stack load of DVDs that I would like to start archiving.

And FYI I am looking to have a 400-500 GB HD, but would like to store a good amount of movies and/or TV series on it.

Thanks guys,