Getting back into vidding

[rdphantom.livejournal.com]

Hi all!

I want to get back into vidding, after being out of it for eight years (!).  I have Premiere loaded back up again, and now I need the rest of the software.  Back in the day I used the AMVapp to rip my DVDs and used AviSynth scripts to edit the VOB files in Premiere.  Is this still the gold standard for getting the best quality with live action vidding?  The thing that I liked was the VOB files were relatively small, but when I look back at my vids I see they haven't aged as well as I'd like in terms of quality and I don't know if that's due to the codec I used to compress the finals (WMV and Xvid for the most part, ranging from 7 to 94mb) or if it's due to something else.

I know there are people that rip their source into uncompressed clips and edit with those, is that better?  Easier than messing with the extra steps?  Do those types of programs deinterlace footage, and the other things that AviSynth can do (adjust aspect ratios, and so on)?

My head is kinda swimming at the options.