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I'm ripping a couple of old DVDs, and noticed that the output resolution was 480i, when the native resolution of the DVD is 720X480. I don't see any settings to fix this in MakeMKV (I'm running v1.17.3). Suggestions?

Track information
Type: Video
Codec: Mpeg2
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Frame rate: 29.97 (30000/1001)

In MakeMKV, you can't "fix" the resolution of something, because that's what the resolution is. Your output is 480 pixels high, just as the input was. That's what the "480" means in "720x480".

The input can be "stretched" by making the width of a pixel wider, but a DVD is still 720x480.

I don't think so. In Plex, these videos list as 480i for their resolution, rather than 1080p. The quality of the ripped files looks FAR worse than when I play the DVDs from which they are ripped (this is not the case when I use MakeMKV for BluRays)

Now-don't be stubborn and accept the facts:
DVD has a 720 x 480 resoltuion
BD has a 1920 x 1080 resolution
Nothing can be done here. These are just facts. However, some stand-alone Bluray players have the posibility to upscale DVDs to BD resolution in software. But that's it.

The 'i' in 480i stands for 'interlaced'. Interlaced video is how television used to work when CRT televisions were the predominant kind of televisions. Our modern flat panel TVs use progressive video now and most blu-rays have progressive video on them.

Showing interlaced video on a progressive display isn't particularly simple and it often ends up looking pretty rough. Your DVD player might be doing a better job at it than whatever you're using as a Plex client.

This is undoubtedly what is contributing to your perception that 480i looks far worse. If you have a DVD that has 480p video (progressive scan) on it, it'll look soft because it has a lot less resolution than a blu-ray, but won't have any of the interlaced video artifacts.

MakeMKV is copying the video from your optical disc and removing any DRM. It isn't transforming the video or its format in any way. As such, you're beholden to whatever is on the optical disc.

This is awesome feedback! Thanks so much for helping me unpack this and for tolerating my noob questions