Best software to rip 5.1 wmv?

[jonny4]

I am ripping my own DVD's for my own personal use and that is all. I am tired of having a gigantic wall of DVD's and I want to rip them to a format the Xbox 360 can playback with 5.1 audio. I know many people have said it is legal and it is illegal but it still up for debate. I am not selling these, I am just a fat lazy bastard who doesn't want 500 dvd's in a dvd case along my living room wall and would rather have them boxed up. I have tried handbrake but it will not rip wmv. I was thinking of dvdfab but I couldn't seem to get 5.1 audio with dvd's, only blu-ray. Any suggestions would be helpful. If this is an illegal question you are welcome to delete it.

[Silversee]

If you are willing to play directly from the 360 dashboard from a DLNA media server (such as WHS 2011), then you can use Handbrake to rip to H.264 and 5.1 AC3 audio to an m4v / mp4 container. Assuming you have the latest dashboard updates, these videos play fine on Xbox.

If you want to play within Windows Media Center, there is no good way to do this right now without 3rd party codec hacks, though if Microsoft fixes a bug in WMC for Windows 8 this might be possible in the future.

WMV can handle 5.1 surround, and plays just fine in all scenarios; unfortunately, there are no easy encoding tools that output WMV direct from DVD or Blu-Ray. You can encode using Handbrake to H.264 then transcode to WMV using Microsoft Expression Encoder, but it's a lot of work.

There is a bit of an art to using Handbrake to rip DVDs having anamorphic and interlaced / progressive video. Make sure you do your research into all the various settings and best practices. Blu-ray, ironically, is a bit easier because of the modern encoding methods, though it takes longer.

[crawfish]

FWIW, I wouldn't rip 500 of anything to WMV or WMA. Their time has long since passed. For a massive project like that, I'd rip to MKV or MP4 and buy a WD TV Live or Apple TV before putting so much time and energy into Microsoft stuff.

[lithium630]

I keep all my movies in WTV h264 files. The files are small and play back perfectly on the 360. I rip the movies with MakeMKV and use VideoRedo to switch containers to WTV. To me switching to the dashboard or using another player defeats the purpose of Media Center.

[vanpsmtg]

I believe you can do it with DVD Fab. I have version 8.1.7.8 and it appears like it will work. I am trying a test now, and will report the results after I check the results. You have to select Xbox 360 wmv wma 10 and then click on the edit button and choose 5.1 audio in the audio section. I haven't done this before because I don't use an Xbox 360, I just rip them to to the standard VOB format.

After several tests, I am sorry to report that it does not work. No matter what I did I could only get PCM 2 channel output.

[milli260876]

Tmpg enc will do it, have to agree with previous posters tho - WMV is pretty poor, anything I coded to it I did again as mp4s looked MUCH better. Can't Xbox play m2ts or Ts natively??? I'd do that...

[TheOsburnFamil]

If the desire is to rip DVDs to the best possible format that can be played on an xbox360/mediacenter extender. You best option is to rip to WMV/WMAHD as it supports up-to 15MB Bitrate. Any combination of AVI/MP4 Containers any H264/divx/... codecs, you will only get anywhere from 1-6MB Bitrate support on that same XBOX360. The only other format that supports a higher bitrate on the xbox is the good'ol MPEG2 with AC3 audio in a DVR-MS or WTV container.

That being said, the "easiest" way to get the highest-quality rip that supports 5.1 audio, on an xbox360, will be (IMHO) to use DVDFab.

[wilkcards]

Convert to .wtv using videoredo. This is a much better option than wmv. Fast forward, rewind, pause, resume, skip forward all work on extenders. The file will only be remuxed (container change, zero quality loss) as long as there is a compatible audio codec (no dts). Since the video isn't changing the conversion process is quick. You can also batch convert your movies...
Tested, and verified using videoredo h264 tv suite v4.20.7.629 , windows 8, and xbox 360 extender. Have fun!

[johnshevi]

If you are willing to play directly from the 360 dashboard from a DLNA media server (such as WHS 2011), then you can use Handbrake to rip to H.264 and 5.1 AC3 audio to an m4v / mp4 container. Assuming you have the latest dashboard updates, these videos play fine on Xbox.

If you want to play within Windows Media Center, there is no good way to do this right now without 3rd party codec hacks, though if Microsoft fixes a bug in WMC for Windows 8 this might be possible in the future.

WMV can handle 5.1 surround, and plays just fine in all scenarios; unfortunately, there are no easy encoding tools that output WMV direct from DVD or Blu-Ray. You can encode using Handbrake to H.264 then transcode to WMV using Microsoft Expression Encoder, but it's a lot of work.

There is a bit of an art to using Handbrake to rip DVDs having anamorphic and interlaced / progressive video. Make sure you do your research into all the various settings and best practices. Blu-ray, ironically, is a bit easier because of the modern encoding methods, though it takes longer.

Yes, Handbrake is great and very user friendly, but it can't copy-protected DVD files and only output for you MKV or MP4 format.

i just help a friend out with her mac a minute ago for something like this..

i know for sure dvd ripper this worked for mac and it has windows version available in windows for you.

How to convert from dvd to wmv format

Try it and tell me how it goes.

[shoffert]

Convert to .wtv using videoredo. This is a much better option than wmv. Fast forward, rewind, pause, resume, skip forward all work on extenders. The file will only be remuxed (container change, zero quality loss) as long as there is a compatible audio codec (no dts). Since the video isn't changing the conversion process is quick. You can also batch convert your movies...
Tested, and verified using videoredo h264 tv suite v4.20.7.629 , windows 8, and xbox 360 extender. Have fun!

Wilkcards - have you had any luck doing the container swap from MKV to WTV with a DVD that's been Handbroken from MPG2 to h264? I tried this a while ago, and from what I read, there was an issue with the way Handbrake used variable bit rates that VideoReDo couldn't process correctly. My result was a very blocky & unplayable file. If not handbrake, how do you get your dvds to h264 so the videoredo container swap will work?

Right now I just take all my MakeMKV files directly to WTV via DVRMS. It gives me an MPEG2 in the WTV. I'd really like to shrink these up with h264 for better file sizes.

[JoshNelson]

Hey wilkcards, I have a large collection of my blu-ray rips that I used Slysoft AnyDVD HD to rip to folders. I want an easy workflow to convert them to something that my xbox 360 can play using the windows media center interface. I am using MyMovies on the media center. I think WTV will probably be the smoothest. When you say to convert to .wtv, what filetype are you using to convert to wtv? What do you recommend I use to get a file that can go to wtv? Thanks!