creating hi-def wmv files

[loomis2]

I am looking for the best way to turn my dvd collection into hd wmv files to play on my 360 as a Media Center Extender. So far I use DVD Decryptor to get vob files of the movie, then use dvdx to turn that vob into a wmv with at least 1280x720 resolution. My problem is that the audio ends up lagging the video by about a second. It either starts being off by a second and stays there, or starts off fine and slowly loses sync.

Is there a better way to do this? Or am I going down the right path, I just have things set up wrong?

 

[tk11]

It's best to play the files in the original format because you always loose quality when you transcode.

 

[Sdiver2489]

Why would you want to upconvert the videos to HD resolution in the first place...and in the process...compress the video?

 

[loomis2]

I am changing them to wmv format because that is what the 360 plays back on my tv from my computer without having to transcode. It gives me a little more control on playback when it is wmv. My tv is 1080i so I am upping the res to make it look better, sort of like dvd players that upconvert. They look great when I'm done, but the audio is off. That is my main problem.

 

[drjman]

I have the same setup with the 360. I would suggest (since you own all the movies already), to download them from some torrent place. Try and find good quality stuff. Then download Transcode 360 for media center. It is the best quality streaming/converting program for divx and avi stuff for the xbox.
The great thing about it is it transcodes to mpg2 into a "buffer" folder with .360 extensions. You just go in there rename them to .wmv or .mpg and done, move em where you keep your movies.

The best part is 700mb movies that show up in HD on my 1080i 55" tv. I don't know how they do it. I have tried to find something comperable to no avail.
www.runtime360.com (for transcode 360).

 

[gobucks]

to be honest, i wouldn't bother upscaling. You're basically just adding size to your file without any real increase in quality. also, as i recently found out, the 360 puts artificial limits on file size for mp4/AVC files (4GB), and while you can stream large WMV files, it is very hard to do unless you have wired networking or 802.11n wireless. I have been trying really hard to get my HD-DVD rips to play on the 360, but so far to no avail.

I think your best bet is just to rip your movies to either AVC format, which is really easy to do with nero recode, or use windows media encoder. In either case, I think 2MB/s is at least as good as DVD quality, and your movie should be around 1.4-1.5GB. If you set your xbox 360 up for HD, i think the hardware automatically upscales, but i can't be sure.