How to: Convert HD-DVD/Blu-ray to WMV-HD

[WildTexasChef]

I am new here. So please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong area. I am still trying to learn where everything goes/is.

I tried doing a search for what I am asking, either I don't understand the terminology, or I don't understand the process.

I have been making backup copies & converting my "Regular" DVD collection to WMV &/or MPG files so that I can play them on my Xbox 360, &/or Ipod for quite some time. For that process I simply use BlazeDVDCopy to "clone" the DVD & create a backup folder on my NAS. I then use Roxio, &/or Ulead VideoStudio 11plus to convert the DVD Folders to MPG &/or WMV to play on my Xbox 360 &/or Ipod.

Now recently I have purchased the following:

Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Pioneer BDP1 blu-ray player
Samsung BDP1000 blu-ray player
Sony BWA100 Blu-ray computer drive
and a collection of both Blu-ray & HD-DVD movies

I now wish to backup these Blu-ray/HD-DVD movies as well as create WMV-HD files to play on my Xbox 360.

I have aquired AnyDVD HD 6.1.6.5 & DVDFAB HD Decrypter 3.1.5.0.

Both of these programs seem to have successfully copied the Blu-ray/HD-DVD movie to my hard drive.

What I have now been unsucessfull in doing is converting those moveis to a WMV-HD file or even a HD H.264 file, or any other HD format movie file that I can then watch on my Xbox 360 elite. (I use HDMI on my XBOX)

Any help in this matter would greatly be appreciated. Is there a program that can simply do this? I am old enough to remember DOS & all those lousy commands. I do not do linux. I only have Windows XP, & Windows Vista. I do not have a Mac. I am not a programmer.

Thanks

WildTexasChef

P.S. I have all the original as purchased DVD's, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD discs. So if I need to start over from scratch I am able to do so.

I have 2 goals. First, To quickly and simply backup my Blu-ray/HD-DVD's to a NAS so if something happens to them I can "BURN" a new copy.

Second, to convert Blu-Ray/HD-DVD movie to WMV-HD 1080i file to play on my Xbox 360.

[honai]

Out of curiosity: You write that you have 2x standalone Blu-ray players and 1x internal Blu-ray drive. Why would you want to play your discs on the XBOX 360 then instead of the dedicated players?

[WildTexasChef]

Out of curiosity: You write that you have 2x standalone Blu-ray players and 1x internal Blu-ray drive. Why would you want to play your discs on the XBOX 360 then instead of the dedicated players?

Yes, I have 2 stand alone blu-ray players and 1 internal blu-ray as well as an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player.

I have a 6 Terabyte nas that I store all of my music on, as well as all my family videos & photos on. I also store my complete "Regular" DVD movie collection on the NAS.

I use the Windows Media Extender functions of my Xbox 360 and have turned it into a "Movie player". The NAS & a dedicated Windows Media Center computer have been turned into my "Movie, Music, Photo Server". So anytime anyone wants to watch a movie they can. They don't have to pull out the DVD, or go and find it, or damage it or anything else. Easy access to the Movies, music, & photos.

The Pioneer BDP1 Blu-Ray player also has DLNA /Windows Media Connect capabilities to play Movies, music, & view photos off the "Nas & MCE Server" I have. It is connected to my Bedroom TV.

The XBOX 360 is connected to a HD-TV in my "Game Room & Outdoor living space" 2 HD-TV's.

In my Home Theater room with my big-screen HD-TV is the Samsung Blu-ray player and DLink Media Player. (It is DLNA certified as well to play Movies, music, Photos.

It works great playing my home movies (even home movies in HD off my Sony HD camera), Music, photos, & Regular DVD movies.

Now I wish to give my movie server the capability to play HD movies that I have converted from Blu-ray & HD-DVD.

All devices that play movies can play either the WMV-HD format (Prefered) or HD MP4. Although I found the quality of WMV-HD to be better then MP4. At least with my HD Camcorder.

Does that explain things any better? :) Thanks for your interest. I do appreciate that.

WildTexasChef

[OVEBILL]

Take a look here, although it does not answere all you ???

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=611163&mode=threaded&pid=4043311

[WildTexasChef]

Thank you. That is a great start for me OVEBILL.

Those intructions give MKV to WMV-HD.

Now.... I guess i need instructions on how to convert MT2S to MKV?

What exactly is a MKV file?

Thanks

[bourke]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1028624

From my own research you would be better off using AVC(H.264) for the video stream + DTS for the audio stream rather than using WMV. That's what I am doing to put all of the BD-25 Blu-ray Discs onto DVD-9 discs.

That way you could play them on standalone PS3s and Xbox 360s - no need for the HD DVD drive even!

[FoxRacR17]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1028624

From my own research you would be better off using AVC(H.264) for the video stream + DTS for the audio stream rather than using WMV. That's what I am doing to put all of the BD-25 Blu-ray Discs onto DVD-9 discs.

That way you could play them on standalone PS3s and Xbox 360s - no need for the HD DVD drive even!

Actually he will be better of with WMV VC-1 because the 360 only supports stereo sound with x264 and also only supports simple profiles with that codec. However with WMV VC-1 the 360 supports surround sound and the advanced profiles.

I spent alot of time toying around with this, i have the HD-DVD drive for my 360 and I was worried about my movies getting scratched so i attempted to back them up with the HD-DVD drive hooked up to my PC and i spent a week or two toying with all the options, seeing which is better, and i came to the conclusion that WMV VC-1 is better for streaming to the 360. I wish i could find the tut that i used for converting, but i cant, sorry man.

[WildTexasChef]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1028624

From my own research you would be better off using AVC(H.264) for the video stream + DTS for the audio stream rather than using WMV. That's what I am doing to put all of the BD-25 Blu-ray Discs onto DVD-9 discs.

That way you could play them on standalone PS3s and Xbox 360s - no need for the HD DVD drive even!

Will it still be in HD?

Second question, is that I am trying to get away from using any Discs at all, and going to a complete server based system where all my movies are stored on the NAS and are available at a touch of a button. Similar to the Kalaidescape & Avionix movie systems in use. I have it working with regular DVD's just not HD (Blu-ray/HD-DVD).

Thanks for your advice though... If the video is still in HD that is a great way to go when I do need discs.

WildTexasChef

[WildTexasChef]

Actually he will be better of with WMV VC-1 because the 360 only supports stereo sound with x264 and also only supports simple profiles with that codec. However with WMV VC-1 the 360 supports surround sound and the advanced profiles.

I spent alot of time toying around with this, i have the HD-DVD drive for my 360 and I was worried about my movies getting scratched so i attempted to back them up with the HD-DVD drive hooked up to my PC and i spent a week or two toying with all the options, seeing which is better, and i came to the conclusion that WMV VC-1 is better for streaming to the 360. I wish i could find the tut that i used for converting, but i cant, sorry man.

I have done enough research that WMV-VC-1 is also the same as WMV-HD. Although Not all WMV-HD is VC1.

I would be happy with either, as long as I can stream the "ripped" blu-ray/HD-DVD to my 360 with my MCE. :)

:thanks: For the advice though! I do appreciate it!

[bourke]

Actually he will be better of with WMV VC-1 because the 360 only supports stereo sound with x264 and also only supports simple profiles with that codec. However with WMV VC-1 the 360 supports surround sound and the advanced profiles.

But does the VC-1/DTS combo play back on the PS3 properly (with full surround)?

I want the back-ups to be future-proof!


Also, what VC-1 encoder are you using?
(I am using the free Media Encoder Studio Edition released by Microsoft mid last year - from the doco 'The software will stop running on 12/15/2006.' however you can always change your PC clock just before you launch it like I do!)

[WildTexasChef]

But does the VC-1/DTS combo play back on the PS3 properly (with full surround)?

I want the back-ups to be future-proof!


Also, what VC-1 encoder are you using?
(I am using the free Media Encoder Studio Edition released by Microsoft mid last year - from the doco 'The software will stop running on 12/15/2006.' however you can always change your PC clock just before you launch it like I do!)

You can use Windows Media Encoder 9 Series:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

[bourke]

Wasn't WME9 released in 2002 - I thought WMESE, being four years newer, would produce a better quality encoding?

[bourke]

Found an even better one here. (http://nic.dnsalias.com/wm9enc.html)

[tihu4]

Would it be possible to simply remux the video streams of movies that are already VC-1 into WMV containers? I've seen an HD DVD demuxer, but I don't know what to use to multiplex WMV. Obviously the audio would need to be reencoded.

[schizosmurf]

yea i'm tryin to figure this out as well... i was following the guide here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123010 but I've gotten stuck on the audio and the thread died with no help when i started askin questions

[FoxRacR17]

I have just given up on this, I have encoded the video just fine, but i cannot get the 5.1 wma audio. Everyone has a different way of doing it and NOTHING has worked for me. I'll just wait until some nice program comes along that does everything for me

[FoxRacR17]

UPDATE: Well i didnt end up giving up, and continued to mess around with it and i have finally figured out the audio issue. What i did was install the sonic 4.2 drivers/filters thing, then what i had to do was set me speaker setup in windows to 5.1 (even thought i only have 2.1!) and make sure that the sonic drivers were configured to 5.1 as well. Then i had to get the mfc71.dll and put it in the directory with with eac3to.exe. Finally i had to rename my 5.1 dts file that i got out of the evo to .ddp, and eac3 was freakin finally able to do its thing, then i was able to make the mono wavs using tranzcode .40 beta, and then finally make one big multichannel .avi file using wavavimux.

Hope this helps you guys. I also dont know if it had anything to do with it but i did have surcode installed.

One final question, i encoded the video using the modified .vbs file and i told it to do a constant bitrate of 8mbps, now i would have thought this would result in a video size of around 8 gigs, however the final video alone was only 3.8gigs! Anyone know what happened? Also, how do i tell the command line .vbs thing that i was the final video output to be 1280x720?

[bourke]

Finally i had to rename my 5.1 dts file that i got out of the evo to .ddp, and eac3 was freakin finally able to do its thing,...

Why can't you just keep the DTS file and remux that back with the VC-1?! Or can the 360 only play WMA audio in 5.1?

[FoxRacR17]

the 360 can only play 5.1 wma files unfortunatly