I give up - Ill pay for it!!!

[AMaskedMan]

Ok, I admit, I quit. Ive tried all the free tools, but they are so much work. My time isnt free, which they all seem to require lots of time.

There are lots of payware out there, but I hesitate to buy something that will difficult, if not impossible, to return.

I simply want to put in a DVD (ISO is better) and choose from a list of output options by device and/or type.

I want to put in a DVD and choose XBOX 360 HD with 5.1 Audio.

I wont ask what is best, but what works?

[nurbs]

Whatever you buy you are probably not going to get your money back, so find something that comes with a trial version. Just because it costs money doesn't mean it works any better than the free tools. A lot of video converters you can find just package ffmpeg.

If you wan't 5.1 audio on the 360 you have two options.
a) You can use MPEG4-ASP (DivX/XviD) with 5.1 AC3 in an avi container.
b) You can use some WMV variant like VC1 with WMA9 in an asf container.

WMV isn't exactly popular, so don't expect too many tools for that.
Combining ASP and AC3 in avi isn't that common either and some tools don't support avi output these days.

Unfortunately I don't know any tool, free or payware, that is easy to use and supports one of those combinations. The Xbox360 and the PS3 aren't really good media players to begin with.
You'd probably have an easier time finding tools and wider compatibility if you would buy a dedicated media player and use a more common format (e.g. AVC/AC3/MKV). There are plenty in the 100$ range that can play just about anything you throw at them and Handbrake is easy enough to use.

[manolito]

Another app you might want to try is StaxRip. A tiny little bit harder to use than handbrake, but a lot more options to configure it. It comes with predefined templates, and yes, there is one for XBOX 360. And if the predefined audio format for this template (AAC 2-ch) is not to your liking, just edit the audio codec and change the format to either AAC 5.1 or AC3 5.1

Another plus for StaxRip IMO is that it does not screw up your codec configuration. No need to install ffdshow or Haali splitter, everything is built right into it.

Slight drawback for DVD input, though: It cannot extract chapter information from a DVD. But there are workarounds...

Cheers
manolito

[nurbs]

The 360 only supports 2 channel AAC. I didn't check, but the StaxRip template is probably for AVC/AAC/MP4, so you'd have to change both audio codec and container to get what you want.

[bcn_246]

If you are prepaired to pay - and want something simple & fast try 'Badaboom'. I'm pretty sure it had an XboX 360 profile on there. It works by using your GPU (you need an nVidia card) to encode rather than the CPU. Quality isn't amazing (StaxRip + x264 can do alot more per MB) but it might be what your after.

Ben