DVD > WMV conversion probs

[NickDVD]

Hi All,

Recently bought a creative PMC and am trying to convert video to use on it. Heres my problems:

The PMC only accepts .wmv video so ive been trying to convert .vob files ( direct from my decrypted movie dvd's ) to .wmv format.

Ive tried the conversion process using many of the cheap conversion programs and windows encoder 9 but one problem still remains... picture quality.

In my tests, its easy to output an identical picture perfect lossless .avi file from a DVD but no matter which settings I use when outputting to a .wmv file theres always some picture qualiy loss ( especially artefacts in dark shaded areas of a film etc ).

Does anyone know of a method, or of a tutorial, that will show me how to get a .wmv file thats identical in quality to my DVD .vob file and that'll run on my PMC?

Long winded I know, hope it makes sense!

Cheers,

Nick

[killingspree]

not really possible... wmv is a lossless compression algorithm and believe me, by far not the best one available... you will have to live with some quality loss i guess...

-s.

[NickDVD]

Damn... thats me screwed then!

I can actually create a "lossless" .wmv of such using windows encoder and choosing the archive option. However, it wont play on my PMC... probably something to do with too high a bitrate for the device.

Cheers anyway,

Nick

[CZroe]

Umm, the PMC is only 320x240 so you have to lose quality. It's actually beneficial because it saves you loads of disk space by ditching detail you couldn't see/use anyway. There is a really great companion application that I use all the time when the Media Center and Media Player synch results just aren't good enough (Low FPS, strange diagonal screen-draw artifacts when video flashes, etc). Even though this post is old, I'll get back to it "for the archives" when I find the name of it.

Edit: OK, it was M2PMCEncoderZX (http://www.marauderzstuff.com/programs/m2pmcencoderzx/default.aspx). enjoy.