Converting a DVD to high-quality WMV?

From what I've found online, Windows Media Center (and Extenders) will NOT play .VOB files.

If you want to preserve the quality, your best bet is DVD decrypter or DVD fab decrypter, which you can use to make an exact copy of the disk to your hard drive. Then you can use http://http://www.mymovies.name/ or http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2005/10/21/1007 to get them to them to appear in MCE as if it were a DVD changer. If you want to save space, you could losslessly convert the main movie into a single MPEG2 and discard the DVD extras. If you want to save more space, you can reencode into WMV format (I think windows media encoder can work on uncompressed MPEG2), but you're going to start loosing quality. Check the conversion guides at http://www.videohelp.com/convert or doom9 if you want more detailed instructions. They have guides for almost any conversion you can think of.

Oh, sorry, missed the issue with Media Center Extenders. Yeah, your only option there is converting to WMV at this point if you want to use an extender.

If I was you, this is what I'd do. 1. get http://www.dvdshrink.org/ 2. pop DVD in your laptop 3. "back it up" via DVD Shrink... and you can make it as small as you want. I've seen anything above 50% (that's 1/2 of a single layered blank DVD) look JUST FINE on a TV. You can also take out the other language tracks, extra scenes, etc. 4. save it as an ISO file on your laptop. 5. watch it, not with Windows Media Player, but with a more all-around player like http://www.videolan.org/vlc/. Be happy! I do this all the time... although I usually only keep 3 or 4 movies at a time on my laptop. If you're looking to archive DVD movies for every and put them on an external hard drive, you won't want to "shrink" them... but for the purpose of being on an airplane or something, this will work just fine.

Here's the deal. DVD's are MPEG-2 - very lossy (think JPEG vs. Raw or Tiff). Really. That's how the squeeze the 200 gig uncomrpessed video file down to a DVD-9. WMV files are *even lossier* than MPEG-2. Plus they can be DRM's etc. Which is why microsoft wants you to use it. So, it's kinda silly to turn it back into an uncompressed file. Better to strip the CSS using (um...I'd get DVD Decrypter (or someone will know of it's current versoin, since decrypter was cease and desisted.) You can have the VOB files sitting on your network at the 9 gig original size, with all the extras. Too bad the WMCenter can't play it (nor can, right now, I think, the Xbox 360.) If the xbox 360 can, then that'd be your best bet. As an aside, the modded Xboxes (older ones) can totally play a VOB file (I think they use MMplayer) Your WMV problem: I found a http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Multimedia_and_Graphics/Video_and_Animation_Tools/ImTOO_DVD_to_WMV_Converter.html, but to be honest? I don't trust groups in this marketplace, and I'd look for an open source solution. Look over at videohelp.com. They're good A small WMV file can be knocked down to less than 512k/sec...or all the way up to 7-8megabit. The higher the setting, the better the film will look.

Filmgeek is right in that there are a lot of scammers in the ripping game. However, the software he mentioned is part of ImToo Software and I use their programs with excellent results. http://www.imtoo.com. Instead of the DVD-WMV, you can pay $5 more and get DVD Ripper which can rip to any of the major file formats, including .WMV. Good luck! ----------------------

1. The easiest solution is to buy ImToo, and use that as a one-step DVD->WMV converter. 2. The cheapest and best-video-quality solution is to use DVD Decrypter to rip the DVD to .vob files, and then use the http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/downloads.htm video player to play the .vob files on your HTPC or wherever. The upscaling/deinterlace in DScaler is of really good quality, and will look way better than the "simple zoom" you'll get when converting .vob to .WMV and then playing the 640x480 video back at 1280x720 or whatever your TV/monitor is.

unless something's changed between versions, windows media center should play VOBs just fine... i've been running a windows media center 2004 box for a couple years and have had no playback problems using vobs ripped via DVD Shrink... i do more or less what you're proposing regularly (rip dvds to hd, watch thru media center, stream over network... wifi: w/out extenders) i would think, if this is possible with media center 2005, that un-shrunk vobs would be a more idea, less lossy solution, than converting to wmv files... saves you a step too. and, because vobs are dvd native, you can, again using Shrink, rip them with the audio stream (or all the streams) you want attached, too... with the right card/codecs installed (i use an nvidia card and appropriate codecs) i can playback any audio (dolby, dts, stereo) through media player 2004 as well. are you sure your version of media center won't load and play vobs?

Ok, I'm old and lazy, but this sounds like too much trouble. Since you own the DVDs just grab it and pop it into the DVD player if you want to watch it. I can't imagine that anyone watches movies enough and is lazy enough to want to do this, but I know I'm wrong. And I know that others just love a 'project'. And I guess it would be pretty amazing to show off to your friends, but the thought of the hours of work just kills me.