.WMV Problem

[simonyi]

Hey, As is everyone else, i am excited about the new Zune HD. Ive been Ripping DVD's to my computer all day today, and i always had this problem with my old 30Gig. But the Converted Files, DVD to WMV, Look like crap. Im looking for a way to create a high quality WMV file for playback on my portable device. I am not worried about Size, Just quality of the video. I dont mind paying for software either, I just want to be able to watch my movies with out that Crappy grainy-ness to them.

[qwertman]

My tip: Don't use wmv.
Windows got it right with WMA, it definitely sounds better than mp3.
Unfortunately it's hard to get a good looking wmv.
I don't know what you're using to rip (I've heard HandBrake is good)
but my tip is to rip to h.264 (that's the codec, the container is either mp4 or m4v).

[theguywholoveszunehd]

Originally Posted by qwertman

My tip: Don't use wmv.
Windows got it right with WMA, it definitely sounds better than mp3.
Unfortunately it's hard to get a good looking wmv.
I don't know what you're using to rip (I've heard HandBrake is good)
but my tip is to rip to h.264 (that's the codec, the container is either mp4 or m4v).

I use HandBrake to convert dvds to my Zune and I always change it from h.264 (this takes forever to convert) to mp4 (doesnt take long at all). i love it

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by qwertman

My tip: Don't use wmv.
Windows got it right with WMA, it definitely sounds better than mp3.
Unfortunately it's hard to get a good looking wmv.
I don't know what you're using to rip (I've heard HandBrake is good)
but my tip is to rip to h.264 (that's the codec, the container is either mp4 or m4v).

What? VC-1 is a brilliant codec, well suited to HD video, and it's what people should be using by default with WMV (since it's 2006 release it's been shifted to default for most WMV videos). You can most definitely get good looking video with it. It's so good it's used in many HD-DVD's and a collection of Blu-Ray discs. Infact it's the codec with Microsoft uses for HD video on Xbox 360, and in the forthcoming Zune HD video marketplace.

My advice is that once you have ripped the DVD with whatever software, use Microsoft's professional level encoding software, Microsoft Expression Encoder 3. It has a specific high definition Zune HD encoding profile which gives extremely good VC-1 WMV results, and as a bonus it also allows encoding in h.264. It also has standard definition Zune profiles, and gives you a ton of options too customise and fine tuner your encode.
You can download the 60-day free trial, and after it expires everything will still work perfectly normal, bar h.264 encoding (due to royalty fees).