Best (easiest) DVD to (DIVX or Xvid) with 5.1 (AC3) Audio out

[balagan]

I have an Xbox 360 and have been struggling converting DVD's to WMV so I can stream them to my XBOX 360. Now that the XBOX 360 supports Div/Xvid I would like to use that conversion since it seems to be a much better supported conversion. I would like to keep the surround sound 5.1 capability with my videos. Does anyone know of a good all in one movie that will either convert directly from dvd or from decrypted VOB's on my HD. Of course I would prefer free but do not mind paying for something if it means I do not have to manually perfom many steps. My main concern is to rip the main movie at fairly good quality..ie 1.4 GB per movie with 5.1 sound. I did a search but did not really find anything which specified its ability to output 5.1 sound and a tutorial on how to do that. Thanks in advance for any help which can be provided.

Thanks,

Mark

[Baldrick]

AutoGK.

[t0nee1]

Why to WMV? better to x264....IMO....
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Xbox_360_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html
0..pretty darn cool.....
But if you must have WMV,
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/AVI_to_WMV_Xbox_360_Conversion_Guide_page1.html
But you'll have to convert DVD to avi first....

[balagan]

I do not think x264 supports 5.1-6 channel and does not stream natively to Xbox360 the way DivX , XviD or WMV do. I used DVD-WMV but constantly had audio delay problems of up to 2 seconds and never received help on that site so I gave up.

[blueprint]

Are u sure the xbox360 supports 5.1 in streamed media.

I quote "PS3 has an advantage over the Xbox 360 in that it supports AAC 5.1 channel audio (although with limited decoding support)."

Also: "The Spring 2007 Dashboard update for the Xbox 360 adds H.264 playback support."

[t0nee1]

From the XBox team FAQ...
What are the different ways to play video content on Xbox 360?

You can play video from a USB 2.0 FAT32 removable drive, optical media, and by streaming from the Zune software, Windows Media Player 11, or Windows Home Server.

Do you support 5.1 channel AAC?
No. Only 2-channel AAC is supported. If you want to play a 5.1-channel video on your console, you will need to encode it to WMV with WMAPro 5.1 audio or use the AVI container with Dolby® Digital 5.1 audio.

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2007/11/30/december-2007-video-playback-faq.aspx