WMV or MPEG2? Which is the better format for streaming to the 360?

[Helltrain]

I posted this in another thread:

Granted, DVDs are basically in MPEG2 format. You can rip the .vob files and merge them into one single MPEG2 file. At this point you can either keep the resulting file the way it is, you can compress the MPEG2 file by decreasing the quality, or you can compress it by converting it to a WMV file. I for one would rather keep the video quality and compress by converting to a more efficient format. I guess you could also convert to DIVX and use Transcode 360 to transcode on the fly. Since I have not converted any of my DVDs yet it seems pointless to go to DIVX when it will just waste energy in the long run (transcoding on-the-fly) and if the comparison between WMV-HD and DIVX-HD is any indication, you would think WMV would be just as good as DIVX anyway.

Which do you use?
Why do you think it is better?
Can you get 100% DVD quality from a WMV file?
How much smaller is it than the original MPEG2 file?

Please post your conversion method and settings in this thread.

[whaT2k]

i use WMV @ 1500kbps; it's about 900mb for a 2 hour movie.

i think u should see for ur self
burn a movie
make a mpg and wmv and see which one is better; i can't tell much difference

[SatStorm]

WMV compress, so visually it may look close enough to the original DVDs when you watch them on your average TV screen or monitor. But wathing them on something else, it's a whole different story.

Personally, I leave them as mpeg 2.

[jntaylor63]

I set the bitrate so that its half the size of the orginal, on average its about 2.5 to 3 megs. Looks just as good as the DVD on my 42" HDTV.

I just wish there was a damn way to play it off a DVD-R or some way to encode it from the DVD Movie to something like the Terminator 2 WMV DVD.

[Helltrain]

WMV compress, so visually it may look close enough to the original DVDs when you watch them on your average TV screen or monitor. But wathing them on something else, it's a whole different story.

Personally, I leave them as mpeg 2.

This is exactly why I am posing this question. I currently have a 36 inch toshiba CRT that is pretty decent, but I would like to move up to HD soon. I want my DVDs to look good on the new setup as well. You would think that you could get a WMV that is as good of quality as the original with a smaller file size. We'll see.

[SatStorm]

There is no real advice on this. I can only say, that I'm very disapointed with the things I done over the years and how they look on 42" advanced LCD/Plasma screens...

I have video projects that looks perfect on my 29 and my 32" CRT, but awfull on my 40" Samsung M91...

[chupa]

well in high def its arguable that you can tell a difference in qualities of codecs. You kind of have to put them on a big tv to see.

However DivX has historically been a better codec (higher quality and compression) than wmv.

xvid has been even better than DivX and H.264/x.264 is even better than that.

personally I put MPEG-2 higher on the todem poll than wmv, due to its original high quality, and due to the fact it is more standardized. H.264 will probably be more standard in the industry as well in the future.

if the normal rules of competitive capitalism had applied wmv would have been weeded out long ago.