Convert DVDs to WMV files while Maintaining DVD 5.1 Audio and Video Quality

[JBredensteiner]

Good morning,
I have a Vista Ultimate based PC that I use to record TV and movies to stream to my XBOX 360 via the Media Center app. Currently I use DVDShrink to rip the main movie and only the 5.1 surround sound from my DVDs onto my hard drives as ISOs, then I mount the ISOs using PowerISO, and finally I use VOB2MPG to convert the movie into an MPEG2 file.
This works fairly nicely, and the entire process takes less than 15 minutes for each DVD; however, the resulting file is on average about 5GB, which didn't sound so bad at first, as I have 2.2TBs of storage, but it is filling up quickly. Another issue is that I cannot fast forward the MPEG2 files, as the fast forward buttons do nothing in the MediaCenter app when watching these files, but I can use the chapter button to skip ahead 45 seconds at a time, which takes a long time if I want to get back to a section of a movie that I only watched half of. One other issue is I have a Zune, and it won't play MPEG2 files, so I have to convert the files to WMVs using the Cucusoft Video Converter, which is just another step I have to preform, and more files I have to store on my hard drives, which are 80% full at this point, and I only have room to add one more 500GB SATA drive I'm going to have to build a server or something.
So, to get to the point, I want to make all of my movies WMV files, so that they will always be supported by all Microsoft products, and here are my questions.

1) What is\are the best tool"s" that will allow me to skip using DVDShrink and will allow me to directly select and rip only the main movie and 5.1 surround sound from my DVDs onto my hard drives as WMV files?

2) If I cannot do the first option, then I will continue to use DVDShrink as previously described. What is\are the best tool"s" to convert the DVDs to WMVs I have already ripped as ISO files using DVDShrink?

3) What is\are the best tool"s" to use to convert the MPEG2 files I have already created to WMV?

4) Just to make sure, WMVs do support 5.1 surround sound correct, and have the same if not better quality as MPEG2 files, i.e. is DVD audio and video quality is available in the WMV format?

5) What is the best WMV format to use for, quality, transferability, and file size; with quality being the number one priority.

In the future when I upgrade to a 1080P TV I don't want to kick myself for converting all of my movies to a file format that has less than DVD audio and video quality. Here are my priorities in order:

Priorities:
1) Must maintain DVD 5.1 audio and video quality
2) Tool ease of use: i.e. I don't want to have to select a bunch of different settings like frame rate and aspect ration, as I just want it to be able to keep the native settings.
3) Conversion speed
4) File size

I also asked this question today at Expert Exchange, and here is a link to the question, so we can all follow both forums: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Multimedia_Programming/Video_Editing/Q_22581028.html

Thank you in advance for you help, Jon

[Baldrick]

I guess you mean wmv, wma is just audio.

1. Checkout AutoMKV...but I'm not sure if you can convert to 5.1 audio and you can't keep ac3 audio in the wmv container.

And don't upconvert now, instead get a good dvd player/media center that can upconvert to 1080p.

[JBredensteiner]

Yes, I did mean WMV. I just fixed it? Thanks, Jon

[DarrellS]

DVD to WMV9 with WMA9 Professional 5.1 Channel

http://www.wmwiki.com/mcored/index.htm