Best App for Converting MPEG2 files to WMV/WMA 5.1

[JBredensteiner]

I have read a lot of posts about converting video files to WMV files with 5.1 surround sound, but I have not seen one of them mention an application that is not free.

I am looking for suggestions on what the absolute best program is for converting mpeg2 files with ac3 5.1 sound to WMV9 with WMA Pro 5.1 sound. I do not care how much it costs, as I have almost 3TBs of MPEG2 movies that I extracted from DVDs using VOB2MPG, and I want to convert all of them to WMV files to stream to my XBOX 360. Here are the requirements I would like the program to meet in order by priority:

1) Quality
..... As close to DVD as possible
..... WMA Pro 5.1 (first pass)
2) Ease of use
..... I really don't want to have to play around with a bunch of settings (auto aspect ratio, auto resolution, etc... based on the input mpeg file)
3) Speed
..... I have a Q6600, and I would love to take advantage of all four cores, and convert a movie in less that two hours
4) Batch Processing
..... Like I said, I have a few hundred high quality mpeg2 movies, and I don't want to have to select a bunch of settings for each of them, nor do I want to have to do them one at a time.

I'm guessing that there is a commercially available application that can do this easier than the free ones. I am using Windows Vista, so that must also be taken into consideration too. Thank you for your help, Jon

[redwudz]

Since MS 'owns' WMV and WMA, you won't see that many programs that use those formats outside of the ones MS produces or licenses. So Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Encoder or try these two to see if they might be better for your purposes: WMNicEnc, WMVMuxer Or check with MS for some of their more 'Pro' programs.

[JBredensteiner]

I actually tried Windows Movie Maker (WMM), and it worked really nicely. WMM produced a full length movie at DVD video quality in less than 40 minutes, and at less than half of the original video file size; however, it didn't really seem like the new WMV file had 5.1 sound. As apposed to the mpeg2 file, the sound produced in the new WMV file was much quieter, and it did not seem to have the same 5.1 sound.

I have a 28MB mpeg2 test file that I extracted from the Little Nemo DVD; it is one of the 2 minute Dolby Digital plugs that a lot of DVDs have on them. I used this file for testing using WMM, and like I said, the video quality was really nice, and the simplicity of the WMM application was perfect; however, the sound was not as good.

Does anyone know of an app that I can use to tell which audio/video codecs were used to produce a file, and what the general specifications of the file are i.e. resolution, aspect ration, bit rate, frame rate, and audio quality (mono, 2 ch, 5.1 ch) are? This would help me tell if the files being produced are actually in 5.1, or if my stereo receiver is just using the Dolby Digital functionality to simulate surround sound, Thanks,

[redwudz]

Gspot 2.70 or MediaInfo may be able to tell you the attibutes of the WMV file.

And some MS professional programs can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/default.mspx

[JBredensteiner]

I'm not sure that I completely understand what you meant by "Since MS 'owns' WMV and WMA, you won't see that many programs that use those formats outside of the ones MS produces or licenses".

I have seen many many commercially available programs that will convert a video file into a WMV file, but I haven't sceen any of them advertising that they use the WMA Pro codec. ?????

[Ai Haibara]

Microsoft developed Windows Media Video/Audio; it's primarily their proprietary formats, and third-party programs either have WMV/WMA support by licensing it from Microsoft... or reverse-engineering the format themselves.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Some DVD recorders/players can play Windows Media files, even my cheap Insignia.

[JBredensteiner]

Sorry, but I am not looking for a DVD recorders/player that can play a WMV file. I am however concerned that my stereo receiver will not play WMA 5.1. Thanks, Jon

[JohnnyMalaria]

You should have a look at Windows Media Encoder Series 9 - which is free. It includes the Windows Media Audio Professional 10. It supports 5.1 audio.

I don't know if it will take your files as input. They say:

"Using Windows Media Encoder, you can source from files with .wma, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .wav, .mpg, .mp3, .bmp, and .jpg file name extensions. (Sourcing from a file with a .mpg file name extension requires a compatible MPEG-2 decoder on the encoding computer.)"

MS also claim that you can input various sources that have 5.1 audio.

WME is fully automatable - i.e., other programs including VBS scripts can control it. A script comes with it:

"If you want to encode multiple audio and video files, you can use Windows Media Encoding Script, which is included with Windows Media Encoder. Or, you can automate the encoder for batch encoding by using a script and Windows Script Host."

[ianimate3d]

If WME (as suggested above) doesn't do it, you can give another freeware app a try called encode360, but I have had some problems with it being unable to handle some mpeg2 sources, it's worth a shot since it's free, and has multi-core support, does batch processing, works in vista.

Both of the above support WMA Pro 5.1 as you are looking to achieve. I have had success converting ac3 5.1 sources and retaining 5.1 in the WMA, but WME appears to be rather buggy at times and will sometimes crash if the audio bit rates do not match. Also, I have had little luck with it trying to do VBR video encodes with 5.1 sources, it usually ends up crashing.

Given that... an excellent commercial encoder is TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress which handles mpeg2/ac3 sources fine and also outputs to windows media with WMA Pro 5.1 support. It has multi-core, and batch processing support as well. Lastly, it's vista compatible! This might well be your best option, and it's under $100.

I hope this helps!

[JBredensteiner]

Thank you for your help. I had found out last week that TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress will do the job; additionally, Pinnacle Studio Plus v11 also has the option of converting to WMA Pro 5.1, but it did not work the one time I tried it. TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress produced great looking and sounding files, but it was really really slow; I mean it took my beast (Q6600 4GB PC8500) six hours to convert a single movie. This is just way tooooo slow, so I will try and figure out why it was so slow. Thanks again for your help, Jon

[redwudz]

TMPGEnc encoder has always been one of the slower encoders and apparently they carried that
'tradition' over to TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress. It's a shame they haven't updated their processes to speed things up. I like the simplicity of their programs, but they are falling behind with their technology.

[JohnnyMalaria]

If it accepts the input files, give WME a try. It's very fast (e.g., live full frame DV to WMV)- i.e., realtime on a Pentium D 2.8GHz. It will scream on your Q6600.

[JBredensteiner]

I actually got TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress to work good for me now. I got it to convert a one hour mpeg2 file to a high quality WMV file with WMA 10 Pro 5.1 surround sound in about 45 minutes. I allowed it to use all four cores of my Q6600, and set it to high priority, and it converted the file really fast. Thanks for the suggestions, Jon