How to: Convert DVD to WMV for Zune (Free programs)

[tmgux]

Hey guys, this tutorial is going to cover how to (freely) convert your DVD directly to WMV for play on your Zune.
*Please Note* This is only tested on Windows XP and 2000, and might not work on Vista.

For this method you are going to need 3 programs.

1. DVD Decryptor - http://files.letoltes.com/multimedia/SetupDVDDecrypter_3.5.4.0.exe
This program is used to determine what is the proper audio track on the DVD

2. Windows Media Encoder 9 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&displaylang=en
This program is needed for DVD-WMV

3. DVD-WMV - http://www.dvd-wmv.com/downloads.aspx
This program is actually going to do all the hard work.

Step 1.
Download and Install all 3 of these programs, the default settings will work.

Step 2.
DVD's usually come with many different audio tracks in different languages, so first we need to determine which is the proper English track. (Unless of course you want another language).

1. So put your DVD in your drive and load up DVD Decryptor
2. In DVD Decrypter make sure the proper DVD drive is selected then, click on Mode->IFO
3. Next, click on Stream Processing, and you will get a window that looks like this



4. Do you see right below video it says, 0x80 - Audio - AC3 / 6ch / English, thats what we want. 0x80 is the ID of the audio track, but just remember the last number, you can ignore the 0x8. So in this case, we want track 0. (The english track is usually either 0 or 1). If we wanted the French track we would want 2. So in this case just write down the number 0, we will use it later.

Step 3.
Ok, now we are going to start our conversion!

1. Open DVD-WMV
2. The first time we open DVD-WMV its going to take us directy to the Settings tab. We are going to change a few options here.
3. Make sure "Working Folder" and "Output Folder" are set to places where you have enough free space (I would say at least 5 gigs to be save)
4. Check the options "Use IMDB for lookup" and "Download Poster Art"
5. Make sure the proper DVD drive is selected in the DVD Drive box.
Your Settings page should look like this. (Your DVD Drive may be different though)



Now click the save button to save your changes.

6. Ok, now lets set up the WMV options. Click on the tab that says First Encode, and click Custom Encode Options.
7. Under Audio and Video Mode it says Quality VBR. Change both of these to Constant Bit Rate (CBR).
8. Under Video codec select Windows Media Video 9, and under Audio codec select Windows Media Audio 9.2.
9. Change Audio Format to: 128 kbps, 44 kHz, stereo CBR.
10. Remember the DVD Audio track from earlier? Select this number for DVD Audio track. (In this example 0).
11. Check Custom Video Size, and put in 320 X 240.
12. Now, we select what quality we want our video to be. The higher the bit rate, the higher quality, the higher the file size. I like to use 524288 (which is 512 kbps). But if you want higher quality go for something higher. If you want lower quality, go for lower. So plug in what you want to use next to Video Bit Rate.

This is a image of what your screen should look like. (double check these options)



Finally, all of our options are set up!

(This step is optional, but I reccommend it)
1. Now just click the first tab, Movie Data.
2. Type in the movie name, and then click Query IMDB. When the box pops up, click the corrent name and hit select. The program will now search IMDB for your movie and automatically download all the info and poster for you!
3. Select wether your movie is widescreen or fullscreen. (Selecting widescreen will automatically remove the black bars)



Step 4.
Just click on "Full Movie Backup" on the left of the screen, sit back and watch the magic. Depending on how fast your computer is, you will have a WMV perfectly ready for your zune.

(This wasn't so bad was it?)
Thanks to Harvey and Zunerama.com for a great site!!!

Thanks,
Kevin, MCP
"gux"
Hello from Philadelphia.

[admin]

Post your questions or other posts about this tutorial in the DVD-WMV technical support board:

http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?board=22.0