Streaming DVD files through Xbox 360 or PS3

[secretvampire]

Okay, somewhat straightforward question but I have not found the simple solution. I have a lot of DVDs I have ripped to my Mac Pro server, they are sitting unchanged in their respective VIDEO_TS directories with all of the VOBs. I want to convert them into something which I can stream through either my 360 or PS3 with the 5.1 surround track intact.

 

For the 360, I'm assuming that WMVPro format is the only way to do this. I have Connect360 set up to stream to my 360, but I have not found a way to convert the VOBs to WMVPro. It can be an XP application, I have VMWare Fusion running with XP, I'm guessing there are way more XP options for working with the WMV encoding.

 

Alternatively, if there is an easy way to do this for the PS3, that would be great also, I don't have a preference.

[JoeyN]

Does H.264 do 5.1? The 360 can handle that. I'm sure on xbox.com there is a faq about video streaming with different video and audio formats

[secretvampire]

Alright, I found the FAQ:

 

http://www.xbox.com/en-us/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/videoplaybackfaq.htm

 

Only 2-channel for h.264, but it DOES now support 5.1 DD for AVI/DIVX which is way better than silly WMV. I swear it did not used to. So I guess I just need to find a simple way to convert the VOBs to divx and properly encode the divx with DD 5.1.

 

EDIT: Found one called AutoGK which seems to be well regarded, going to try it out. Thanks for reminding me to look at the FAQ, Joey, xVid/DivX is so much better supported than the WMVPro stuff.