How to convert DVR-MS files to AVI, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 ?
 

I'm new to this, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.

I'm on my second Windows Media Center Edition PC (MCE). Well, technically, my current Vista system is an HP Media PC with MCE resident in Vista. My previous HP XP system was the special Media Center Edition. HP bundled a WinDVD Creator in the old PC that easily converted the proprietary dvr-ms format to mpeg for a playable DVD disk or editing on a video editor. My new system doesn't have that capability. SO I have a bunch a questions pertaining to this:

What is the best solution to convert the dvr-ms files?

To what should I convert them? avi, mpeg-2, mpeg-4? I plan to do some minor editing and such prior to burning a DVD.

I've read there may be copy protection issues with dvr-ms. I'd like to save some broadcasts I've recorded that may have some copy protection. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Should I be using something other than MCE to record over-the-air broadcasts? If something is easier/better, I'm all ears.

Thanks!

DVR-MS files are MPEG-2 videos crammed into a proprietary Microsoft ASF video container file. The only real challenge is to extract the video and audio, and put it into a proper MPEG container file.

There are several methods available to accomplish this, however I do not currently have access to a Windows Media Center system equipped with a video input capture card. Rather than male you wait another week for an answer, can you record about 2 to 5 seconds of video, ZIP or RAR the file (must be under 8MB total), and then attach it to a forum post? I need one to test with, in order to suggest the best method, both for quality and speed.

"Converting" the files is not suggested (assuming the recording has standard DVD-Video compliant resolution), as converting will lose quality. We don't want to re-encode the video, simply change the container to something DVD creation software will understand, so that you can make a new DVD.

Let me know if this can be done, or if you have any troubles with uploading a sample.