Best app from converting to WMV

jesus_thats_gre

Sup lads,

What is the best "free" application for converting from any video format to Windows Media Video? I would prefer not to have to be fooking around with resolutions and border. Just something that takes the original file and re-encodes an exact replica of it..

Hope one exisits.

Cheers

8T8

Free well probably Windows Movie Maker but if your after anything more advanced not really most video encoding apps avoid WMV and the fact the Microsoft has Windows Movie maker which is too basic and Windows Studio Encoder which is far too advanced doesnt help.

There are a lot of WMV encoder UI's for sale these don't actually do the encoding they are just alternate UI to the built in encoder in Windows.

If you want to know everything there is about WMM check out this site also has profiles for various projects.

{Is this Xbox 360 related?}

{You might want to try Super as well seeing as it's free but has a horrible UI, there is also WME Assistant which is fairly new & supports WMV9/VC-1 encoding but is a commercial UI}

Capt'n Midnight

sorry, just have to ask - why WMV ?

I'm not a fan of formats that can be locked and where you might have to sign up to play them, and have security implications - WMV is not a trusted file type.

8T8

What do you mean you cant apply DRM to WMV anyway (only MS can just like Apple can do it to MPEG-4 in it's mov container) and there are no security implications from using it.

It's not an ideal format but is it portable to any PC running Windows.

Anti

You can actually lock it yourself, There are some freeware programs that do this. And what he means by signing ( security implications ) up is That you have to go to a certain site and register, Which usually leads to having a **** load of spyware and virii installed on your Pc.

I wont download anything in WMV anymore, and havent for a while.

8T8

News to me certainly cant be official if that's the case and still isn't exactly a compelling argument against WMV if you need to use it

Don't get me wrong I'm not a fan of the format either (on technical grounds) I strictly use MPEG-4 ASP & AVC for all my encodings but avoiding WMV on principle I don't see why personally, you can re-encode WMV into any other format if need be.

(Though I do confess VC-1 has sparked an interest in me but the encoding tools are for pro's only and the encoding time is horrendous, hopefully someone will someday make an open source VC-1 de/encoder}

Anti

Their far from official

I've tried one which was floating around. Load of crap imho. MPEG-4 is by far the best common one available. And is hugely supported.

8T8

Hugely supported but heavily fragmented no universal standard.

XviD, 3viX, Nero Digital ASP, DivX are all variations of the MPEG-4 ASP specification supporting different bits not to mention hardware profiles for different devices like set top box players, you have to install a software decoder in order to play anything on a PC.

For example at the moment only Apple's QuickTime platform supports streaming H.264 content over the web whereas other H.264 implementations do not it gets very messy when you get down to it.

The one thing going for WMV is that you can hand the clip to anyone running windows (which accounts for the vast bulk of all PC's) and it will play it in WMP even the older versions by auto downloading the newer codec.

But the poor support ( & encoding tools in WinXP) for WMV on OSX/Linux has meant that flash is now taking the web as the dominant video format, MPEG-4 and WMV are the losers.

If the OP query into WMV was Xbox 360 related then WMV is the only option, MPEG-4 support is unlikely to happen due to piracy reasons all those BT XviD TV shows in AVI files, though ironically Sony could force Microsoft's hand as they will be supporting ASP & AVC in the PS3.

jesus_thats_gre

Tis 360 related alright!! Cheers lads.

8T8

If the free solutions are too awkward/clunky to use one of the simplest commercial software is WinAVI converter, all you do is point it at a file and it converts to WMV.

The default settings are set to keep the original file size and frame rate so very little input is needed on your end, the only thing you would want to change as by default it uses the WMV8 encoder change it to WMV9 encoder.

You can also alter the aspect ratio and other stuff in the advanced menu.

Having used the free tools the WinAVI is a cinch might be worth buying, though they don't support WMV9 AP (Advanced Profile) which would retain more detail in the encodes.

jesus_thats_gre

Cool man, appreciate that help.