Software for Converting AVI to WMV

[Altoidman]

As the title says, looking for a good piece of software that can convert AVI to WMV. I can find one that can do it. I just want your input as to what is considered the best. Thanks

 

[Childs]

What about Windows Media Encoder?

 

[Continuity27]

First of all, .AVI is a container, NOT a video type. AVI could be anything from Windows Media Video, to Divx, DV, XVid, Canopus, etc.

WMV can only be windows media video, and usually comes tagged along with protection schemes.

Tell me what you need this for. I will tell you first though, if you prefer the look of Windows Media video, you can easily just have that as the video source in an avi file.

I can't think of a reason you'd actually NEED a file to be .wmv over .avi, unless of course you're confusing codecs from containers.

If you have a DV/miniDV AVI (or whatever you have) I can tell you how to encode that into windows media format, but that doesn't necessarily have to be .WMV, it could still be .AVI.

 

[Altoidman]

Well, I'm actually looking into this for a friend. He has some DVDs he is trying to rip into WMV format but he is on a Mac. On his Mac he can get them to AVI but he wants them in WMV format. That is all I know.

 

[Continuity27]

Unless I'm mistaken, you can only create true Windows Media files using Windows Media Encoder. That's limited to Windows obviously.

There is a codec called Windows Media Video 9 VCM, and FFDSHOW will do this too, but they only encode the video portion. As far as I know, there is no option besides Windows Media Encoder to encode every part you need to .WMV.

That's why I said you can make a WMV AVI, WMV video, with normal MP3 (or whatever you want) audio. This is free and doable on Macs, I don't think there is another option.

Which goes back to my question, why would he want WMV video instead of other codecs like XVID?

 

[gsellis]

Actually, editors can also include WMV as an output. They will implement part of the encoder in their build.

The issue with Macs is that there in no WMP for Mac and support for the codec is limited to a few third party players that work on Macs.

Just as a consideration, he may want to get QT7 Pro. I think it allows authoring with the newer codec and does full screen with Pro IIRC.

 

[yukichigai]

WinAVI is capable of converting to WMV, as are a number of other programs including Adobe Premier. (bit expensive though) The best bet is still Windows Media Encoder or Windows Movie Maker, which comes with every version of XP. (Even x64 now, huzzah!)

Continuity27: Converting to WMV is desireable because it is supported by XP out of the box, and most other versions of Windows if it's been updated. This means that there's much less time spent searching for codecs and much less frustration trying to get the file to play.