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herbsman · Mar 8, 2004, 11:25 AM

i know this topic has been asked a bunch of times. the question is does anyone know if there are any projects/apps coming out in the future which will somehow convert wmv into better open formats? or maybe something is already out which does this. last time i asked was last quarter of 2003

herbsman · Mar 8, 2004, 11:28 AM

forgot to mention...i remember reading some random messageboard a few months ago where a poster made a statement that the windows version of adobe premier does import wmv files and can export it to another format. i dont own premier for os x, but can anyone clarify if this really works? im a bit skeptical about the whole win/premier wmv conversion but maybe its true, i dont know, i hate windows and i dont own a pc.

memento · Mar 8, 2004, 03:05 PM

The only solution for now is ffmpeg or mencoder - as long as they can read the wmv file. I have namy mpv files that they cannot and I am stuck. But remember, when you convert, you lose quality.

Moonray · Mar 8, 2004, 03:20 PM

Such a conversion will decrease the quality of the material unless you are willing to accept a way larger filesize of the converted file compared to the original.

VLC and MPlayer will play .wmv reasonably well.

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herbsman · Mar 8, 2004, 07:47 PM

i'm making a compliation video with dvd studio pro and i need to get some of the wmv footage on it, so i'm willing to lose quality. thanks for the input

MountainMac · Mar 8, 2004, 09:52 PM

I seem to post this rather often when this topic comes up, but if degraded quality isn't an issue, why not use Snapz?

MM

Uncle Skeleton · Mar 8, 2004, 10:18 PM

screen capture is usually the last resort for video. For one, you get tearing, dropped frames, and sometimes sync problems. Also it's hard to get the capture area to line up exactly (you don't want to add static borders to your movie because it ruins most modern compression algorithms and you don't want to lose part of your image either). If you can find a way to convert the movie data instead of recapture from the screen you won't have any of these problems. Also, Snapz costs money :)

herbsman · Mar 8, 2004, 11:51 PM

well i tried out snapz and it's pretty damn good. my friend purchased screenrecord (or screen capture, forgot the name of the app) and it wasnt that great, so i was skeptical on the whole screencap method of converting. im glad i tried snapz because the quality is surprisingly good. THANKS

nforcer · Mar 9, 2004, 12:52 AM

Originally posted by MountainMac:
I seem to post this rather often when this topic comes up, but if degraded quality isn't an issue, why not use Snapz?

Snapz with movie capture is still not fast enough to capture most movies I play on my comp (iMac G4/700). If it's larger than about 320*240 and needs more than about 20 FPS and audio, it's not fast enough. Therefore, some kind of converter solution would be needed. Yes VLC and mPlayer can play most types of video formats, but having a format like mpg or mov for all of my movies would be ideal, since Quicktime is much nicer and faster playing those formats.

MountainMac · Mar 9, 2004, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by nforcer:
Snapz with movie capture is still not fast enough to capture most movies I play on my comp (iMac G4/700). If it's larger than about 320*240 and needs more than about 20 FPS and audio, it's not fast enough. Therefore, some kind of converter solution would be needed. Yes VLC and mPlayer can play most types of video formats, but having a format like mpg or mov for all of my movies would be ideal, since Quicktime is much nicer and faster playing those formats.

Makes sense. I don't do a lot of screen capture so I don't run into these problems very often. Good to know though--thanks.

MM