Converting wmv to avi/Divx...

[Termulator]

What is the best program for converting wmv to avi/divx? and is it possible to convert an wmv to an avi and keep the avi the same size as the wmv and relativly close to the same quality? Im also looking for a program that can do all this as fast as possible.

[NeoKnight]

http://www.imtoo.com/ you can drag and drop the video into the UI window. and then click the movie and set your options on the right hand side. Usually I just choose the same quality video option and thats it.

[raw15]

tmpgenc is by far the best encoder ever, no quality difference on slow setting, just output to AVI rather than mpeg. takes about 10 hours on a 1.5ghz processor for a 2hour movie in dvd quality

[siderum]

CCE (cinema craft encoder) is the best.... always was.

[BigMichiel]

I agree. CCE is by far better than TmpgEnc. But, TmpgEnc is way cheaper and easyer to handle than CCE I work at the moment with CCE, but I have worked (and I still do sometimes) with TmpgEnc.

But you can always try the official converter of divx.com It's very fast. But I don't know if it supports wmv.

[wulfgar1966]

what about the wonderful little app called 'alltoavi'?

[bandor]

Type "Super freeware" in a Google search. It's the first hit. Super is free, comes with everything you need and works wonderfully! You can examine the video and audio bitrate of the source right from within the interface, twek the output video settings the way you like and generate the video with a few clicks. I am a complete doofus when it comes to transcoding video, but this program makes it easy.

I was on the same search as you a week ago... I've used Super to convert several .wmv podcasts to DivX and they work great with SMS.

[vicx]

I tried Super freeware but the result is a bad quality video a third of the size of original, even with settings on high.

IMTOO didn't work with large files so that was useless, and you need to register.

CCE basic won't recognise most files and I'm not about to pay $50usd for it.

TmpgEnc can only output VCDs in MPG, how do I get it to make Divx AVIs?

ALLTOAVI has heaps of bugs and it can't encode anything above low/medium quality, something about not enough memory, but everything else works! A64 3700, 2gb ram, 6800XT 256mb pci-e, I'm sure that can handle it.

so is there ANYthing that can encode a file to identical quality?

[dlanor]

so is there ANYthing that can encode a file to identical quality?

Yes, but it's rather complex, and you must expect to invest some time learning to use the tools efficiently.

The best free AVI reencoding software ever is of course VirtualDub, but it does have that limitation of working only with AVI files.

Fortunately there is another and equally smart program for getting around that limitation, and this program is named AVISynth. It has the capability of making any video that can be played through 'DirectShow' appear to other programs as if they were normal streams of unpacked AVI data (uncompressed video with PCM sound), and it also allows advanced filtering of those data streams, independently of any filtering applied by other programs it's used with.

All of this is controlled by AVISynth scripts, and such ".AVS" files may then be used almost as if they were normal AVI files. When used with a good set of CODECs and directshow filters (eg: ffdshow) this adds compatibility to nearly any type of video file in existence.

For example, if you have written an AVS file that refers to a WMV file, then dropping that AVS file onto almost any program that normally handles AVIs will cause the program to process the WMV contents, but without knowing it as such, since it is being filtered by AVISynth which delivers those contents as if they came from an AVI.

This means that you can then use VirtualDub to process that AVS, and reencode it to a proper AVI such as SMS can use. I've done this myself with videos of many different types, so as to replace incompatible 'containers' with normal AVIs.

Btw:
Using an AVS script to reencode a video has also proven highly successful in reencoding badly synced VBR sound into perfectly stable CBR. Even if the original file is an AVI this method is worth using, as it often succeeeds better than reencoding the same AVI directly in VirtualDub (probably because DirectShow playback rendition is different from raw codec unpacking).

Best regards: dlanor

[bandor]

Vicx --

Super provides identical quality to the original if you match the bit rates for video and audio quality of the source when setting the parameters.

For instance, after I drag and drop a .wmv file onto the interface, I would double click the file to see it's original bit rates. If the bit rate was, say, 1188 for video and 96 @ 44000khz for audio I would match those numbers as close as possible in the interface. That provides a resultant output video with the same quality as the original. If you just throw a video in there and click "Encode" it probably will look crappy with the default settings.

Best of luck, whichever product you use!