Is there a one-step freeware program for mkv to wmv that works 100%?

[yoda313]

Ok I'm trying to convert a set of videos I got off the net that are mkv. They seem to all be xvid with ogg audio. THe ogg might be killing the conversion process. Here is what I've tried so far:

SUPER - I can get it to convert to wmv but only 10 minutes of the 23 minute video is converted. Whats up with that???

Automkv - it crashes as soon as I select the wmv container option

xvid4psp - the xbox360/ps3 mp4 option will produce a full video clip however Zune will not recognize that type of mp4. If there is a header alteration program that will correct mp4's to become zune compatible without reencoding I'd be interested in knowing about. That would save some agrrevation.

videora for xbox 360 - where the hell is the start button? I can move all the configurations around but I can't initialize a conversion. I think one time I got a WII version of that series to work but I don't think it had an mp4 output.

I own corel dvd copy 6 but it doesn't read mkv which wasn't much of a suprise.

I did look up mkvextractorgui and was able to demux the video and audio and that was what I fed into xvid4psp.

Is there a muxing program that will take xvid video and ogg audio and make a wmv?

I can do mp4 but the zune software will still reencode to wmv so I'd prefer a one or two step conversion to wmv directly. I have several videos I want to convert so simpler would be better. I can get into all the demuxing and remuxing steps without fear its just time consuming - unless some programs have decent batch encoding - that would work - set one setting and let it rip (so to speak ).

So I have been trying to do my homework here. Are net based mkv videos naturally this difficult to convert? What is so different about mkv that makes them hard to handle? Is it the ogg audio that seems to accompany them at an annoying frequency? What is wrong with using plain mp3 audio you crazy net video people????

Also I'd be tempted to look into payware if it has a near flawless mkv conversion reputation. Although I don't think I'd be willing to pay more than 40 or 50 USD.

Thanks for advice....

EDIT - I did some net searching and forgot I still had a copy of avs video converter installed. It said with the unactivated version it will leave a watermark in the middle of the video. Thats ok I just need to test it. It will be 30.00 if I decide to buy it - kind of in my price range for payware.

So far on one of the videos it took the mkv as an input. It also has a direct wmv output option. THat I like immensely. It is currently encoding. I'm at 11% or so. It should be about a half hour. That is pretty slow but I do have a seperate encode going on in dvd corel copy 6 on regular old divx videos I have that I want on the zune.

If the output is satisfactory I may consider buying it. I'll wait till tomorrow for some responses to see if there is a work around on my mkv issue. However if I can get a one step process it will be worth some money to save the time and headache I've been through already. Though as with all these video projects I've undertaken I have gained some knowledge - or at least relearned what I had forgotten from a previous session

[Midzuki]

Is there a one-step freeware program for mkv to wmv that works 100%?

One-click wonders are evil.

Vorbis audio is inherently variable samplerate, and most probably
will lead to sync issues after a direct format conversion.
I suggest: 1st) demux the audio stream into a .ogg file via ffmpeg or
Mencoder, 2nd) open the new .ogg in Winamp, and convert it to a
.WAV file with the DiskWriter plugin, 3rd) convert the intermediate
uncompressed audio to WMA with Winamp itself, and 4th) remux the
new .wma file with your favorite WM-capable application.

HTH!


%%%%%

[yoda313]

@midzuki - I don't know I've found the corel dvd copy 6 program to be quite uesful - albeit somewhat limiting but it does offer multipile encode options.

I have just finished my test sample with avs video converter 6 and it seems to work! I got a wmv out of it. I loaded it into the zune software and it recognized it. More importantly it transferred it without reencoding. And from what I can tell it seems to be in perfect synch - well this happened to be a dubbed video so sych was a little hard to estimate but the sound effects seemed to be in play without a hitch.

I don't know if somebody can offer a better solution to this I think it may be worth 30.00 to be able to efficiently convert my mkv videos to zune wmv standard format.

EDIT - well this morning I thought I'd test those smpeg4 video clips I had downloaded and asked about in another thread. I'm currently converting them to divx from the original file. I was able to do ti once with virtualdub. However this program hasn't given me any problems so far. When the conversion is done I'll be interested in final quality and whether or not its in synch.

It's not entirely fair to call this avs video converter program a one-click program. While its true it is a one step process from input to output it has a great deal of settings that can be altered and tweaked. It has profile modes of course but those settings can be manipulated.

If this program can handle the smpeg4 without prior demuxing I think i'll be sold on it. That alone would be worth the price to handle out-of-norm codecs without the hassle of demuxing and converting prior to reencoding. It also has a "to dvd" output function I haven't tested yet. My guess is that would convert to a 720x480 mpeg2 file for easy dvd authoring. I don't know if it would have ac3 conversion or direct stream copying if the original had a 5.1 track or not. But I can always add an alternate audio track in tda 2.0 so thats not a big issue if it doesn't do that.

EDIT 2 - Well it did it! It converted a smpeg4 to real xvid without a glitch. The resulting file is in synch too. It looks like I'm sold on avs video converter 6. I'm about to go to the activation page to buy it. I had double checked the original avi that I had used and it was indeed a smpep4 clip just like the others in that set I had downloaded. Now that I can do it without a problem this will make it a lot easier. I just need to find out if this program has a batch mode and then I'd be all set!