WMV to Xvid/DivX to Xvid

[pgwerner]

I know converting anything from WMV in Macintosh is difficult, but I'm looking for software that will covert high-resolution WMV to Xvid-encoded AVI (or, barring that, Xvid-encoded MP4). VLC can read at least some WMV videos, but according to the popup that comes up when I attempt transcoding, VLC is very good at transcoding and I don't think Xvid is an encoding option.

I'm also wondering about software I can use to convert DivX-encoded AVIs to Xvid-encoded ones.

Let me know,
Peter

[terryj]

Divx to Xvid: ffmpegx.
(possibly also Visual Hub, but haven't had a need to try it)

some WMV to AVI: Flip4Mac Studio.
has problems with ( naturally) WM 11, and some WM 10,
but handles WM 9 very well to AVI, hadn't had any issues.

[jpschuck]

I know converting anything from WMV in Macintosh is difficult, but I'm looking for software that will covert high-resolution WMV to Xvid-encoded AVI (or, barring that, Xvid-encoded MP4). VLC can read at least some WMV videos, but according to the popup that comes up when I attempt transcoding, VLC is very good at transcoding and I don't think Xvid is an encoding option.

XVID is MPEG-4. With VLC, just use MPEG-4 video in an .MP4 container, you'll have the same result as XVID in MP4. VLC cannot export to .avi because VLC's .avi file creator is broken since a long time.

I'm also wondering about software I can use to convert DivX-encoded AVIs to Xvid-encoded ones.

XVID and DIVX are both MPEG-4 compatible codecs. DiVX codec can read XVID encoded video, and XVID codec can read DiVX encoded videos (you don't even nedd to change the 4cc code of the video anymore). Why in the first place would you need to convert DIVX to XVID ?

[Anicsi]

I'm looking now for a converter that enables me to convert .wmv files into .avi files, but I haven't been successful yet. By reading a lot of comments and postings I got the impression that it's nearly impossible to get a freeware program for mac os X that can handle wmv files. Is that so? I would also accept a trial version, it's not much that I have to convert, so I don't need the program for long, but it's quite important. All the trial versions I had a look at just would have allowed me to convert up to 30 seconds of the file.
Really hope you are able to help me.

[jpschuck]

I'm looking now for a converter that enables me to convert .wmv files into .avi files, but I haven't been successful yet. By reading a lot of comments and postings I got the impression that it's nearly impossible to get a freeware program for mac os X that can handle wmv files. Is that so? I would also accept a trial version, it's not much that I have to convert, so I don't need the program for long, but it's quite important. All the trial versions I had a look at just would have allowed me to convert up to 30 seconds of the file.
Really hope you are able to help me.

As far as i know, the only way to do this requires the use of the Terminal : this way, you can use the most recent binary included with Mplayer in order to create a raw video file that can be re-used in ffmpegX. This is a multi step-process not very difficult, but that you should follow carefully.


A - Installing mplayer and checking if the file is playable
1/ Go to the MPlayer Headquarter and download the latest Mplayer for MacOSX (I mean the application with a GUI, not the binary for ffmpegX)
2/ Check if your file plays fine in mplayer OS X. If not, I'm affraid that there will be no solution.

B - Converting the Windows Media file to raw video and audio files
1/ Locate Mplayer for OS X
2/ Right-click (or control-click) on the application and choose "show package content"
3/ Go to Contents > Resources > External Binaries
4/ Choose the right mplayer for your platform (mplayer_intel for Intel based Macs ; mplayer_ppc for G4 or G5 : mplayer_noaltivec for G3)
5/ Right-click (or control-click) once more on the element and choose "show package content"
6/ This time, go to Contents > MacOS ; you will see the mplayer binary that we will use for the conversion.
7/ Open a terminal window and drop on it the mplayer binary that you found step 6
8/ Drop the video file you want to convert
9/ Type "-ao PCM -vo yuv4mpeg" folllowed by a space
10/ Type "-fps" followed by a space, then type the framerate number of your video (usually 23.976 , 25 or 29.97 ; mplayer is international : it doesn't matter if you use stops or commas) ; this step is not mandatory but can prevent some synchronization issues in case of variable framerate videos
11/ Your final command should look something like this

/Applications/MPlayer\ OSX\ PPC.app/Contents/Resources/External_Binaries/mplayer_intel.app/Contents/MacOS/mplayer video_to_convert.wmv -ao null -vo yuv4mpeg -fps 23.976

11/ Hit return and wait for the conversion to succeed. This will eat a lot of disk space, typically twice as much as a DV file. Conversion is pretty fast as it just involves a decompression process (no recompression)
12/ Your output files (stream.yuv and audio.wav, I think) are in your home folder. Check with mplayer if this file are OK (please note that raw .yuv files doesn't have any index so you can't jump to any part of the movie).
13/ The YUV and WAV file can now be converted each in turn, then muxed together (->tools) with ffmpegX

[Anicsi]

Thank you very much for the excellent explanation. I don't have any time to take care of that problem at the moment but I will definitely try it. Then I'm going to tell you the result (or maybe I will even need more help )

[Anicsi]

Well I tried today what you told me to do with my wmv files. Everything worked fine (I guess) but i didn't get a .wav file in step 12.

My final command (and the finished process) looks like that: (I've marked the parts i'm not sure about)

p54994025:~ Anna$ /Volumes/MPlayer/MPlayer\ OSX.app/Contents/Resources/External_Binaries/mplayer_noaltivec.app/Contents/MacOS/mplayer /Users/Anna/Desktop/fertigeProjekte/Video\ Dateien/Sarajevo4.wmv -ao PCM -vo yuv4mpeg
MPlayer dev-SVN-r25648-4.0.1 (C) 2000-2008 MPlayer Team
CPU: PowerPC

Playing /Users/Anna/Desktop/fertigeProjekte/Video Dateien/Sarajevo4.wmv.
ASF file format detected.
[asfheader] Audio stream found, -aid 1
[asfheader] Video stream found, -vid 2
VIDEO: [WMV3] 640x480 24bpp 1000.000 fps 1900.0 kbps (231.9 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
name: Sarajevo1
author:
copyright:
comments:
Using (default) progressive frame mode.============================================= =============================
Requested video codec family [wmv9dmo] (vfm=dmo) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Requested video codec family [wmvdmo] (vfm=dmo) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
[wmv3 @ 0xa04e30]Extra data: 8 bits left, value: 0
Selected video codec: [ffwmv3] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg WMV3/WMV9)
================================================== ========================
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16be, 160.0 kbit/11.34% (ratio: 20005->176400)
Selected audio codec: [ffwmav2] afm: ffmpeg (DivX audio v2 (FFmpeg))
================================================== ========================
Could not open/initialize audio device -> no sound.
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 640 x 480 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [yuv4mpeg] 640x480 => 640x480 Planar YV12
V: 204.5 5075/5075 56% 14% 0.0% 0 0

Exiting... (End of file)
p54994025:~ Anna$

1. in step 9, do i have to fill something in for: PCM?
2. you said step 11 was additional, i would have typed it, but where can I look up the framerate number?

Thank you very much for helping me out once again

[jpschuck]

1. No. PCM should automatically sets the output to the mathcing values (bits, sampling rate and channels). The audio stream seem to be not recognized. Does the movie clip play fine in Mplayer ?

2. You can check the framerate in Quicktime Player if you have installed the flip4mac WMV components.

[Anicsi]

1. Yeah, I don't have any problems at all with mplayer... That's really weird Well I think I will try another video, just to be sure...

2. ah thanks

[jpschuck]

1. Yeah, I don't have any problems at all with mplayer... That's really weird Well I think I will try another video, just to be sure...

I don't know what's going wrong then.

YOu can stil try to do a separate audio conversion (after a succesful video conversion) by simplifying your command line to :

/Applications/MPlayer\ OSX\ PPC.app/Contents/Resources/External_Binaries/mplayer_intel.app/Contents/MacOS/mplayer video_to_convert.wmv -ao PCM

[dark_ninja3088]

I stumbled upon this by accident. use RAD Video Tools by Bink and Smacker. It is pretty straight forward. Load your file and then press convert, push ok and choose from a list of codecs, push convert. Simple!

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

NOTE: Be careful that you don't say no compression because it can easily turn a 10 mb file into a 2GB one. It happened to me

[jpschuck]

I stumbled upon this by accident. use RAD Video Tools by Bink and Smacker. It is pretty straight forward. Load your file and then press convert, push ok and choose from a list of codecs, push convert. Simple!

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

NOTE: Be careful that you don't say no compression because it can easily turn a 10 mb file into a 2GB one. It happened to me

RAD video tools are Windows only.