How to convert WMV to MP4?

Question

How can a set of WMV files be converted to MP4 so I can import them to my Apple TV?

Solution 1

You can use FFmpeg (a free command-line tool for Mac, Linux and Windows) to encode WMV to MP4. Here is an example syntax:

ffmpeg -i input.wmv -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a aac -q:a 100 output.mp4

This will encode the video to H.264 video and AAC audio, using the default quality. To change the quality for the video, use a different CRF value, where lower means better, e.g. 20 or 18. For audio, 100% is the default quality. Increase the value for better quality.

For the AppleTV specifically, this is what Apple says it supports:

H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.0 or lower, Baseline profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 kbit/s per channel, 48 kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

So, you could use the following command to force the 30 Hz frame rate and High profile:

ffmpeg -i input.wmv -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -profile:v high -r 30 -c:a aac -q:a 100 -ar 48000 output.mp4

Solution 2

HandBrake. Multi-platform and free.

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Supported Sources:

• Most common multimedia files that libavformat and libavcodec support.

• Any DVD or Bluray-like source which is NOT copy-protected. (removal of copy protection is not supported)

Outputs:

• File format: MP4(M4V) and MKV

• Video: H.264(x264), MPEG-4(ffmpeg), MPEG-2(ffmpeg), or Theora(libtheora)

• Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC/HE-AAC (OS X Only), MP3, Flac, AC3, or Vorbis. AC-3, DTS, DTS-HD, AAC and MP3 pass-thru.

Solution 3

If you're trying to convert WMV files created by GoToMeeting (aka Go2Meeting for SEO purposes) then all of the above solutions will probably fail because the video is encoded using a citrix-specific g2m4 codec that will make transcoders choke.

I found this page that guides through transcoding from g2m to regular WMV using g2mtranscoder.exe provided by gotomeeting, which will transcode your video in place so that you can then transcode it to your format of choice using regular tools (like the other answers in this thread).

Solution 4

www.media-convert.com is a free web based service that converts all sorts of audio and video formats. No need to install any software. Ignore the adds and just select the file type from the dropdown menus.

Solution 5

Try Any Video Converter. As the name suggests, it can convert many kinds of videos.

View more solutions

Comments

[quack quixote]

this is the not-free one...

[burnt1ce]

Cool i'm downloading it now.

[Admin]

Sorry to hear. It passed the "Works on my machine" test :-(.

[burnt1ce]

Very interesting however, it doesn't output 720p+ quality video. Max resolution for mp4 is 640x480. But +1 for sure.

[iamcrypticcoder]

actually, there is a free version

[Sebastian]

Worked for me with Handbrake 0.9.4.

[grokked]

@RandolphWest What is your machine, if it worked on it?

[slhck]

Are you sure that FFmpeg doesn't do GoToMeeting codecs? It's listed in ffmpeg -codec, however with no D flag, so I don't know if it's fully supported.

[grokked]

@slhck I did try FFmpeg on its own as a first step, and while it did identify the video codec as Video: g2m (G2M4 / 0x344D3247), it resulted with error 'Unable to parse option value "-1" as pixel format'. After in-place transcoding with g2mtranscoder, I was then able to transcode normally with handbrake. I do plan on trying to get it working with FFmpeg though so I can full automate this process.

[grokked]

@burnt1ce After getting the exact same error, I was able to convert a GoToMeeting wmv using Handbrake only after first transcoding with Citrix's g2mtranscoder.exe, and then using Handbrake 0.9.8.

[roartechs]

I just tried using this solution on Fedora 19 and ran into the error: Unknown encoder 'libaac' It seems that after a certain release, ffmpeg does not include binary distibutions with libfaac support, so you would need to build from source. Instead I changed 'libfaac' to 'aac' and added the '-strict -2' flags and the conversion worked successfully.

[e-info128]

Unrecognized option 'c:v' Failed to set value 'libx264' for option 'c:v'

[Jeremy Tammik]

i had the exact same issues as roartechs and solved them using ffmpeg -i input.wmv -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a aac -strict -2 -q:a 100 output.mp4

[Dmitry]

warning, in most cases, 23 is significantly different from 20 whereas 22 is barely noticeable, and 18 is hard to spot any differences at all from original.

[Renat]

Got "No Titles found" error while attempting to convert WMV9 file, fixed by installing Windows Media Video 9 VCM from microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6191