Creating WMV's with Ffmpeg

[JonE]

What is the situation regarding this conversion ?

For example, with Ffmpeg r23607,

ffmpeg -i Paddy4.flv -vcodec wmv2 delme.wmv

Goes through the motions of creating a wmv file, but the file is not playable in WMP (using MediaFoundation no doubt) or using DirectShow ... though VLC can!. I can play all sorts of wmv files from other formats no problem so its unlikely to be a playback "codec" issue.

However, repeating this but with ye olde r7260 of ffmpeg produces WMV files that do work correctly.

Is WMV support one of the ffmpeg compile options ? Only r23607 doesn't indicate that there is a problem.

TTFN,
jon

PS : Adding additional options to e.g. spec bit rates, audio format and such like do not alter the situation that r7260 creates valid files and 23607 appears not to.

Additional : For DirectShow :-

Versions 7260 and 7760 seem to produce working WMV's.
Versions 9976, 13712, 14277, 15394, 15815, 16596, 18192, 20432 and 23607 do not.

Fow Windoze Media Player (Vista, so assume this is MediaFoundation):-
Versions up to 16596 work.
Versions 18192 onwards do not

[Ghitulescu]

WMV is a proprietary format. Why not rely on open standards, like MKV?

[JonE]

The question is about WMV.

TTFN,
Jon

PS : I hate the stoopid format, but I have no say in what other systems require.

[Ghitulescu]

Change the system then ;) because this is how you can have something to "say".... besides VLC and WMP can play other formats as well ...

[Midzuki]

@ Ghitulescu:

so you have forgotten the difference between codecs and containers ? :p

@ JonE:

why not simply choose and use a build "that works" ? :confused:

FWIW, I have tested the command-line above on r24623 and r21448, and both produced "watchable" outputs.

[JonE]

Basically, the versions I've listed are the ones that I've happened across that have Windows versions available which I saved as and when I came across them over the past few years.( I got version 23607 only a few days ago and already 24623 is out !?!?).

Anyhow, my tests were suggesting that wmv worked only in early versions and I'm simply questioning if this is the truth or whether it is purely coincidence that the later versions I had all had wmv "compiled out" - and if wmv is indeed compiled out why do they still go through the process of creating them with no errors reported ?

This leaves the question of how do I know when a version supports creating wmv's if I can't rely on parsing the list generated by "ffmpeg -codecs" or "ffmpeg -formats" (yet another version-variable thing - sigh) and I'm writing code that may need to work with ffmpeg versions to which I have no access ?

TTFN,
Jon

[nm]

Anyhow, my tests were suggesting that wmv worked only in early versions and I'm simply questioning if this is the truth or whether it is purely coincidence that the later versions I had all had wmv "compiled out" - and if wmv is indeed compiled out why do they still go through the process of creating them with no errors reported ?

WMV2 encoding support is LGPLed so it should be compiled in. Ffmpeg would have thrown an error if you were using a codec that is not available.

Could you post a sample clip (source and your failing wmv2 encode)?

[benwaggoner]

What's your goal here?

Expression Encoder 4 is free and certainly has a higher quality VC-1 encoder than ffmpeg's.

[stax76]

Is there a command line application that can encode high quality VC-1?

[Midzuki]

Yes, I still am not aware of any CLI vc-1 encoder that:

1) will NEVER drop frames, no matter how much the end-user might complain about the missing "feature" :)

2) is as fast as x264 :D