QT to wmv converter?

Hi everyone.

I will be in need of something that can convert qt to wmv for my clients. Is Flip4Mac still the go to to do this? It's been a while since I've had to deal with this.

I must have the free version since it tells me that I need to upgrade to get this feature. The problem is there are 3 different upgrades. The $19.00 version sounds reasonable enough, but in the description it says it will convert WMV to QT, not the other way around. The next version up which is 38$ says thje same thing.

Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Jonathan

I use iMedia Converter Deluxe to make many different conversions as well as customize.

Sounds like you're a bit confused over the description.
www.telestream.net/flip4mac/overview.htm
Seems obvious to me
Studio - "adds the ability to create standard definition (up to 768 X 576) WMV "
Studio Pro HD - "adds two-pass HD (up to 1920 X 1080), VBR encoding "
Last I checked it still works in Compressor but I think Apple may soon shut down Quicktime Components.

Jonathan Levin wrote: … convert qt to wmv for my clients.…

Just to feed my curiosity:
Why that historic and obsolete format? No playback without plugin on macOS, no playback on iPhones, iPads, appleTV, no playback on Android, no playback on most TV by usb-stick, no playback on <drumroll> Windows10 … very niche, hm?

h264 in a mp4 container is, imho, the most universal format …

Well, if the "client" needs it, opinions don't matter, the client's needs matter.

Flip4Mac won't run on newer macOS versions, and the replacement app Telestream touts has a very fuzzy description. Nowhere can I find it transcodes to WMV. WMV is used in lots of places, but only if you're running a Windows OS environment (there are plenty of those out there).

So my big question is; For what purpose are you needing to encode a WMV file? Rather, what are your clients doing with a WMV file? If it is not a proprietary playback system of some sort, they probably would do better with another file format (and probably need the education about that).

Telestream Switch can Play WMV. It's not a WMV encoder.

While Flip4Mac isn't officially supported on High Sierra (and maybe Sierra too) as it has several issues that can't be resolved as Quicktime Components are deprecated, it still works inside of Apple Compressor. Quicktime X doesn't use Quicktime Components so Flip4Mac doesn't encoder there as it did with Quicktime 7.

Personally I'm of the believe that when I'm hired to do a job for a client it's also my job to educate them, although the final decision is always there's. The caveats should steer them in most cases though.

Not only is H.264 .mp4 universal. Windows media player can play H.264 .mov as well.
One would have to go back to early versions of Windows XP to find a Windows Media Player that couldn't play H.264. Even the latter updates to Windows XP's Media player could as the codec was added.

It's always possible the client is faced with some very old Windows XP machines or some very old software that requires WMV embedded files but they should be clearly warned about the incompatibilities. I would also make it clear that issues to resolve that with additional encoding and/or troubleshooting will come at additional cost.

Until quite recently we had a couple of corporate clients that still insisted we deliver in .wmv. We always used the ‘Studio’ version of Flip4Mac, as we were working in 1080p and the Studio version has the greatest range of output options. But we always found that to create a .wmv movie that was decent quality was a very hit-and-miss process that needed testing each time we output a movie.

We also found it wasn’t possible to judge the quality of the .wvm movie on a MAC. We always had to test the movie file on a PC to reliably see what the result would look like.

As Karsten said .wmv is an old and obsolete format with limited playback options these days. I don't know about High Sierra but Flip4Mac Studio still works fine on our i-MACs running Sierra 10.12.6. Thankfully we've now persuaded our .wmv delivery clients to take H.264 movies and everyone is happy with that.

ISkysoft - iMedia Converter Deluxe

It's my goto app for creating WMVs and it also works very well to extract video from YouTube. And it does full 1080 WMVs. My clients almost all use H.264 now but occasionally there will be a Windows user that needs to drop a WMV file into a Power Point slideshow. They feel most comfortable using WMV since it's always worked for them.

While I'm not familiar with all the various third party Mac WMV encoders, I'll warn that in my experience they're actually WMV8 and not WMV9. Apparently it has to do with ffmpeg and/or licensing. There can be a difference in quality or may use higher bitrates than equivalent WMV9 encodes. That is (was:?) a big reason why Flip4Mac is/was significant for professional wmv client delivery.

Sorenson Squeeze may still support WMV encode and that would be good WMV9 quality as well.

Speaking of PowerPoint, that's one of the things that broke with High Sierra. Flip4Mac could no longer play WMV audio embedded in Power Point. Again this was due to changes made by Apple though.

Wow! Thank you all so much for your answers and comments.

The reason for thinking I need wmv files is that I will be sending very low res rough edits to my client for updates. My client is a university that is PC based and from what I read, they would need some sort of QT plug-in to view regular QT files. Maybe my thinking and knowledge is from 15 years ago!

If I can do this right from compressor, that would be fabulous! So my question is since h.264 mp4 seems to be universal at this point in history, I could do just that. Is there a pre-set for that in Compressor? I don't see an h.264 mp4 preset. Or if not, could you walk me trough setting something up? I just need an image area less than 640 pixels and something I can DropBox. Again, low res.

Thanks so much.

Jonathan

The Quicktime plugin on Windows not only was ended, it was deemed serious security risk and even Apple was recommending against using Quicktime on Windows.

If their computers are relatively recent even H.264 .MOV plays in recent Windows Media Players. It doesn't even have to be MP4. Older computers that have Windows XP would need a Windows (not Quicktime) codec install to play H.264 MP4 (I don't think MOV though).

Ohe should NOT using anything Quicktime on Windows. Please don't confuse Quicktime Components with MOV though. MOV is an extension (a wrapper with metadata) that doesn't necessarily require Quicktime Components (or Quicktime Player) to play.

Compressors "Prepare for HTTP Live Streaming" are actually MP4. Note that they have presets which will give you small frame sizes such as Broadband Low (and the settings below that).

FYI Generally any of the i Device settings which end in m4v can be changed to mp4 after the fact. The extensions should be interchangeable. So using the SD for Apple Devices preset may work (simply changing the extension after encode).

While some do that with mov (change to mp4) they aren't absolutely interchangeable because the moov atom in MOV may not be at the head unlike MP4 (although Apple may have changed that at some point).

BTW it's easy enough to create a custom H.264 .mp4 preset in Compressor if you want to go that route.

Thank you cseeman.

A few very dumb ? for you and the others:

I found that somewhere at sometime I created my own pre-set called "Small Approval video h.264" I ran a test. This setting converts my 1080 video to 428x240. The size is perfect and it converted 2 minute a 3GB original down to 15MB!

However the extension is .MOV. Even though it is an MOV, will this still run on some what current hardware at the university? I plan on sending a test file before doing the actual stuff for my project.

And a really stupid question probably: Should the h.264 file have a .mp4 extension???? One thing I did notice is in the video tab on that pre-sewt, there is a Quicktime settings that brings up a whole list of formats including mp4 and h.264.

So I guess I am confused: Do I choose either the h.264 OR the mp4, or does the file need to be h.264 with that mp4 extension.

I know I should know this and I suppose after this I WILL know this . Thanks again.

JL

The first screenshot is WMV in Compressor via Flip4Mac. The second is MP4 in Compressor.
Just so you can see both are possible.

MP4

These days any recent Windows computer can playback H.264 MP4 or H.264 MOV with the Windows built in player.
H.264 MOV is Windows compatible.

Thank you all for working with me and cseeman I am starting to get this.

So if I understand correctly, if I transcode to h.264 with a .MOV extension it will:

A) Play nice as is for PC world with no additional fussing.

Need to have extension changed from .MOV to .mp4, manually after transcode, and then will be OK.

OR:

Use Apple Device> SD for Apple Devices to create a .m4v file, and then manually change extension to .mp4?

If either of these will work, do you have a particular preference?

Thanks for the screen shots. I think I have the basic Flip4Mac, because I see no Windows Media preset. And from what I've learned, F4M is not supported on a machine with High Sierra, of which I have the latest version.

Thanks so much.

JL

Oh, crap. I think our replies are overlapping, but I get it. Thanks.I send my client a little test file.

OK. I located the source of my confusion.

About a year ago I had to do something similar with a client that was PC based and they want little update videos.

Someone on this forum (who I owe a great thank you to!!!) suggested that in FCP X going to the Share function and share video as an email.

I just tried that out and noticed that creates a nice compact little h.264 file, WITH the mov extension, and I believe my clients were able to open/play that!!! So like you've all been sayin', the mov extension should not matter (in this day and age). I'm proud to be part of the 21st century.

JL

So I may just try do that initially right from FCP.