unwrap .asf to ?? (.mov, .avi, .whatever)

[toomanyhandles]

Hi all;

I have a CD with some scientific conference videos that are .asf.

I'd like to distribute these to students and whomever but I don't with to fight with the "I can't play them" thing from Windows and Mac users both.

Opening them in a web browser should work, but I'd like to extract them to a .mov or .avi or .mwv or whatever direct format so that people know what to do with them.

thoughts welcome---

thanks!

[mvallevand]

Avoiding the problems sounds simple but it is not especially if you want to be Mac and Windows point and click. As you said ASF is a container you will likely have to transcode (not extract) this to a common format remembering

- The file will probably be WMV and Macs won't play these without installing other software.
- MPEG2 playback is not generally available to most Windows users or Mac Users
- Same for .mov or qt files, a lot of windows don't install Quicktime.
- divx/xvid will be a problem for everybody.

You're probably best distributing the ASF with a link to
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproduc...ndowsmedia

for Mac.

Martin

[bgowland]

thoughts welcome---

Download ASF Viewer from...

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows...iewer.aspx

Open one of the files then examine the Stream Properties objects under the Header object. Normally there'll be one audio and one video stream (not necessarilly though).

Look at the Bitmap Info Header (see screenshot) the Compression field will show you the content (after TEXT : ). In the screen shot it's WMV3 (Windows Media v9). WMV2 is Windows Media v8. If it shows DVR then it's dvr-ms so basically mpeg2 on the video side of things.

If you know what you're starting with it might help to know what tool to use to convert it.

As mvallevand pointed out though - a common format may be tricky. Not everyone has the same apps and/or codecs installed on their machines whether or not they're PC or MAC users.

Cheers,
Brian

( I spent 19 years working in IT in Education - boy am I glad to be out of that )