I had a .wmv Windows Movie File that I wanted to convert to the .mp4 so that a Java platform would play it with ease. I have a bunch of video tools on my computer, so I decided to check them out first.
VLC Media player looked like it could do the job. Using it was one of the most frustrating exercises that I have ever undertaken and it burned most of the day.
It looks easy enough. You choose the Convert/Save menu item. Then you open the file, put in the destination file, and choose what codecs you have. That was the issue. I chose the first one (some sort of video + MP3) and nothing happened. No error message. Nada.
I then clicked on that menu item and tried every single damn codec listed. In some cases I got the audio but no video. For most of the times, I clicked OK and nothing happened.
I finally got a movie out of one of the codecs, but it was incredibly poor quality with huge pixelation. Another one gave me a good quality, but it consistently put in a bunch of junk (huge color blocks, pixels and bits of screen detritus) at the start. I knew something was wrong, because in each effort, I never got a thumbnail of a still from the movie.
In frustration, I did a Google search for online .wmv to .mp4 converter. The first one that popped up was www.online-convert.com. I went to the site, selected my video and within a minute it was ready to download the .mp4. The conversion was fast, and the result was spectacular. There was a thumbnail of the very first frame.
These guys should have their blood preserved for posterity. Thanks guys. (as usual, I was not paid to say this, nor did I receive any consideration at all).
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